This sort-of-picture-book-sort-of-graphic-novel acts as a travelogue of "Bogeydom", taking the surface-dwelling "dry cleaner" reader into the world of those creatures that go bump in the night. His graphic novel Ethel and Ernest, which portrayed his parents' 41-year marriage, won Best Illustrated Book in the 1999 British Book Awards. As his day progresses, he undergoes a mild existential crisis, pondering what his seemingly pointless job of scaring surface people is really for. And it is was a revelation to discover that even the sublimely happy Fungus was not above an attack of existential angst .

And even considering that many children do seem to massively relish and cherish humour based on bodily functions and liquid excretions, I do have to wonder whether the massive amounts of the latter occurring in Fungus the Bogeyman might well end up being potentially distracting and even too much of a "good thing" (so much so as to even jade and feel dragging for children who usually enjoy this type of humour, these types of jokes). This Gala Films production with screenplay by author Mark Haddon, featuring live-action humans and animated Bogeys, was nominated for five awards. Of course being a pixie type person myself I firmly believe in the little people that live at the bottom of gardens and in enchanted woods and forests. Briggs not only gives the reader a clear indication of what the Bogeyman wears, eats and wash’s himself with but also the bogeyman’s hobbies, habitat and modes of transport. A strong stomach is occasionally required to accompany a reading of this exploration of a typical day in the life of Fungus the Bogeyman.Bogeymen like: silence, tasting books, losing or drawing games, wetness, rotten smells and slowness. Because fact is that I have to use my strongest reading glasses throughout and still be constantly squinting, as especially the font size of the printed, of Biggs' presented text is so cramped and so minuscule in size to make easy and comfortable perusal nigh impossible (I have actually had to reread some sections more than a few times because my eyes accidentally kept missing and skipping entire chunks, this also being a further caveat for parents reading Fungus the Bogeyman with or to their children, and perhaps also a potential issue for recently independent readers attempting to read Fungus the Bogeyman by themselves, as they often read better and easier with larger and bolder print). It is not for everyone's taste, I mean you have to be keen on slime, pus and muck but hey, that is what makes a bogeyman happy. Briggs uses hilarious wordplay and cultural inversions to create encyclopaedic entries about the strange place of Bogeydom, its inhabitants and customs.

Fungus lives an ordinary life, he gets up, gets prepared for work, makes the commute, does his job and wonders what is it all about? I love Briggs's dense, complex page design and his masterful use of an array of layout and design features.It does so in a manner that is always fast paced and the reader is never easy as the turning of each page brings another revolting revelation. The story follows one day in the life of this fabulous character, a working class Bogeyman with the mundane job of scaring human beings. Yes, ultimately the joke is one-note (everything in bogeydom is more or less the reverse of things in the human world, so bogeymen prefer dirt to cleanliness, cold to warmth, wet to dry, and so on, though there are occasional inconsistencies), but Briggs pulls off so many brilliant variations on it, and paces them out so carefully as he narrates Fungus's typical "day" (read night) of frightening and irritating people, all the while wondering what purpose his job serves, that the joke somehow never gets tired. The level of detailed world building of Bogeydom makes this such a fun and worthy inclusion to the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow-up. It’s great and horrible fun for adults and kids alike – with brilliant illustrations throughout as you’d expect.