Dog Man

Dog Man is the combination of Officer Knight (a top policeman), and Greg the Dog (a quick-witted dog). When arch-villain Petey the Cat tries to blow them both up, the only way they can both be saved is if Greg’s dog head is sewn onto Officer Knight’s body – inadvertently creating a super cop and Petey the Cat’s lawful nemesis.

Despite his doggy ways, Dog Man is actually terrific at catching the terrible criminals that plague his town, so when Petey tries to engineer a coup to replace the Chief of Police, Dog Man saves the day.

Dog Man, created by Captain Underpants’ Dav Pilkey, is a comic masterclass, perfect for the surreal sense of humour of the average six- to nine-year-old. It’s a full-colour comic throughout with five to six simple panels per page and split into eight chapters, so kids can feel like they’re reading a lot quickly.

Genuinely laugh out loud, it’s exactly the kind of silly humour kids love and are familiar with, while being clever, compassionate, succinct and highly original. The fact that Pilkey himself had ADHD as a child and was often sent out of the class for being disruptive (in fact, sitting outside the class was where he started drawing Captain Underpants) means he particularly gets what kids with short attention spans relate to and therefore includes less traditionally bookish kids in his wild and wacky fictional world.