Vol. 3 collects the newspaper strip's postwar years of
1946–1947, continuing five-year-old Barnaby Baxter and his
Fairy Godfather J.J. O’Malley’s
misadventures. Bumbling but endearing, Mr. O’Malley rarely
gets his magic to work—even when he consults his Fairy
Godfather’s Handy Pocket Guide. The true magic of Barnaby
resides in its canny mix of fantasy and satire, amplified by the understated
elegance of Crockett Johnson’s clean, spare art. In its
combination of Johnson’s sly wit and
O’Malley’s amiable windbaggery, a
child’s feeling of wonder and an adult’s
wariness, highly literate jokes and a keen eye for the ridiculous, Barnaby
expanded our sense of what comics can do.
