While this volume is presented as a graphic novel called 'The Inheritance', it's really a collection of five issues of a comic book called 'Herobear and the Kid', which won writer and illustrator Mike Kunkel a pair of Eisner Awards in 2003 and 2003. The book version was published in 2003 and was followed by another volume, collected as 'Herobear and the Kid: Saving Time'.

It's a joyous read, because of the nature of its story, a look back at what it means to be a child, with the openness and potential that carried with it. While it's a set of comic books rather than a comic strip, it can't fail to be compared to 'Calvin and Hobbes', not only because it recounts the adventures of a young boy and his larger talking animal companion.

In this instance, the boy is named Tyler and we meet him at his grandfather's funeral. Grandpa was rich and left Tyler's family his large house, complete with infuriatingly correct butler named Henry. So that becomes their home, in a new town, meaning a new school and new friends and all that jazz, but there's also a more personal inheritance left on Tyler's bed for him: a stuffed bear and a broken pocket watch. Tyler isn't disappointed because he doesn't really understand what inheritances mean yet, but he does light up when he finds out what these things actually mean.

He later discovers the stuffed bear was created by his grandpa, who had secrets that I won't reveal. The secret behind the bear is that when Tyler—and only Tyler—bumps his nose he transforms into a ten-foot-tall polar bear called Herobear, adding colour to proceedings in the process. Everything else is drawn in black and white, rough but impeccable pencil drawings with a simplicity of line and pristine economy of movement—it's no surprise at all to find that Kunkel is also an animator—but Herobear's cape is red. If you care about the broken pocket watch, it's a signifier that adventure is afoot and, when it beeps, it's a call to action for Herobear and the Kid.

It would be easy to see this book as a superhero comic, with Herobear an anthropomorphic combination of Superman and Batman, with the powers of the former and home life of the latter. However, it's also a coming-of-age story, with Tyler having to deal with life at a new school. It's all archetypical, from missing the bus because he's lost in his own imagination to the usual suspects that he meets: the bullies who've got him in their sights to the beautiful young lady he immediately falls in love with, at least what love is to a boy of very few years. It's a serious crush.

I can't tell much more than that without delving into grandpa's secrets and I refuse to go there, so I will merely say that, even though this begins with the sadness of a family funeral, it's a blissful affirmation of a book. Kunkel appears to do very little, both with his art, because he doesn't draw a lot of lines, and his stories, even though he use more words, but his magic is in drawing exactly the right lines and using exactly the right words. The art is effortlessly dynamic and the words resonate. The result is very much what it means to be alive and it can't fail to rub off on us. I wasn't having a particularly bad day when I read this but, if I was, this would have served as a perfect pick me up. Even though I was already happy, I'm a little happier for having read it.

The catch to this simplicity, of course, is that there isn't a heck of a lot of room for character, so most of the characters are broadly drawn, whether we're talking art or language. As with so many comic strips that recount the wonders of childhood, mum and dad are usually off screen; Henry does his best Alfred impersonation whenever needed; and little sister Katie is endearingly annoying. At school, the bullies and the crush are the bullies and the crush, with the best friend a lovable chunk of a chocolate fiend. It isn't unfair to say that they're all in the story to be props for Tyler, who's easily the one character firmly defined, even though he's there to be all of us.

Looking back, I have to come back to that secret, even though I'm still not going to tell you what it is. It's just that I wonder why I didn't see it in advance. The clues were all there, but I laughed just as Tyler did when he found out, only to realise that those explaining the secret to him weren't joking. Initially, I was a little disappointed that Kunkel went there, feeling that he'd cheapened his own story, but as it ran on, I realised that it was exactly right because of how he set the tone. It's entirely appropriate for him to go there and the book would have been less had he not done.

All of which cryptic analysis should end with a hearty recommendation. This isn't the long and in depth read that its size and weight suggest, because those five comic book issues wrap up relatively quickly, giving way to a massively illustrated explanation of Kunkel's inspirations and work process, how he put these issues together, from initial sketches to finished product. Almost a thousand words into a review and I'm still grinning like a madman, just because this lifted my spirits so much, even if I didn't need the boost today. Maybe on my next down day, I'll pick this back up and see if its magic still works now that I know the secret. I have a feeling that it might. ~~ Hal C F Astell