Madman Gargantua

I'm having an odd experience with this book. I think it's been long enough--both my history of knowing the character and Mike Allred's career, as well as long enough since I've read Madman, that the shine has worn off for me to a great degree. So now I'm enjoying the book, but mildly, and specifically--I like charting the progress of Allred's line, the development of his storytelling, his wealth of characters and concepts. But I'm enjoying these things silently and with no reflection upon them until now, because the vocal part of me is reading--performing--the stories aloud to my children before bed. I'll skip lines when I can get away with it, or paraphrase or occasionally censor them, but despite some surreal, disturbing images my kids seem to dig Madman and I haven't seen any evidence that it scares them. I think his goofy innocence offsets the creepy stuff, and my daughter in particular really likes Joe. It could be that I'm taking Madman on a farewell tour before handing the property off to the next generation, and I'm pleased that they seem to be responding pretty well to it.