The Tom & Jerry Selection

1992. Cover price £2.99.
68 pages. Full colour.
Ravette Books Limited.

ISBN-10: 1 85304 274 9.

Cover by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
r: UNKNOWN.

Contents:

 3 The Tom & Jerry Selection title page.

 5 The Tom & Jerry Selection title page.

 6 Indicia

 7 UNTITLED [Tom & Jerry With Their Towels] pin-up; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

 8 UNTITLED [Fun at the Beach] poster; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

10 The Fast Food Feud... w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: signed BD (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

18 UNTITLED [Sunglasses] poster; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

20 UNTITLED [A Bike Trip] poster; a: signed BD (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

22 Sound Effects w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

30 UNTITLED [All at Sea] poster; a: signed BD (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

32 UNTITLED [Art Attack] pin-up; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

33 UNTITLED [Like Father Like Son] pin-up; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

34 Sandcastle Kings w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

42 UNTITLED [Sun Fun] poster; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

44 Memories pin-up; a: signed BD (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

45 UNTITLED [Movie Stars] pin-up; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

46 Pests in Paradise w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

54 UNTITLED [Tuffy in a Kite] pin-up; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

55 UNTITLED [PURRR Tracksuit] pin-up; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

56 UNTITLED [Tuffy's Bop] pin-up; a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

57 Mechanical Menace w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

65 The End

64 pages of hilarious cartoon strips and posters, featuring the world's favourite Cat and Mouse

Thomas is snuggled up in his basket as a snowstorm hits, and Jerry takes advantage of the napping cat's blissful sleep to help himself to some cheeseburgers. Fashioning a means of reaching the table with thread and a safety pin, he makes it to his prize and frames Tom for his crime. Thrown out into the freezing cold, Tom wonders why he is being punished, and Jerry is soon aware of the repercussions of his action - feeling guilty, and realizing that it is too cold outdoors for cats, the mouse makes himself known to Mammy in order to encourage her to bring Tom in from the cold.

Jerry gets a wooden spoon thrown at him for his troubles, though Tom is still not returned indoors. Tom has turned blue, and his tail is frozen stiff, so Jerry is forced to increase his torment of Mammy - bouncing on her remote control to change channels, and swimming in her soup. She fetches a broom to deal with the mouse on her own, though Jerry throws compact discs at her when she tracks him down. Finally relenting, Mammy brings Tom back indoors, warming him up with a hairdryer, before setting him on Jerry.

Realising what has occurred, Tom plays along - just long enough to share in Jerry's spoils.

A lively strip, without much of the usual problems in storytelling, this is a remarkably warm and non-violent outing for the pair, with a much more interesting dynamic for the characters than the more often seen antagonistic interplay. The artwork is less polished than other depictions, though it has a livelier spring to it - this is a strip with heart.

Sound Effects tells its story without the usual plethora of words - Tom catches Jerry eating by the sound of his munching, then Tuffy jumps on a cassette player's button to create the sound of a dog. Having ensured that there isn't actually a dog present, Tom settles down to watch television, whereupon the sound effects are employed once more. The trick fails a third time, as the batteries are running low, and Tom turns the tables on the mice by playing a song they dislike.

The experimentation is handled well, with a few amusing twists and turns along the way, and is pleasantly drawn, yet I can't help feeling that more variation in the often simplistic lettering could have raised the overall impression of the strip. The Kylie Minogue reference, while very funny, dates the strip badly, as does the cassette tapes.

Tom reads through a "Sunny Holidays" catalogue, and gets the notion to take a break from the mice. Hammering planks in front of their mousehole, he sets off to the beach - unaware that Jerry and Tuffy have stowed away in his bag. All is well until Tom unrolls his blanket, uncovering the mice, and he immediately sets about catching them. In the process he manages to destroy Tyke's sandcastle.

A story which seems tailor-made for a summer special, it is odd having it appear so close to a story set in winter, but odd decisions in Ravette's collections know no bounds. Once more a largely silent tale, though without an in or out-of-universe explanation as to why this should be so. The pacing is slightly off in the opening few pages, but when it gets into its stride the strip captures the beach scenes well.

On a speedboat, Tom finds Jerry helping himself to a sandwich, narrowly avoiding crashing into a rock jutting from the sea in an attempt to stop the mouse's pilfering ways. Landing on an island, they explore the sands, though when it feels as if there will be rain Tom hurries to construct a shelter. Once the tropical downpour has abated, Tom makes a raft to escape from both the island and Jerry, though the mouse has other plans...

There's sloppy printing, and there's simply not caring. Transposing two pages of the strip in this story makes following events more difficult that they ought to be. It is a nice, well-constructed story, and these errors are very detrimental to the appeal of the story - one concluding with a (in this instance) well-deserved defeat, with Tom placed firmly in his place.

The final story here, Mechanical Menace, finds Jerry and Tuffy playing with a remote control cheese van in the garden, and when Tom races out to chase them (after falling foul of a flour-based booby-trap) Tuffy uses it to trip him up. Deciding that it is time to bring mouse traps into the 90s, Tom gets to work on his computer. The next day, after much banging from the shed, Tom unveils his creation - a robot he calls the Compu-Cat.

Tom concludes that it will be an easy life for him now, with the ultimate mouse trap doing all the work. Jerry races indoors to escape its snapping claws, and - after some consideration from the mice - Jerry is seemingly caught. Tom discovers that the robot actually caught a dummy before it was destroyed by the cheese van, although gets extra supper when found with the dummy.

Some of the pin-ups are painfully 'hip' - in a manner which indicates that the images were originally intended for a younger readership during the late eighties or early nineties. As a collection this is only really appealing for the full-page illustrations which, on the whole, are the best-looking representations of the character published in a long time.

Not perfect, but a long shot, but likely an amusing read for fans of the characters.