Be prepared to blast off this debut is truly out of this world.” - Kirkus, Starred Review Hatke takes a page from epic adventures like Jeff Smith's Bone and Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet and throws in a dash of intergalactic zest for a winning combination, sure to captivate young graphic-novel aficionados. The giant speechless Mouse, who communicates via ticker tape, is especially ingenious. Hatke's skill shines: His characters are richly imagined and portrayed, from the loyal, bumbling Strong-Strong (resembling a cross between a golem and an Uglydoll) to the menacing Screeds, an arachnid-like mechanized device that serves an evil purpose. Impetuously, she accidentally activates the device, and before they can say 'lift off,' the duo ends up on an ill-fated planet, with Joseph about to be sacrificed by an alien doomsday cult and Zita determined to save him. Confident Zita finds a strange device in a meteor crater while playing with her more timorous best friend, Joseph. “A headstrong young girl makes a hasty decision and finds herself in a galaxy far, far away in this graphic-novel shining star. It's fun, plenty funny, and more than a little random. Fortunately, Hatke's got them, and he doles out an increasingly loony and charming array of aliens, robots, and unclassifiable blobs and hairy things for Zita (herself a cross between Ramona Quimby and a Matt Phelan waif) to encounter. Any story in which one can escape prison with a tube of 'doorpaste' (just like toothpaste, except that it makes magic doors appear when smeared on a wall) obviously puts more stock in wowing imaginations than satisfying logic, and it needs solid cartooning chops to back it up. She makes some allies, takes off after him, and zany mishaps and dashing adventures ensue. Zita follows and lands on a delightfully bizarre alien planet, where she sees Joseph being captured by a tentacled, scuba-headed creature. Of course, no one could resist pushing a mystery button, which pops open an interdimensional portal that whisks Joseph away. “For no reason at all, a little red button crashes to earth while Zita and her pal Joseph are out cavorting around.

Zita the spacegirl