Advance Preview – You’ll Fall In Love With Dan White’s ‘Cindy And Biscuit Vol 1: We Love Trouble’

Dan White’s brilliant Cindy And Biscuit makes it to the USA as Oni Press set to publish We Love Trouble in August 2023…

Seriously, it’s as good as the guy quoted on the cover says it is!

Because, dear reader, guy quoted on the cover is me, from years ago when Dan put out We Love Trouble as a black and white comic collection here in Britain. That was from the old, sadly not there anymore Forbidden Planet International Blog. I meant it back then, I still mean it today.

Now though, after many years talking about how good it is, it would seem that US publishers are finally taking note of what I’ve been saying for over a decade now, as Oni Press are due to publish the very first of Dan’s Cindy and Biscuit collections, We Love Trouble, freshly redone with two-tone colouring throughout, the first time it’s been available widely outside Britain.

And it’s out on… well, let’s let Cindy tell you that…

Ever since first seeing Dan White’s work in the small Brit/Polish anthology New British Comics #2 and first seeing Cindy and Biscuit in New British Comics #3 back in 2010 and 2011, I’ve followed and loved his work. And I’ve done my best to share that love with you here, whether it’s Dan’s ridiculously surreal and equal parts funny/chilling Sticky Ribs and Terminus, or in the various Cindy and Biscuit comics and collections I’ve told you about – C&B: Year One, C&B: Sundays, and C&B: End of Level. So seeing Cindy and Biscuit: We Love Trouble get a US release from Oni absolutely fills me with joy.

As for what it’s all about, well here’s the official bumpf…

“Monsters, ghosts, and aliens are no match for Cindy and her dog Biscuit!

Meet Cindy & Biscuit: a girl and her dog. No one else really pays that much attention to them, not even her mum. People keep telling Cindy she’s weird, that she lies, that she’s got a morbid, overactive imagination–but if that was true, why would she keep encountering all these monsters, ghosts, and aliens in real life?

Watch Cindy and her fearless four-legged best friend get in to all kinds of trouble, as their little coastal town seems to have a preponderance of werewolves, undead mermaids, dimensional portals, alien invasions, and worse… it’s dark out in the woods!

Luckily for all of us, Cindy is the action hero we needed, just in time to save the world a few times between now and detention.”

Yes, this is one of those books you really do need to read. It will make your life better in so many ways. So join me once more in a tale of a girl and her dog – it really is that simple – and their never-ending battle against the evils of the world. Whether it’s aliens, robots, the Abominable Snowman, werewolves, and so much more, it’s down to brave Cindy and brave Biscuit to save the day, always ready with a strong stick (“good soldier“) to beat the living daylights out of the next adversary.

Every single page of this is a treat, with White’s sense of kinetic storytelling unmatched, his refined yet stripped-back art style, enhanced by the two-colour toning, always on display to show us a great time. But the beautiful, heartbreaking thing about Cindy & Biscuit is the other bits, the away from the action bits, the bits where it isn’t all-confident Cindy tackling some horrible threat to the world. And that’s where Cindy & Biscuit will break your heart. Because it’s on the missions that Cindy comes alive, escaping what is, reading between the lines, carefully and cleverly pointed to by White, a cruel world. She’s a loner, unpopular at school, with a mom who’s distant, possibly neglectful. We see Cindy shine with a stick in her hand, saving the world for us again and again, and we see her brought crashing down to Earth all too often.

Simply put – another thing I said back when this collection came out the first time here in Britain –

Cindy & Biscuit is a thing to treasure, a work that can break your heart one moment and fill you with sheer joy the next. It’s exquisite. Buy it. Buy it.

Written and illustrated by Dan White

Cindy and Biscuit Volume 1: We Love Trouble is released by Oni Press on 15th August 2023

There’s a short preview below which really does cut to the point of what I mean, the short Cindy’s Dream…

“In my dreams, I go to the moon,
there’s no-one else here on the moon.
Well… not quite no-one.
I have a rock.
I throw it so hard it turns into a meteor
and blows up the world…

It feels… brilliant.
And then I wake up.”