I just re-read this book for a second time after having read it first in 2006. I don't think I appreciated it much on the first pass, because of how much of time Ferdinand (the title character) spends either chasing girls or moping about girls who have dumped him. But as an older reader, and one who has now draw close to 1000 pages of my own comics, I appreciate it so much more. Sfar is a whimsical master of a kind of rambling, strange, funny, spontaneous work. He has created a whole universe of characters (vampires, mummies, wood-nymphs, witches, crime-fighters, cats, ghosts, rabbis, golems, and more) who make cameos in all of his books. His stories don't follow a pattern of rising and falling action- I've heard he essentially makes them up as he inks them one panel at a time. I would go mad trying to write like that. But I love seeing his results- they are loosey-goosey in a why I now find extremely pleasing.