PABLO AND SPLASH

In a tale that ranges through space and time, two Antarctic penguins in search of warmer climes fall afoul of technology with a taste for pranks.

Sick of the cold (she huddles in the middle of the flock and sports a cozy hat and scarf to boot), Splash chivies her cautious, krill-loving buddy, Pablo, into joining her in a waddling exodus that’s cut short when the two fall into a hole in the ice. Happily, at the bottom lies a hidden lab where light-skinned, pink-haired genius Professor O’Brain has just put the finishing touches on a device she dubs the TimeBender—a name that doesn’t quite do the talking vehicle justice: Responding to Splash’s yen for “somewhere hot,” it hies the dumbfounded duo off to the Sun, where they are moderately singed, and then back to an Earthly beach…in the Cretaceous period. Casting Pablo as the long-suffering straight penguin opposite his reckless, but not entirely feckless, counterpart, Dempsey plays the pair nicely against each another. One picks up the slack through numerous misadventures whenever the other melts down, and the comical banter never lets up. The tale, as light and cheery as the cleanly drawn cartoon panels, ends where it began, with the travelers lounging beneath the southern lights and chowing down on krill pops. The author even appends drawing lessons and notes on all the toothy prehistoric creatures who nearly had penguin for dinner.

A “krilly” entertaining odyssey.