Here Be Monsters! An Adventure Involving Magic, Trolls, and Other Creatures; The Ratbridge Chronicles Volume 1 Appearances

This is our first glimpse of Arthur, and yeah, he is dressed very oddly. He's also wearing a set of wings. We're new to Ratbridge, but we're guessing that this isn't standard attire for kids. We can probably trace this back to how Arthur lives underground with his adoptive caretaker and doesn't interact with the rest of the world much… so why would he care how he looks? Come to think of it, where would he even buy clothes in the first place?

This is a somewhat frightening vision of what fashion in Ratbridge looks like. We've heard of bustles and Spanx and other ways to enhance one's (ahem) assets, but this seems a little extreme. But if the ladies of Ratbridge are that concerned with their appearances, then we guess it makes sense to go to drastic measures.

This is one of the fashionable ladies of Ratbridge complaining about how she missed last week's fashion tip, and suffered the consequences. Now, we all know that inner beauty is what counts, but it seems like these ladies have forgotten that. Completely. All they seem to care about is external appearances and whether they're keeping up with the latest trends.

Madame Froufrou (a.k.a. Snatcher in disguise) seems to have this scam down to an art. Not only does he emphasize that physical appearances and fashion are the most important things ever, but he also gets the ladies to start self-policing. The competitive vibe is pretty strong here, so this must be an effective strategy.

Okay, let's see if we understand this: Being able to make a monetary contribution to the fashionista's account will get you a fashionable accessory that will somehow make you the most beautiful and sought-after person in Ratbridge? Does altering your external appearance really cause all that to happen? And why is money tied up in this pursuit of beauty? Seems a little fishy to us.

Arthur's telling Willbury that Madame Froufrou gives him a weird vibe—specifically, a weird vibe that reminds him of Snatcher. We know that Arthur hasn't been exposed to much of the outside world, but it doesn't even seem to occur to him that cross-dressing might be the answer to this mystery.

Kipper has a bright idea (for once) relating to disguises. He's noticed that the police don't make any effort to stop the boxtrolls and cabbageheads from running on and off the ship, while the rest of the crew (humans and rats) are being watched for suspicious activity. So why not dress everyone up as boxtrolls, and use the police's prejudice about appearances against them?

We've got to hand it to the rabbit women: They're smarter than the Ratbridge police. They look at the humans and rats in boxtroll disguises and think that something might not be right here. Of course, they're willing to believe that these funny-looking boxtrolls are just a different kind of boxtroll, so they're also taken in by the disguises… but hey, nobody's perfect.

After getting away with fooling the Ratbridge police and the rabbit women, maybe Willbury was starting to think that the boxtroll disguises were perfect. However, Snatcher sees through appearances, and catches on to the fact that they're not actually boxtrolls, but rather humans and rats in disguises. Maybe it's because Snatcher's a master of disguise, or maybe he's just hard to fool.

Once the fashionable ladies of Ratbridge learn that "Madame Froufrou" has been lying to them all this time, they desperately scramble to correct their appearances to be truly in line with fashion. Luckily for them, they can use the resizing machine to shrink their butts back to a normal size. Phew.