Funny graphic novels for kids who’d rather laugh than read.
My son just finished Dog Man #7 for the third time and announced he wants to make his own comic about a cat who’s also a firefighter. It’s 11 p.m. He’s supposed to be asleep. Instead he’s drawing Flip-o-Rama panels on the back of his spelling homework. If your kid has burned through every Dog Man twice and keeps redrawing Petey in the margins of everything, here are nine graphic novels that deliver the same ridiculous energy Pilkey perfected: visual gags, toilet humor that actually lands, bad guys who aren’t that bad, and chapters short enough that you can convince yourself it counts as reading. These aren’t quieter. They’re not gentler. They’re exactly as chaotic as Dog Man, just in different costumes.
A wolf, a shark, a snake, and a piranha decide to become good guys, except nobody believes them because they look terrifying. Aaron Blabey draws like a Looney Tunes animator who got handed a chapter book contract — every page is a sight gag.
Pick this one if they love villains who are secretly trying their best.
Two alligators work as undercover agents for a secret organization that fights crime in the sewers. It's Dog Man's structure — puns, flip panels, villains with dumb names — but starring reptiles in tiny suits.
Pick this one if they want the exact same energy in different packaging.
Li'l Petey from Dog Man starts an art class where baby frogs make their own comics. It's Dav Pilkey teaching your kid how to draw comics inside a comic, which is either brilliant or a pyramid scheme for more Dog Man fans.
Pick this one if they're already trying to draw their own comics at bedtime.
A robot boy with no memory crashes to Earth, befriends two kids, and immediately starts fighting evil robots who want to destroy everything. Judd Winick draws action sequences like Michael Bay directs explosions — constant and gleeful.
Pick this one if they want more action and slightly higher stakes.
A narwhal and a jellyfish are best friends who eat waffles, tell stories, and have underwater adventures. Ben Clanton's art is simple enough that your kid will think they could draw it, which is the highest compliment a graphic novel can get.
Pick this one if they need something gentler between Dog Man binges.
A house cat gets doused in space goop and becomes a superhero. Every villain is a pun, every page is neon-bright, and the whole thing reads like Saturday morning cartoons that somebody forgot to cancel.
Pick this one if they love superheroes more than they love dogs.
Catwad is a grumpy blue cat. Blurmp is his relentlessly cheerful friend. Jim Benton writes their friendship like a comic strip where one character refuses to participate and the other one refuses to notice.
Pick this one if they think grumpy characters are funnier than happy ones.
A neighborhood of kids turns cardboard boxes into castles, robots, and entire kingdoms during summer vacation. It's less about plot and more about the exact kind of imagination your kid uses to turn the couch into a spaceship.
Pick this one if they like making things as much as reading about them.
Cookie is a horse. Broccoli is a rabbit. They're unlikely friends who go on silly adventures that make absolutely no sense and don't need to. Bob McMahon draws like he's never heard of physics, which is perfect.
Pick this one if they want something weird and simple and completely their own speed.
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Millennial dad in the PNW. Reading aloud with my daughter (8) and son (4). Honest takes on the books we actually read at bedtime.
About me →And refuses to read anything else, ever.
No refunds. (Including one you’ve never heard of.)
On the hundredth reading of the week.
Yes, even the new episodes haven’t been enough.
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