Review by Ian Keogh

As a young child, Penny fell into the local lake. She’s never told anyone before, but now confides in her best friend Luc that she was saved by local legend the Bawk-ness Monster, half fish and half chicken. At the time she never thanked the creature, and feels she now needs to. Joined by another friend, Kaylee or K, Penny’s mother is persuaded to take them on a camping trip near the lake, but how does one set about finding a creature most believe to be a myth? Well, K has some ideas about that, but first the kids have to avoid the protective eye of Penny’s mother.

Sara Goetter and Natalie Riess aren’t the traditional writer and artist team. It’s explained at the end how they co-plot and breakdown the pages before Reiss draws the characters. Once that’s done Goetter adds the backgrounds and colour.

Together they deliver quite the adventure plot, frequently twisting away from expectation. Finding the Bawk-ness Monster would be almost the entire plot for many other writers, building toward an appearance at the end, but that’s not the approach. We see it relatively early, yet it’s only the beginning of another plot. The title comes from K’s enthusiasm for cryptozoology, and the ridiculous idea of a creature merging most of a chicken with fish properties is an indication of a winning imaginative streak.

Given the task of bringing an impossible creature to life results in a cheerfully goofy creation, and there are further impossibilities to create. The children are energetic bundles, usually always in motion and drawn dramatically when explaining something, especially K. There’s a Disney-esque irritation to the chief villain, and a nice touch is recognising that children of the same age aren’t all the same height and body weight.

As far as the children are concerned, it’s recognised they each have different skills. Luc’s the most scared by the situation they find themselves in, yet he’s resourceful in other ways, and it’s pleasing that the circumstances of the younger Penny falling into the lake aren’t trivialised. They feature from both her point of view and that of her mother’s fears and guilt. However, most of The Bawk-ness Monster is comedy adventure, and that’s comprehensively and joyously supplied, with many silly moments.

There are several points at which this almost ends, but Goetter and Riess find a way to keep going with funny surprises. It makes Cryptid Kids one of those series children will love, but adults who still read to their children will have a lot of fun along the way as well. A second outing follows in Moby Duck.