Caricature Books

great...i had seen it before and found it easily. cute. great for valentines day

This is a very nice hardbound book with the famous retro Love Is... couple cartoons. The cover has a nice flower cutout on the front. Some of the hearts are sparkly. Nicely done.

This and the author's other volume are true works of art. I can't wait for the next volume, which will hopefully bring some levity to issues like arthritis, Alzheimers, hardening of the arteries, varicose veins and other atrocities of old age.

I just enjoyed both the Male Menopaws (The Silent Howl) and Menopaws by Martha Sacks. It was just hilarious and really made me chuckle. I wish I had these books when Iwas going through such turmoil in March of 99.

Here is a collection of about thirty full-page cartoons. Each cartoon has a title: La Vie, L'Amitie, Le Cerveau, etc. The drawings are reminiscent of the French media (Paris Match?). Please examine the cover photo that AMAZON offers: it shows a good sample of these pictures.

The book uses a two-page format. The left page has the cartoon; the right page has three "helps" for the student.

1. Understanding the Text: a simple vocabulary list of the words.

2. Key Structures: translates "hard" expressions. Eg.: Ce que tu es bete! You sure can be dumb!

3. A supplemental word/expression list related to the cartoon's theme. These words/expressions are not actually in the text.

At the end of the book, there is a helpful glossary and a perfectly usless chart of fifty verbs.

CHEERS: Cartoons will add variety to your studies. Some of the drawings are funny: most are not. The vocabulary is a challenge to intermediate/advanced students. "Real life" conversational expressions are often used: (eg. "des tas de" and "flics").

JEERS: The cartoons could be a lot funnier! There is no pronunciation guide. A table of phonetic symbols is presented on page 7, but it's never used elsewhere in the book. Warning: there's nothing to inform students that such constructions as "Tu es" would normally be pronounced "Tay". (It's often written as "T'es", but this book sticks with "Tu es".)

BOTTOM LINE: This book is a pretty good value for the money. It offers a chance to read some colloquial expressions normally encountered in the movies rather than in print. Not as much fun as it could be, though.

I cant say enough about this book. It has helped me so much in building a french vocabulary. However my only advice is, that this is definitely not for a beginner, but for someone who has had years of instructions and is frustrated and wants to learn the spoken words. Teachers might hate this book, but I love it.

I'm not sure how the comics will relate to people that haven't been in the service but for people that were and are in the US Navy in the '80's to present will find they can relate to just about everything in this book. It is absolutely a must have! It is also a very hard to find book so get it while it lasts. It took me 2 months to finally get it.

The latest book in the Broadside series is another maritime classic. The comic depictions of the ordinary sailor on ship to the highest admirals strike a tone in the hearts(and funny bones) of all past and present sailors. What makes Broadside so funny is that the situations shown are real expeiences. I laughed early and often with this book, and highly recommend anyone to go out and buy this book.

I am really happy that I purchased this "Collectible" for myself. My friends go through it whenever they visit me. Excellent humor and I just ordered the "Reject" version. Cartoons go back to the 1920s. Wonderful book for many ages.

I just bought this book(the hard cover version) and think it's brilliant. The book itself is quite large but it's packed with cartoons from 8 decades. I like the fact that you have a real solid book. I've read some of the reviews about people complaining about the size of the book but unless you don't intend to read it while you're on the toilet, it is perfect for reading on a table or even your lap.
The quality of the CDs are good as well. I don't know what everybody is complaining about. The book WITHOUT the CDs is worth much more than what I paid for. Having 2 CDs with over 68000(!!!) additional cartoons included make it the best book I ever bought.

Pleased with the book, but not with two having been sent to my California son rather than just the one I gifted. As well, having two charges for the one ordered book on my Visa card. Kindly help to remove one of themn. Thank you

This book is a must-have for every family that needs a laugh. We put it on a central hall table and our guests would stop, pick it up and laugh. Soon everyone was in the hall reading over someone else's shoulder. There's something in this book for every sense of humor--silly, cynical, creative, political, green, artistic and more.

I bought this book because last year I bought a New Yorker cartoons page-a-day calendar and enjoyed all 365 days of thought-provoking, timely humor. When my book arrived, I decided to savor the humor by reading four pages of cartoons every night before bed; sometimes, my husband thinks I'm going to bust a gut laughing.

The included CD is fabulous, and allows you to search for cartoons by topic and keyword. Type in "therapist," and you'll find some of the wittiest commentary you'll ever see on the topic. Cartoons on the disc are printable, and as a result, may result in my office needing a much bulletin board.

This book is a gem and a chronicle--in humor--of the American Zeitgeist of the last 80 years.

this is great as a refresher and a road map of what to study in-depth.

This book is so cool! It makes the topic clear and fun at the same time.

I wrote a short review of this book previously for Amazon and my opinions have not changed very much. However, Gonick deserves credit for coauthoring his cartoon books with experts in the field. This way he avoids mistakes and brings out the important messages that, in the case of this book, a statistician would want to teach his students.
Recently, I used the cartoons on p-values to help another statistician with a presentation on p-values for an audience of medical researchers. I found the relevant cartoons to be humorous and very instructive.

Also, I discovered that in addition to the standard topics of estimation, hypothesis testing, regression, correlation and analysis of variance, Chapter 12, simply titled "Conclusion" has a brief description of many advanced topics, particularly in multivariate analysis.

Multivariate topics include Chernoff faces, cluster analysis, factor analysis and discriminant analysis. Other advanced topics mentioned are random walks, time series analysis, image analysis and even resampling (bootstrap, jackknife and randomization).

Each is described with a single cartoon. This reminds me to again warn that these cartoons alone cannot do justice to the various topics being taught. However, careful selection and placement into the context of a course can bring home important points to students better than just conventional teaching methods. I wouldn't hesitate to use this material to supplement and liven up an introductory statistics course.

The bibliography at the end provides a number of very fine introductory texts and other topics and software that could interest the general public (also done in the cartoon fashion of Gonick).

Whenever I try reading this book my eyes just gloss over. It's extremely dry material with cartoons added to every page to make it seem as if it'll be entertaining and easy to learn from but IMO it's neither. On the contrary, it would probably be best as a reference book. Almost every page has a new equation or symbol on it and I rarely felt that they were adequately discussed. "What does it do? When is it useful? What does it mean if the value is high/low?" are questions I constantly asked myself and the book doesn't take the time to answer.

I have a B.S. (from a school you haven't heard of) and an M.S. (from one you have) in mathematics, and I teach math, but probability and statistics was my _worst_ undergraduate math class (I avoided it in grad school). I came across this book, and I bought it on a chance. I'm sorry to say, it was wasted money...

1) The cartoons at best merely illustrate points made in the text; at worst they are irrelevant interruptions. For example, here we have a cartoon of the reader in a straightjacket after the text mentions calculus. And there's a cartoon of a man rolling dice. This sort of stuff does not advance the discussion.

2) The cartoon format reduces the space available for text. The discussion is therefore abbreviated and compressed; points are made once only, without examples, and often after skipping important steps. I think it's _more_ difficult than a standard textbook.

3) There are no exercises! Who ever heard of a math book without exercises? We learn by doing, I always tell my students, not by just reading or listening.

I think this book may be useful to a former student of statistics who wants a review but I can't think of anyone else who would get much out of it.

For some reason, it's completely endearing and hilarious for bunnies to try to commit suicide. Perhaps it's because the ingenious and absurd machines, traps, and situations they put themselves in require a tremendously dark wit, and we don't expect these dandelion munchers to express such cynicism.

There are a number of people who try to imitate Andy Riley's bunny suicide comics, and they sometimes come out all wrong. For example, they tend to show the death of the bunny. This is unfortunate, because the joke is in the reader's mind, trying to figure what the bunny is thinking and how the suicide will work, not showing the reader the gruesome death.

People with a dark sense of humor will enjoy this book, and judging from the way it has been out of stock at some bookstores, there are a lot of us out there.

Bunnies are sweet,loving,and innocent creatures and anyone who could write books with this sort of theme is a very sick person as are everyone who would find it funny!! If it was about children there would be a major outcry over it,but because its not its ok. Animals are just as helpless as children so if you wouldn't want books like this about children don't condone it about bunnies or any other animals!!

Very cute humor but...

Unless your getting this as a gift for someone or it's an inside joke you've been looking for your whole life, I don't recommend buying this book simply because it is too short. Cute though... Not for animal rights advocates.

If you are in anyway feeling a bit blue, take a look at this book!

Bunnies are cute, fuzzy, and not very bright. And in Andy Riley's works, they're also suicidal.

In fact, you can guess just from the title of Riley's "The Book of Bunny Suicides" what the book is about -- wordless cartoons of bunnies offing themselves in unique, creative, and sometimes overly complex ways.

It's a running gag, but you'll never guess how many of these bunnies choose to off themselves -- they involve corkscrews, subway trains, stalactites, cigarettes, seppuku, airplane toilets, palm trees, pointy-nose jets, toasters, colanders, and many other seemingly harmless (or at least not VERY harmful) ordinary items.

There are even some pop culture references -- the bunny prepares to beam down from "Star Trek," sits atop the Wicker Man from the same-named movie, and one of the rare cartoons with dialogue, the death-pursuing bunnies infiltrate the legendary duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Hysterical.

Yeah, it's basically a one-gag book, but Riley manages to keep the chuckles rolling along through the book. Part of the humor is in the ridiculous stubbornness these bunnies have to off themselves, and Riley's creativity in coming up with surreal methods for suicide.

There are a few duds, admittedly -- the deli counter one took me several reads to understand, since you have to pay very careful attention to note the bunny in this one. And the overpass gag simply doesn't make much sense.

Riley's artwork is simple and clean, and his bunnies are amusingly stoic as they chase down death. And he shows a variety of bunny deaths -- some are gory, some are physically impossible, and some simply involve bunny parts flying bloodlessly. Some, in fact, only hint at the bunnies' demises -- and these tend to be the most hilarious of all.

"The Book of Bunny Suicides" is a fun quick comic book for people with a sick sense of humour and/or a hatred of bunnies. Darkly amusing.

this book has a lot of instruction and ideas for what to draw is has a lot of instruction for the serious sketch artists. if you are looking for a book on anatomy this is a great buy.

The good: For someone who is learning to draw (and can) this will be helpful.
The bad: observation of human and animal anatomy would be better for the student. Musculature can be picked up from health and body building magazines or online articles. there really isn't anything "cutting edge" about it for anyone who has picked up graphic novels or comics before.

Is it worth it? yeah I guess so... for the inexperienced artist (in ANY discipline, whether painter, sculptor, graphic artist, comic book artist, etc etc) and as a quick reference book. But once you get into high detail artwork, where perhaps you want to show the texture of the muscle tissue underneath the skin (lighting and shading) it won't help. Poses and muscle groups that's about it.

This is probably among the top five of Christopher Hart's "How to Draw" books I own. If you're looking for a way to render anatomy in a good style - after having learned the basics, of course - then this is certainly the book for you.

"Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy" offers a number of exceptionally helpful sections for the artist; be warned however - as is the nature of books of this type, some sections will be wildly helpful, while others you'll just pass by. The most helpful:

1) Early on, some helpful full-body schematics are rovided for both heroic male and female figures' musculature.
2) There is a helpful page on vein placement
3) The chapter on the Head and Neck (especially regarding the rendering of female characters' faces)
4) The chapter on the Chest adn Abs
5) The chapter on The Pelvis, Legs and Feet (especially on the legs).

Unfortunately, the secions on the arms and hand are not especially helpful (owing mostly to the artist who provide the illustrations).

Overall, however, a great book and a worthy addition to any beginning artist's bookshelf. Enjoy!

This is a great reference book. I really like it, BUT for any really REALLY serious people who wish to really improve their drawings, Riven Pheonix "Drawing the Human Figure From Your Mind" lessons are key (google it). It shows you how to draw the whole skeleton - from your mind. Then the muscles - from your mind. The fruits are astounding. I completed all 227 lessons and must admit that reference books are much more helpful when you actually LEARN how EXACTLY mucles and bones look the way they look on people.

I'm a beginner to drawing in general but the descriptions and pictures presented make reproducing presented information/techniques easy

I am an American History teacher and was looking for a text that I could use to teach a 6wk summer course. This book has been excellent. My students absolutely love it, and it's fun to teach from.

'Cartoon history of the United States' is a good read. Gonick takes a dark view of history, but funny, and is an entertaining way to acquire some history.

I was very pleased in this transaction. Book was a good quality one and item was shipped expeditiously. I would highly recommend buying books fom this seller.

I have always had an interest in history, but remember as a child being frustrated by the confusing and half-told local and national histories I was taught in grade school. It seemed that all the leading figures in my history books acted out of purely noble motives, and surely never from greed or selfishness. However, once I had grown up and began speculate that they had indeed sometimes done important things out of greed or selfishness, history began to make alot more sense.

Gonick does not use rose-colored lenses in an attempt to deify the movers and makers of U.S. history. He in fact, tries to show that these people more often than not had an all too human side.

If you want to believe that America's past leaders have all been noble heroes, this book will offend you. On the other hand, if you enjoy irreverent yet topical accounts, this is a book for you.

Larry Gonick provides laughs and history together. His Cartoon History of the United Statesis entertaining and enthusatic. His bibliography is impressive. I would highly recommend this book to high school students and adults. Putting the information into cartoon form makes reading this book more fun.

This book is ridiculously cool and my brother loved it!! I highly recommend it for a good laugh. I can't wait to see the new one coming out!

I enjoy satire, especially when the targets are politicians and ridiculously hyped celebrities. However, I found this book extremely disappointing even at a steeply discounted price. My reaction after reading it was: "Is that it?" A picture may be worth a thousand words, but I didn't find that to be the case in this instance. The stories, gossip, and commentaries about these celebrity meltdowns that appeared in various media were far funnier than the caricatured likenesses in this book with its "interactive" pull-tabs that add little or no embellishment to the humor of these parodies. The cadre of media pundits who wrote columns about these foolish antics were more searing and entertaining than what is presented is this book. I donated it to a sale at a local library. At least a potential buyer could examine the book and perhaps deem it worth the maximum price of $3.00 as a gag gift. I was interested in other pop-up books in this series but have since deleted them all from my wish/shopping lists. It's difficult for me to believe that most people who paid the original retail price of $29.95 didn't regret it. I regretted paying $5.99.

Have a friend with a warped sense of humor - this is the perfect gift!

This book is very good for a laugh.....The Pop-Up pictures are really funny..
It's well made considering the content.....
Gale from Surrey, BC

This book is a coffee table gem! It is an outstanding bithday gift for those folks you know who are raunchy and quirky and middle-aged. Extremely clever. Expensive but worth every penny. I loved the O.J. Simpson car chase the best. The only thing I don't like about it is the cover. Michael Jackson looks horrifyingly, frighteningly creepy, which he probably does in real life, too, nevertheless, I'd rather they had put Hugh Grant or Paris Hilton on there, and left Michael off or made him much smaller than the other cover shots. But the book is a wonderful conversation piece. Fun for the whole family (but best to keep out of the hands of small children for a number of reasons).