Cartoons Books

Speed Bump is the next best thing to The Far Side - it is one of those smart and funny comics that make you think and laugh all at the same time. If you're the kind of person that cuts out comics and sticks them up at the office, this is your type of comic.

Coverly has the book broken up into themes and has a little introduction (one written by Rick Kirkman, the guy who draws "Baby Blues.") These are all clever (especially the one in which he describes a typical cartoonist's day).

Well, you'll have to excuse me now, I'm off to the scanner to make a few copies of some cartoons for the office!

Dave Coverly is one of the most underrated cartoonists out there. I competely agree with the previous review, in that he shares the same creative writing style as Larson, but his illustrations are superior.

The puns are numerous and outrageous... and will have you actually laughing out loud. Dave's brilliant artwork fits the subject matter perfectly. I have a number of comic collections in my library and this one now resides in my favorites section. Do yourself a favor and pick this book up. Better yet, call your local paper and demand that they run Speed Bump.

Are you a fan of "The Far Side?" Do you wish that Gary Larson was still doing that comic? I'm sad that he's gone too, but he sure produced a host of people to carry the load. Some have nowhere near the amount of imagination that Larson did, but one person definitely does. That's Dave Coverly, author of "Speed Bump." I just read through one of his latest collections, called Just One %$#@ Speed Bump After Another... and it's yet another winner.

Coverly is the closest I have seen to Larson's creativity in the one-panel (or sometimes small multi-panel) comic strip, bringing his characters to life and making wonderful jokes. Sometimes, Coverly will take a familiar phrase, and give it just one twist to the left to make you laugh out loud (such as one comic in this book where one baby sitting on a park bench tells another baby not to worry. "We *all* get thrown out with the bathwater from time to time.") Other panels have plays on words that sometimes make you groan, but always make you laugh (the head of a thesaurus publishing company telling an employee "Bob, you're fired, axed, canned, sacked, booted, dismissed, terminated and let go.")

This is the first collection I've read, so I don't know if the layout's the same in all of them, but this one is divided into sections regarding children, animals, gender differences in society, work, the meaning of life, and then a hodge-podge of unrelated subjects. The jokes are always clever, pop culture references abound ("Diane's date with a Headline News Anchor: 'Weird...didn't we just have this conversation half an hour ago, Tom?'") and even the introductions to the chapters are quite witty. The chapter regarding workplace comics begins with him describing a typical day on the comic creation assembly line, catching a bus with some lesser cartoonists while some (like Scott Adams) drive by in limos. Coverly doesn't avoid philosophy either, with one panel having God tell an angel "C'mon, it'll be fun! I'll throw on some stars, pop in a few planets, drum up a life form or two, and this place will be hoppin'!" The caption is, of course, "The Big Shebang Theory."

As for the artwork, Coverly's work is quite distinctive. He doesn't have any set "characters" like Larson did; instead all of them look quite different. Some have big noses that jut from their faces, while others have little ones. The eyes are different, heck even the body shapes are quite unique. Even the inevitable James Earl Jones comic (you can probably guess along what lines it runs) actually has him look vaguely like James Earl Jones!

This is a great collection of strips from the last couple of years. It was published in late 2005, and contains the winner of last book's caption contest, where you get to write the punchline! This year's deadline was April 7, 2006, so I missed it, but the winner will appear in the newspaper sometime during the year. "Speed Bump" is one of the funniest one-panel comics around these days, and Gary Larson's legacy is well in hand. Pick this one up today.

R. Crumb and Charles Bukowski, now Crumb and Kafka. The drawings illuminate the text in a way that Kafka would have loved. I will never see Kafka again, except through Crumb's vision.

If you like Crumb, or if you like Kafka, find this book.

Kafka was a complex man whose genius is inseparable from his huge neuroses. So is Robert Crumb. Put the two together, as this book does, and the upshot is a book in which the distinction between author Crumb and subject Kafka tends to dissolve. The book is just as much about the one as the other. It's no mistake that Crumb is drawn (sorry for the bad pun) to Kafka.

At one level, the book is a primer on the life and work of Franz Kafka, with Crumb lavishly illustrating David Zane Mairowitz's text (warning: the text is strangely loaded with typos). The highlights of Kafka's life, including his stormy relationship with his father, his alienation from Prague, the city in which he spent most of his life, his difficulties with sexual intimacy, his self-loathing, his work at an insurance agency, and his struggle with tuberculosis, are all chronicled. Moreover, synapses of some of his best work--"The Judgment," "The Metamorphosis," "The Burrow," "In the Penal Colony," "A Hunger Artist," "Letter to His Father," The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika--are provided. Someone who knows nothing or little about Kafka will get a good orientation from reading this book.

But it's Crumb's pen-and-ink illustrations that make the book. They're eerie, dark, and at times actually frightening: perfect glimpses of Kafka's demons as well as Crumb's. In fact, Crumb and Kafka share many of the same demons: an intense need for comfort by women, but a deep-seated hostility to them; an equally intense need for public approval, coupled with an intense contempt for the crowd; a fascination with the usually unnoticed weirdness of the ordinary; a competing attraction and repulsion to the artistic, bohemian crowd; seething but repressed sexuality; a periodic yearning to disappear, to be punished, to be redeemed and reborn through suffering; an alternately bewildered and enraged dislike of Nietzschean proportions of the way in which popular culture cheapens existence (Crumb & Mairowitz's take on touristy Prague, pp. 174-75, is priceless); and a need to confess some of their darkest secrets, through their art, to the very public they disdain. In many ways, both Crumb and Kafka are hunger artists: they refuse to partake of the status quo not necessarily because they're ascetics, but simply because they don't find anything in it that whets their appetites. In gazing at Crumb's brilliant illustrations of Kafka, one can't help but think that this work, like so much of what Crumb does, is autobiographical.

Is it intentionally so? Does Crumb understand the deep connection between himself and Kafka? Is the book intended, at least on one level, as a gag: a book about Crumbka? I dunno, although I suspect that Crumb knows exactly what he's doing. But what I do know is that Kafka is about more than just Kafka. And that's what makes doubly intriguing.

Michael Sidlofsky

Kafka scholar David Mairowitz and underground comics artist Robert Crumb team up to provide a fascinating window into Franz Kafka's brilliantly troubled mind. Mairowitz's text provides historical context and biographical information, including valuable insight into the Jewish folkloric roots of Kafka's fiction. Crumb's characteristically graphic illustrations highlight the horrific and humorous elements within Kafka's work. Together, the author and illustrator provide summaries of K's best-known short stories and novels, encouraging the reader to delve into the originals. The book's only flaw lies in Mairowitz's unfortunately condescending attitude towards Kafka scholars and fans.

This is the latest instalment (as of 11/12/06) in a cute, fun series. While every book is important and well done, this is my favorite. There are several plot developments that keep you hooked and waiting for the next book. I would reccomend this to girls interested in a funny read with plenty of romance.

This manga is the best manga I've ever read. It's funny, and you can get some history info in it (educational part). For manga fans that like more superhero-ish mangas, try Pretear or Tokyo Mew Mew. Saint Tail is also a good choice. Buy this manga!!

While the whole series is excellent, I have to say volume five is the best so far. The story starts to get very emotional at this point, with several twists in the plot. Definitely worth buying.

This is a wonderfully designed news strip reprint book - hefty, formidable, aesthetically pleasing in every regard. I've been a Krazy Kat fan for many, many years, and I couldn't be happier with this purchase. (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain)

Often the unexpected makes life worth living. Day by day, we roll along acquiescing in the eternal routine that inexorably mashes down time like a rolling pin over muffin dough. Then suddenly a protrusion. Wham! Something interrupts the seemingly unimpediable passage of the inevitable. Pull back the dough. A diamond. A multi-karatted glittering sparkler. Endorphins rush to pleasure centers. Eyes bulge. Tongue wags. Hopefully a full stomach maintains consciousness. If not, then plop and give in to the ecstasy. Such an event doesn't occur often. Something from nowhere has disrupted harsh workaday realities. Hope! Meaning! Such startling events probably filled the lives of Krazy Kat Konnoiseurs the nanosecond their retinas processed this sumptuous delectable volume of Golden Fleece daily strips. And who can blame them? This enormous hardcover coffee table sized miracle delights with every page. And who knew? Fantagraphics spread no rumors about printing dailies, perhaps to keep fans from vaporizing into submissive joy. The cover itself is an aesthetic wonder well worth a few million eye scans. But the strips inside, laid out like billboards two to a page, emblazoned almost in original size, might make some feel like they didn't pay enough for this shock to the system.

Krazy Kat dailies of any kind remain elusive. A few sparse collections exist compliments of Stinging Monkey (who apparently have more installments planned) and Pacific Comics club. Fans of George Herriman's Kat can hope with collective ferocious zeal that this volume presages infinite follow-ups.

Though the subtitle of this collection, stamped across the cover marquee-style, reads "The Panoramic Dailies of 1920," the strips actually date from 1911 to 1921. Three sections trisect the book: "The Emancipated Kat" includes early strips from subterranean Dingbat-era excursions. These reveal a very different Kat and mouse than later evolutions. "The Liberated Kat" jumps to 1914 when Krazy received the blessing of a solo strip extricated from "The Family Upstairs. Basement no more. I am Kat, hear me roar. These pun-filled often self-referential strips display the development of Herriman's new favorite characters. The final section of strips, "Flights of Fanciful Freedom," dives right into the panoramic strips advertised up front. They represent comic eye candy of the highest order. As luscious as the Sundays, only smaller, they reveal the strip in almost full stride. Surrealism and off-frame references abound. Among the works is the much discussed "Poor poor Injin" strip from May 24, 1920. Once again puns and linguistic peregrinations emanate from the text. Ignatz's ubiquitous brick appears with stunning and symbolic frequency. Offisa Pupp and his jail have not yet become mainstays, as they did in the 1930s and 1940s, but themes point in that direction. The quality never staggers. Krazy Kat's reputation heightens with each flop of the sometimes unwieldy pages (prepare ample space for gazing). And if that wasn't enough, a final section reprints the masterful 1922 program of the Krazy Kat jazz pantomime. Given vast space, Herriman's artwork reveals all its subtle beauty and charm. Prepare to be overwhelmed.

So did "The Kat Who Walked in Beauty" interrupt Fantagraphics's ongoing printing of the Krazy Kat Sunday pages? If so, it was worth it. To have numerous dailies spread out like gorgeous landscapes begging for repeated visits will cull any drooling anticipations for Sundays. Let's hope Fantagraphics plans more volumes of amazing Krazy Kat daily strips.

This large format book provides Krazy Kat dailies in nearly newspaper size print. After buying the Fantagraphics sunday series that are available it is interesting to view and read these larger format cartoons. The larger size adds an additional "dimension" that you don't get from the smaller format books. The majority of the book is derived from the series published over 9 months in 1920 with smaller sections from very early days. This is a different Kat than the Krazy Kat of 1920 and later but it helps to show how the cartoon character evolved. Reading this makes me hope Fantagraphics continues to put out more.

Krazy and Ignatz are always fun to read. Herriman's artistic and literary genius shine through. If a person has never read a Krazy Kat compilation, this one is a great one to begin the journey to Cococino County.

This title was my first book of Krazy and Ignatz.I discovered them while researching early newspaper comic strips.I can't add anything new to the praise George Herriman has recieved, but I can tell you I have ordered the other books.I'm hooked!

I've said this before and I'll say it again - Krazy Kat is simply one of the best comics ever produced. It completely smashes the western stereotype that comics are merely "for kids" and are supposed to be predictable, cute, and shallow.

Krazy Kat is not necessarily for kids. Your kids probably won't get it (and if they do, put them in an honors class immediately), though they may find pleasure in the slapstick elements. The strip is based on a bizarre love triangle between a "Kat" (Krazy, whose gender is indeterminate), a mouse (Ignatz)and a dog(Offisa Pupp). The Kat loves the mouse who hates the Kat who is hated by the dog who loves the Kat. I'm sure that was crystal clear. There are many ways to interpret this triumvirate, but I like to think it's about longing or futile and innocent longing and the inevitable obstacles that keep life from being perfect. The only way Ignatz acknowledges Krazy's existence is by throwing bricks at his/her head. Krazy has rationalized this into an act of love, and so pines away for Ignatz to toss a brick at him/herself. Offisa Pupp wants nothing more than to catch Ignatz in the act, and so the battle of good and evil begins with innocence trapped in the middle somewhere. An act of love then negates another perceived act of love. The strip is easier to experience than it is to explain (as you've probably just noticed).

This is yet another GREAT release from Fantagraphics. The graphic design on the cover and throughout is wonderful, and there are interesting and amusing "bonus materials" inside.

One of the "bonus" articles talks about the change in American humor away from slapstick and surreal humor towards more of a post-vaudeville early Bob Hope style of comedy. It was during these years of transition that Krazy Kat fell out of favor with the public at large, but William Randolph Hearst (yes, "Citizen Kane") loved the strip and demanded that it stay in the papers. His editors pleaded with him to cut it, but Hearst stood by the strip (Herriman also had a lifetime contract with Hearst, according to the article). The article goes into detail on these issues. It is a very good read.

Also, in the back of this installment is a reprint of the actual sheet music for the "Krazy Kat Rag" published in 1911, before Krazy had his/her own strip.

And of course there's plenty of classic full page strips. But be warned! There are no pages missing - many Krazy Kat strips were reprinted on particular dates, and in 1929 the first non-repeated Sunday strip appeared on Februray 10th. This is explained in the back of the volume on the "Ignatz Mouse Debaffler pages" along with some late 1920s anachronisms. So when you turn to the 1st strip in the book, the date will say "February 10th" which is fine. I admit I panicked at first until I consulted the all-knowing debaffler page.

Overall another great addition to the ever growing available collection of Krazy Kat in print. May Fantagraphics continue in pleasing the Krazy Kat freaks (like myself) until every Krazy Kat strip possible has been reprinted. A ba-jillion thanks!

With merely two mute characters and a simple hunter-prey plot, Chuck Jones was able to create a whole bunch of wonderful Road Runner-Coyote cartoons. Decades earlier, with little more in the way of characters or plot, George Herriman was able to write a wonderful comic strip, Krazy Kat. Krazy & Ignatz: A Brick Stuffed With Moon-Bims is the eight collection of Sunday strips from Fantagraphics and covers the years 1939 and 1940.

Although occasionally other characters appear, the core of the Krazy Kat strips is a romantic triangle. The title character (supposedly of indeterminate gender, but occasionally referred to as male, as in the 4/23/39 strip) is in love with Ignatz Mouse; Ignatz's view of Krazy is less endearing as he constantly beans the Kat on the head with a brick. To Krazy, such concussive blows are like love letters. Offisa Pupp loves Krazy and is constantly running Ignatz to jail for his crimes. So that is the basic storyline, repeated in many (though not all) of the strips: Ignatz attempts to bean Krazy, and when successful, attempts to elude the police.

Admittedly, Krazy Kat is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but there is plenty of humor. Its power often comes from its wholeheartedly surreal atmosphere in which the landscape is constantly changing and reality itself seems fluid. If you think Marmaduke, B.C., or the Family Circus are the pinnacle of the comic strip art, chances are you will not find Krazy Kat all that entertaining. For those who demand a little more out of their comics than poorly written, crudely drawn recycled dreck, however (and Krazy Kat has a reputation for being one of the best comic strips ever), this volume again offers something really delightful.

Ever since that historic event on July 26th, 1910 wherein an unnamed mouse "beaned" an unnamed Kat in George Herriman's "The Dingbat Family," an unlikely unreconcilable love has gone unrequited. Somewhere between then and 1940 the Kat fell in love with the mouse. The mouse, with a slight touch of sadism perhaps, grew more and more to savor the tossing of bricks at the Kat's head. Little by little the Kat's non-verbal cartoon responses to these beanings turned from stars of pain into thick, pulsing hearts of love. An impossible love bloomed, a Krazy love. A love between natural enemies, a Kat and a mouse. This irrational and fundamentally flawed comic love came to resemble that often painful and soul-gorging love that vulnerable human beings can experience. The entire comic soon crytallized that nagging and irrational side of the human experience, that mosquito we can't slap, namely, the horrific fact that we sometimes fall hopelessly in love with that which hates us. With that which can never, and never will, return our pining love. But for some reason we cannot stop loving. We then begin to interpret and hope, foolishly, that specific acts the loved object perpetrates are in fact potential signs that reveal a hidden, perhaps unacknowledged, reciprocal love. In such fuzzy states, our wild human brains sometimes interpret insults and negligence as signs of hope. After all, when logic dissipates, abuse trumps indifference, doesn't it? The human condition can sometimes resemble a hammer to the knees. What's wrong with us?

"Krazy Kat," as a work of art, embraces and encapsulates this irrational love. We're not even sure, as longtime readers, whether Krazy is a boy or a girl. Regardless, Krazy continues to love Ignatz unconditionally. Ignatz's singular act of whacking Krazy with bricks metamorphizes into a singular act of love, or so it appears to Krazy's lovesick soul. Ignatz, with a parallel compulsion, loves hurling bricks at Krazy to the point of crazed addiction. Enter the third actor, Offissa Pupp, who patrols Coconino County in the eternal pursuit of sin. Some signs hint that Pupp has eyes for Krazy, so Ignatz's brick tossing arouses the highest contempt within his law-abiding by-the-book being. When caught, Ignatz lands in the ubiquitous jail. But Krazy sighs and romances about the love-brick that bounced off of his/her skull. The law comes inbetween an irrational love. Offissa Pupp thinks he's protecting Krazy from the beast Ignatz, when really he's preventing the one act that Krazy thirsts for day in and day out. Myopic, unknowing law, or, in more general terms, morality, stifles irrational pleasure. This tension never ceases, and it tugs and pulls at our humanity.

By 1940, George Herriman had developed this theme to a level that can only be described as poetry. Such depth of personal expression can unfortunately lead to public neglect, and the final years of Krazy Kat saw the comic's swift decline into obscurity. People don't often look to the comics page for insights into human nature. But in the case of "Krazy Kat" they should have. Unfortunately, the comic was so revolutionary that few probably sensed what was happening on those blanket-sized pages bursting with surreal color and shapes. Readers just wanted a few yuks. Not only that, fewer and fewer people had access to the comic as the 1940s emerged. Thus, at its peak, the comic vaporized from public view. Only Herriman's lifetime contract with Hearst kept it alive in less than a handful of newspapers.

Fantagraphics has also kept "Krazy Kat" alive by publishing this amazing series. Reproduced in full Krazy Kolor, the full impact of these strips explodes on the senses. The September 8th, 1940 strip provides one major highlight. It includes both the classic "zip... pow" centerpiece and the "Mus' be my 'eggo'" panel across the bottom of the main comic. Throughout the quality remains at the utmost. Ancillary characters also appear, most notably Mimi, the French poodle school teacher, who alters the love theme for a short spell.

"Krazy Kat" ended with Herriman's death in 1944. Fantagraphics thus has a mere two volumes to publish to complete a series that has never seen a full reprint. Early on, they also promised to return to the beginning and republish the Sunday panels from 1916 to 1924. These were previously published by Eclipse, but the series ended at 1924. If Fantagraphics succeeds in this endeavor, they will have provided a great service to those who can't get enough of one of the best comic strips ever to grace a newspaper. Roll on.

My comic-book store was a little tardy in getting this to me, not that it really matters when you're talking about a strip as well-aged as "Krazy Kat" was in the first place... Reading these colorful Sunday strips, you'd never guess that the world had been plunged into its worst war during this period. Herriman ultimately did slip a few off-hand references to WWII ("tank" bricks, etc.) into later 40s strips, but the brick-related schemes, alliteration, songs, and strange backgrounds during these dreadful 24 months are pretty much indistinguishable from those seen earlier in the 30s. Editor Bill Blackbeard provides his usual quota of half-insightful, half-doubtful "debafflers" - does he REALLY believe that Herriman's offhand use of the phone number "Coconino 69696" in one strip was a veiled reference to oral sex?? - and Jeet Heer contributes an interesting, albeit poorly proof-read, piece on Herriman's use of color. Essential reading for serious comics scholars.

I bought this for my husband and hoped he would not take it the wrong way. I had read several great reviews of this book. My husband loved it and wants to buy it for a friend who is retiring. He loved the humor.

This book is smart, sophisticated and hilarious!
I bought it for a family member and they loved it. It makes the perfect gift for someone retiring!!

An unlikely topic for humor - hence - very fresh, clever, and funny cartoons. I almost died laughing and am very pleased that each contributing cartoonist was able to rise to the occasion.

Great laughs for the holiday season.

This book doesn't take itself seriously, and it has a lot of whimsy, but it is also packed with little-known facts about left-handedness that will save you from feeling like a klutz or an idiot. Lots of things you don't do well have nothing to do with your dexterity (itself a right-handed word), but rather with the right-hand only design of many products, even gum wrappers! This is a light-hearted, but ultimately very useful and informative book that will help you as a left-handed person to see your true value and your true place in the world. It also includes a useful list of items and activities that are left-hand friendly (like baseball!). Buy it! The price is right (I mean "correct"), and so are the contents.

I bought this book for my left-handed son when he was about 3. He enjoyed reading with me the interesting and humorous anecdotes and facts depicted in it. It is fully illustrated with great drawings on every page to make it easier for kids to follow. I passed the book around to my left-handed adult friends and every single one of them enjoyed it. There are relatively few left-handed books in the market. Though this is not a seriously scientific one, it is definitely worth having in support of the left-handed people in this world. My son is now 7 and he still enjoys reading it from time to time.

James T. deKay's delightful book is a wonderful read for both left-handers and those who live with them. It contains amusing facts and anecdotes about the joys and troubles of living left-handedly in a right-handed world, with amusing illustrations on nearly every page. This is the perfect book for a smile or two, but it is far from substantial. Left-handers will love finding out just how unique - and wonderful - they are, and right-handers will enjoy the insight into a backwards world. James T. deKay has also written "The Natural Superiority of the Left-Hander", "The World's Greatest Left-Handers", and "Left-Handed Kids", if you are interested in further reading.

A wonderful little book, it warps you into another sort of political/sci fi universe, where it makes completely logical sense to space daisies exactly, and to do something about those bipeds that wander around. Sort of like OCD on a cosmic scale (not that I believe in all that...) I had a copy of it years ago, and was happy to find it available.

Do you know someone who doesn't think there's such a thing as too organized? Help them lighten up with this odd, odd, wonderful book.

America's increasingly vivid bureaucratic organizational nightmare is Winn's fodder for laugh-out-loud parody and intricate illustrations that would be perfect mixed-tape covers. If you know George Saunders, PLEASE hep him to this one--it may be hard to find, but EVERY PAGE here is a potential Saunders short.

To be at the top of their game, cartoonists need to be fearless, brilliant and a bit crazy. Callahan is all three. They need to be fearless because they need to feel free to poke their satirical sword at nearly everything and that cannot be done if their concern is over retribution if their sword gores the wrong ox. Brilliance is also needed as a cartoonist has only the image and a short sentence to make the point. Finally, the unusual focus of their brain cells just seems to be an occupational necessity.
The cartoons in this collection make fun of just about everything. My favorites are:

*) A woman asks a man sitting on a toilet and reading a newspaper, "Why do you always have to distract yourself?" His answer is "I have `attention defecate disorder!'"
*) A man is sitting in a dentist's chair and the television displays, "more about Michael Jackson but first this about Britney!" The dentist sticks his head in and says, "Are you numb yet?"
*) A boy is sitting on Santa's lap and his request is "A lucrative rebuild-contract in Iraq!"

Funny, twisted and oh so descriptive of the world we inhabit.

John Callahan is one of the greatest humor cartoonists that I have com across. This entire book (my introduction to Callahan) is filled with hilarious cartoons. If you dont laugh, you either think he's too mean or you just didnt get the cartoon. Amazing guy.

damn johns funny. and i love how his cartoons look like he's dipped a stick in mud and drawn directly onto paper - it distinguishes him from the 'newyorker' clones. fantastic ideas.