The Drained Brains Caper

Raf knows Megan is trouble from the moment she steps into his mom's pet food store asking for a tarantula. But there's one thing you can count on in Chicagoland: weird things happen several times a day. Megan is a vegetarian, manga-reading haiku writer. She definitely doesn't fit in at Stepford Academy, her new summer school. The other students are happy to be in class. Too happy. And everyone looks and acts exactly alike. That's weird. Megan is determined to dig into Stepford's secrets, but soon she's in way too deep. Raf may be the only human being she knows who can help. But with zombified students, very mad scientists, and the school psychiatrist on their trail, they're going to need a whole lot more help. We did say that Chicagoland is weird...

Children's Literature

Megan is a haiku-spouting, manga-loving vegetarian who doesn't fit in at her new and very strange school, Stepford Academy. Raf Hernandez is a computer-programming pet store owner with a soft heart. When Megan comes into Raf's store and tells him about the strange behavior of the kids at her school, the duo decide to investigate. They discover that the evil Dr. Vorschak, who is also both the principal of Megan's school and, hilariously, the very crabby lunch lady, has masterminded an evil plot to transform teens into model citizens using a combination of minor prefrontal brain surgery and sheep genes mixed into the school lunches. Megan and Raf manage to fight off Dr. Vorschak and set free a dog named Bradley who has been the unlucky victim of Dr. Vorschak's medical experimentation. With Bradley's help, Raf and Megan fend off a mob of Stepford Academy students bent on making the two behave better. In the end, Megan, Raf and Bradley form a detective agency devoted to fighting injustice in their city. This is the first installment in a new series of graphic novels featuring these three characters. The humor is just right for upper elementary school kids, and some of the more tongue-in-cheek references, such as naming the school Stepford Academy and many allusions to old detective movies, will appeal to adults, as well. The characters are well developed and very funny; Megan is especially appealing when she creates haikus for every crazy situation in which she finds herself. Recommended for readers ages 8 to 12. Reviewer: Lauri Berkenkamp

Writer and feminist herstorian Trina Robbins has been writing books, comics, and graphic novels for over 30 years. Her most recent books are The Brinkley Girls (Fantagraphics) and Forbidden City: the Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs (Hampton Press). Her newest graphic novel is the three-part YA series Chicagoland Detective Agency for Graphic Universe™.

Tyler Page lives in Minneapolis with his wife Cori Doerrfeld (who is also an artist) and their daughter. He was nominated for an Eisner Award in 2003 and received a Xeric Foundation grant in 2007 to publish the first volume of Nothing Better. To date he has created and published 6 books of his own in addition to doing comics and illustration work for a variety of commercial clients. When he's not drawing he serves as the Director of Print Technology Services at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design.