The Addams Family started as single-panel cartoons by Charles Addams in The New Yorker, with no names and no dialogue - just a wealthy, ghoulish family being entirely at ease in a world that finds them appalling. Every adaptation since has been chasing that tone.

The joke has always been inverted. They are not monsters; they're the most functional family in fiction. Gomez and Morticia are genuinely, alarmingly in love. The children are encouraged to pursue their interests, which happen to involve explosives. Nobody in the house is unkind to anyone in the house.

Wednesday is the character who broke out furthest, and the reason is her total composure. She is never distressed, never surprised, and delivers everything in a flat register that makes the surrounding chaos funnier.

Thing deserves a mention as one of the most useful supporting characters ever devised - a disembodied hand that can fetch, type, drive and emote.

This collection covers Wednesday, Thing and the family's gothic props.