"Mickey Mouse & Friends" from BOOM! Kids continues the adventures of Mickey as recently published by Gemstone. Taking advantage of a new start, BOOM! Kids gives readers a new storyline featuring Mickey in the role of Sorcerer's Apprentice once more. This comic is set up with a distinct advantage over most comics being published this week in that 99.9997% of the folks walking into a comic shop know Mickey Mouse. What's more, this title is incredibly friendly for all ages.

The adventure is not particularly new or noteworthy, but it does give an opportunity for Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy to be presented to readers who may not have encountered the characters in print, much as the "Three Musketeers" movie featuring this trio from a few years back introduced these characters to a whole new generation while revitalizing the characters for more seasoned fans.

The art is classic Mickey Mouse comic book art. Mickey is portrayed in stark black and white -- no flesh tones, although other characters in the comic are not as monochromatically colored. The advances in coloring between when Mickey Mouse was first published as a comic to this issue are not as heavily flaunted in this issue, as the focus is on the characters being just that -- THE characters. Those characters are given straightforward, reader-friendly page composition that paces the story quite nicely.

Mickey's old antagonist, Black Pete (re-imagined as Peg-Leg Pete the Great in this story) is here with the Beagle Boys. Donald is in rare form here, and it is not a stretch to imagine Donald's actions translated to the silver screen as they are classic Donald Duck antics.

I haven't been a regular reader of "Mickey Mouse & Friends" since back in the 1970s, but this book feels as genuine and enjoyable to me as it did back then. I'm glad that BOOM! Kids keeps finding new titles to give readers who enjoy all ages comics. It certainly is nice to be able to hand my kids something off the new releases shelf as I gather my own reading choices.