Detective Beans: Adventures in Cat Town by Li Chen

Energetic kitten, Beans, is determined to solve crimes through applying the basic principles of detecting. The crime scene is secured, evidence collected and written up in case notes, suspects interviewed, inevitably leading to the case being solved. Keen to share detecting skills Beans opens a detective school and publishes “the Daily Detective” news sheet. He also uses his maths book for drawing ideas and comics as the single-minded kitten is not keen on the subject. That is until best friend, Biscuits, points out that detectives get paid and he can charge clients by multiplying his hourly rate by the time spent.

The glossy, brightly coloured panels and cute kitten characters in short, often pointless, cases are for quick, fun consumption as Beans creates cases and solves them. There are lightweight visual gags, often spilling out onto the page margins, with little dialogue. The short stories include “Beans and the King Chip” where a pigeon steals his biggest chip, here the subtly coloured cartoon pigeons are delightful. Most of the characters are fun, consistent and attractive, though the strange ice cream man Mr Brickle is a bit scary even before he is disguised as a polar bear, and the scary Mum in “Beans and the Sleepover” might need some adult explanation. In “Beans and the Lost Bag” there are some slightly off messages if translated into real life and, given some children’s literal interpretations about lost property and strangers, could need adult explanation. It is disappointing to see best friend Biscuits depicted as the brainy female wearing glasses taking a passive role compared to the feisty Beans but overall the 33 comics make entertaining reading, especially for those with a short attention span like the protagonist. This is the second book in the extremely popular Detective Beans series and more comics can be found on Li Chen’s Instagram, Exocomics. 

Themes: Graphic novel, Adventure comics, Detecting, Humour.

Sue Speck