1.  Have you read any of the Mouse Guard series?

2.  If you haven’t, why aren’t you reading the Mouse Guard series??!

If you are into grand adventures, political intrigue, freedom fighting, Cute Overload and a touch of general badassery, then you are really missing out if you’re not reading Mouse Guard.

That owl is missing an eye. SPOILER ALERT: He had two earlier in this book. MOUSE BADASSERY!!

Why would you want to read a book about mice?  Didn’t this series win the 2008 Eisner Award for “Best Publication for Kids”?  I hate kids’ comics, Hannah, stop trying to pull a fast one on me.  Au contraire, mon amis.

Did you think the Lord of the Rings was merely a bunch of kids’ books?  Have you tried reading Watership Down lately?  Or Animal Farm?  Look, just because Mouse Guard had to share a split book with Fraggle Rock at Free Comic Book Day 2010 doesn’t mean it’s a mere kiddie comic.  This is a brutal, anthropomorphic universe of mouse cities, groups, clans and traditions.  When you are one of the smallest mammals anywhere, everything comes after you–owls, snakes, weasels, even crabs.  The Guard keep all the mouse towns and villages safe.  And of course, political drama ensues…like in Dune or A Game of Thrones.  This isn’t just for your wee ones, your little cousins or the tween set.  This is a world that sticks with you long after you put the books down or lend them to your friends never to be seen again.

It’s a world that is imaginative and relatively safe enough for kids (not too young, though, it’s violent), yet broad, deep and involving enough to keep us grown-ups turning the pages.  They are not difficult reads, and they’re all beautifully illustrated.

Please read Mouse Guard.  Legends of the Guard is releasing now at your local comic book shop, and you won’t be disappointed.  Also, you will never look at another real mouse without envisioning it in a tiny cloak, wielding an impossibly tiny, and impossibly deadly, weapon.