Review by Ian Keogh

Ducuboo has been excellently drawn by Zidrou from the start, and when on form Godi can deliver some really unexpected and clever jokes. However, Godi can also be predictable and deliver strips that don’t really work as well as they might. It’s pleasing therefore that Loveable Dunce opens with a really strong run, the sample strip among them.

All good comedy has a contradiction at its heart, and in Ducoboo it’s of an otherwise considerably practical and adaptable kid unable to cope with the basics of academic learning. It’s exploited well in the ingenuity employed in Ducoboo’s assorted schemes to copy class answers from smart kid Leonie. To that Godi adds absurdity. Ducoboo talking to the class skeleton hanging in the corner has been a growing feature, the skeleton increasingly seen with him outside school, and here we’re introduced to Skelly’s relations.

The nature of the strip means Zidrou is limited by having to draw variations of the same scene over and over again, and the finesse applied to jokes set outside the classroom is noticeable. There seem to be more of them in Loveable Dunce, and Zidrou packs these pages with extra activity. Note the autumn leaves blowing around as the kids start a new school year in the sample strip. A two-pager with Santa Claus and an alternate version for less well behaved kids is glorious, and notable for no actual sighting of Ducoboo himself.

Most Ducoboo albums to date have ended with a sequence set during the summer holidays, and these have lacked the zest of Godi at his best. It’s good to report, then, that the holiday strips ending Loveable Dunce are the finest to date, almost all of them funny.

Loveable Dunce saw English publication in 2016, and while the French language series now numbers 29 volumes, no further collections have been translated into English, indicating the series doesn’t sell for Cinebook. It’s puzzling, as while Ducoboo can be hit and miss, although this is the best volume to date, the quality is always there.