Spongebob Squarepants seems to have been on forever. And why not? Its a sweet show that can be enjoyed by adults as much as kids, with goofy humor and occasional ventures into surrealism. (Im told stoners appreciate it on a whole other level, but Ive never done the research on that.) Im sort of surprised there hasnt been a comic book before this. And I had to check this one out because of all the indie comic people attached to it. But I must point out this really is a comic just for kids. It has the shows sweet sensibility and bite size stories, perfect for wandering attention spans, but theres really nothing here for adults, which might actually be a positive. Heres a comic kids can read, draw in, and mash up without adults freaking out about it, one they can enjoy fully without a hovering parent. The art generally sticks to the show template, although it occasionally wanders off beam to something a little more intriguing. Recommended for your little Spongebob fan. Read Full Review

Just so you know - I'm a big Spongebob fan. I watched the cartoon through all of my childhood and I didn't miss any new episodes. Seasons 1-3 are pure gold and I still enjoy watching them to this day. 4-7 are okay and mostly interesting, but weird sometimes. It was season 8 when the series got meh, but I thought it was just a period and new episodes will be better. However, seasons 9+ were really not for me and I glanced through some of the episodes of the latest seasons and... Well. It's an absolute shit for a degenerate kids now. It's too dumb, too violent, too revolting and the ideas of these new episodes are super weird. Things went to hell after Hillenburg's death and I doubt the series will ever recover after this. I don't even want to mention awful cinema movies and spin-offs. I wish it was never made...

But I also remember collecting Spongebob comics that were published in my country since 2008 and up to... 2018? I don't know, I dropped collecting the magazine in 2012 or 2013 maybe. But I really got many of these comics, maybe around 50 issues or so. The magazine was similar to Spectacular Spider-Man Adventures UK and it had some original comic strips, but also comics, made out of the cartoon episodes. Like, you know, they just made some screenshots and created those comics out of them. Later on they just retold cartoon stories, making comics out of promo arts of the cartoon characters. Some such stories were completely original, though... That was weird and had a real homebrew vibe.

I always wanted to find out those original comic strips and read them on english and I was really happy to see there was an almost 100-issue length comic series about Spongebob. However, it was published since 2011, so... I guess those comic strips from the first russian spongebob comics were from Nickelodeon magazine. I don't know if these Spongebob Comics reprint some of those strips here. Small strips are reprinted, I believe.

So yeah, I guess even if some of these stories are reprints - it doesn't really matter, that Nickelodeon magazine wasn't really about comics and they needed to be collected in a real Spongebob magazine.

But okay, let's get back to this Spongebob Comics issue 1. I love the vibe! It's almost like I got back to these old Spongebob times... There's many short stories and they aren't really elaborate, but enjoyable and entertaining. But there are also some additional pages with... I don't know, facts? Games. Posters. It's not like Spongebob needed some long serious stories on 20+ pages. This format fits the character well and gives authors a chance to create some small comics with simple ideas.

This issue has the following stories: "Waking Up Is Hard To Do", "Mermaid Man And Barnacle Boy vs. The Octopus King", "GlowSponge", "They're Playing My Tune", "Midnight Snack Attack". There are also game stories: "Stylin' Sponge" and "Best Joke Ever", plus some Kochalka funnies: "Smelly Flowers", "Wish Upon A What?!" and "The Best Invention".

I really love the art of Gregg Schigiel here. It's the most cartoon accurate art here and I can't believe this guy also drew some X-Men comics and not only... Some other artists are good as well. Only artists of small stories are weird, but some of these stories are games (like, the one where Sponge got a new haircut and you need to draw it yourself on the last frame), so it's okay, I guess. Also it's weird how "Midnight Snack Attack" shares the similar idea with "Waking Up Is Hard To Do". This small story was really just odd. Also I never liked Kochalka's stories in marvel comics, but here it's acceptable. They are still bad, though.

Let's sum it up - none of these stories deliver some really big and important comic experience, but they are mostly funny and entertaining. Of course the ideas of cartoon episodes are better and more interesting, but this magazine was made for a different purpose. Maybe the things will change with time, I really hope there are some more interesting stories in the future issues. more