Satire Books

During its short life,the strip "Terr'ble Thompson" ran in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Until now, I was not aware that the strip ended, instead of the PD just dropping it. Hurrah! Now I can read and enjoy the full scope of "TT's" adventures! (In fact, in high school I had a friend whose last name was Thompson and who accepted the nickname "Terr'b" with aplomb, along with some bemusement!) Now I can prove I wasn't imagining things!

I've always been a big fan of newspaper strips, especially when they are collected into one big volume. Now imagine my delight at the discovery of Terr'ble Thompson, a nearly forgotten strip that was well ahead of its time when originally published over fifty years ago. Now, thanks to the good people at Fantagraphics the entire six-month run of Terr'ble Thompson has been re-mastered to its original glory and collected in this beautiful soft cover volume.

Now in truth, the strip was before my time, but the Terr'ble Thompson character would eventually morph into a character that I, and I'm sure many baby boomers were familiar with, Tom Terrific. Tom's animated adventures were a regular part of the Captain Kangaroo show. Tom and his magic thinking cap...boy does that take me back, not to mention age me!

The basic plot around Terr'ble Thompson was that he would have to help out various historical figures in need. These normally found "TT" battling his arch foe Mean Morgan who hated fun and little kids. TT is a rather rambunctious kid, an early forerunner of Calvin from `Calvin & Hobbes" and Jason Fox of Foxtrot. Terr'ble is able to think himself out of any jam it seems.

The storylines were usually played out over a number of days. The first adventure finds TT having to help Christopher Columbus whose crew is on the verge of a "mewt'ny" because they are in fear of a sea serpent. Next, TT has to help Cleopatra (Reluctantly as he doesn't like girls!) when her father is turning into a tree! The people of ancient Egypt are not fond of having a tree for a Pharaoh and want to run him off. Later, Terr'ble has to help out Santa Claus who is now refusing to believe in children because they don't believe in him!

The strips are filled with the kind of word mispronunciations that would make Norm Crosby proud. Creator Gene Deitch was, and still is a gifted cartoonist. His style of cartooning was clean and very angular, similar to the style used by Jay Ward on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show several years later. The strips look absolutely marvelous and as Deitch himself mentions in the introduction, this was no small feat as none of the original strips existed.

Terr'ble Thompson can now take his rightful place as one of the great comic strips and a great piece of 1950's Americana.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

To finally see the complete run of my little known and nearly forgotten
1950s comic strip so lovingly collected, restored and beautifully printed, is one of the great thrills of my life. I hope that all lovers of newspaper comic strips will enjoy what then seemed too far ahead of its time.

There are just a few books a parent needs to read to "do it right." Joan Beck's "How to Raise a Brighter Child" and Prudence MackIntosh's essays in her trilogy of books: "Thundering Sneakers," Retreads," and "Sneaking Out." The MackIntosh books are better than chocolate, whether you have a boy or a girl. And on those frequent occasions when I am at my wits' end and rapidly losing perspective, her books bring me right back. You'll laugh with a lump in your throat the whole way through.

In Thundering Sneakers, Prudence Mackintosh has anecdotally shared her life as the mother of 3 boys in a Texas town with humor and frankness. Mothers of boys anywhere will recognize her stories and grandmothers who have raised their sons will laugh as they remember those moments when they longed for a little girl to dress up. In the days of career women, Mackintosh has made her career writing about what it's like to be a stay-at-home mom, and life with her three boys and her lawyer husband will bring laughter to your heart and tears to your eyes. This is a must read for any woman whose life is made richer, and rowdier, by sons. {Retreads is the sequel -- and just as good!

Prudence Mcintosh is just about my favorite author of all time and this book is the best. She is a real role model for young moms.You will love this book.

Of the three Randy Glasbergen books on cartooning ('Toons, How to be a Successful Cartoonist, and Getting started Drawing and Selling Cartoons) this book seems to offer the most information on how to draw and how to start thinking creatively. It is filled with information and a difinite asset to any budding cartoonist's library. Highly recommended.

Randy Glasbergen's "'Toons" is a basic book for a young novice interested in learning how to draw cartoons, or for a more advanced person who wants to brush up on his skills. Randy teaches the reader, among other things, how to draw funny faces, how to draw bodies and show them in action, how to draw comic animals, and how to do cartoon lettering. What makes this book especially valuable is that much more than half of it consists of illustrations, including Randy's published cartoons, so the prospective cartoonist can study and practice whatever Randy is explaining.

There are six pages alone showing how to draw cartoon hands. As Randy says, "Hands deserve special attention. Hands are a very expressive body part, second only to the face. We use our hands to point, poke, pinch, pull, pick, and punch. Because hands say so much about us and our emotions, it's important to draw them effectively. Here's how:..." And he goes on to show 43 examples.

Moreover, Randy's heads, bodies, hands, animals, and cartoon props are boiled down to basic shapes, such as circles, ovals, squares, and triangles, making it easy for just about anyone to learn to draw them.

I highly recommend this fun-filled book for anyone who seriously wants a firm foundation in how to create cartoons, or even for the sort of soul who finds himself casually but persistently sketching on a restaurant place mat, or doodling while chatting on the phone. Who knows, there might be a latent cartoonist hiding inside you right now.

THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD THAT IF I COULD GIVE IT MORE STARS I WOULD! I would recomend this book to anyone not quite ready for a big company but someone who wants to carton for fun!!!!!!!!

If you wonder about why 1967 had such a load of crappy music, at least until The Piper at the Gates of Dawn came out, Trivial Pursuit will solve this decades-old mystery for you. Read it a chapter at a time and savor its picaresque delights, as the trivia presented complement the madcap comic chase story in its pages. And if that isn't enough, it climaxes with a Shakepearean ending which has everything the producer of Shakespeare in Love said was required for a successful play (except for the dog).

This book has everything. Reading it is like breaking open a pinata chock full of goodies! As soon as I finished it, I went back to page one and started it again!

This book will make you laugh out loud. It has everything a good comic book needs: a political undercurrent, vicious attacks on mediocrity in all its forms, strange references to pop music and pop culture, a band of villains as weird as they are evil, and an intrepid pair of private detectives who are both incompetent and out of place. It really could become a cult classic.

You can get this great book from the Booksource in St. Louis, Mo.

This book is great. For those of us who like interesting/odd actvities, this is THE book. It provides basic and advanced methods for scaleing buildings, exploring steam/drainage tunnels, and other urban activites. Espcially nice is that the book includes sections about what to wear, equipment, and how to deal with people who think your nuts. It's thanks to this book that Urban Exploration and the Infiltartion zine came into existence. Even though it is 10 years old, the book is still very relivent to today. This book is a must... Oh, and sorry for my rampent misspelling.

This IS the book for Urban Adventure. And Yes, it did start a movement, or more properly, collesced a movement of people who were already exploring abandoned buildings, subway tunnels, storm and steam dreains, and labyrithian basement complexes. This is the grandfather of all of the great sites ont he Web today that deal with Urban Exploration and Infiltration.

Strangely, when I interviewed North for an article years ago, he wasn't hung up on urban exploration, per se. He was a real outdoorsy guy who prefered the mountains to the city, climbing a rock face to a building face. For him Urban Adventure was something that provided surrogate outdoor pleasure when he didn't have the time to get away to the wilds.

Urban adventure, as Alan North says, "will change the way you see your urban environment. The structured, asphalt-and-concrete, developed world will become your wilderness playground." North wrote the book on it, The Urban Adventure Handbook (Ten-Speed Press, 1990), the definitive urban adventure "how-to" manual.

An old brick building becomes a cliff face to scale. The clogged rush-hour streets become rapids to navigate on two wheels. A grim steel and glass office building turns into a fortress to penetrate with cunning and stealth. The city sewers are a labyrinth to explore.

Why risk life and limb for adventure? North says it's a "genetic imperative. People want to push. They strive for what's new and exciting. And there is nothing like an adrenaline rush."

"I won't say urban adventure is the greatest thing," North says. "I'd much rather be climbing in the Sierra or hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. I think it's a great thing because it's available."

"There's nothing wrong with spending money for adventure," North says. "It's one of the best investments I can think of. But you don't need to spend the money. You don't need any special tools or shoes or anything. With urban bicycling, for instance, just any old bike will work. One speeds work fine."

It doesn't take much to have an adventure. A good pair of tennis shoes, a flashlight sometimes. A map might help. What else? "Just an attitude," North says. "All you need is a creative view toward the sculpture that is all around you, a few free hours and the will to be an adventurer."

This book languished on my shelf for over a year until I'd had my fill of fiction for a while and turned to Smoke's book as a possible literary escape into the mountains. Ten pages in, I was hooked and the more of it that I read the more I wanted to know. Mr. Blanchard's tales of old-school climbing and mountaineering on Mt. Hood were enthralling. The book goes on to detail his walks, climbs and bicycle rides in the Sierra's, Alaska, India, Japan, and Nepal - among other places. It details his friendship with uber-mountaineer, Norman Clyde and his wanderings with so many notable mountaineers and climbers of the day. His writing style was humble, yet often very amusing, like it seems he himself was. His tale isn't told with the usual balls-out - `We almost freaking died!' inflection that seems to be the trap of many of today's travel/adventure writers. Instead of leaving me breathless, Walking Up and Down in this World left me with a smirking smile and a want to take a week off from work, strap on my crampons, and head up into the winter clouds and snows of the high Sierras. The book is a good read and I highly recommend it to anyone who climbs in the California Sierras, boulders in the Buttermilks, or just want to read about an extraordinary mountaineer and trekker.

Smoke's stories are as amusing and intriguing as his style is at once eloquent and personal. He seems to write, not to tell what he has done, but to recount familiar tales to the curious listener. His adventures in the mountains of California, Alaska, Nepal, and everywhere in between are not told in high-action style. Instead, he enjoys the telling of adventures past and current, inviting the reader to take a hand in the making of their own experiences.

this is quite an adventure for someone who has only hike locally in the Cascade Mountains. It is a great way to relax at the end of the day, after sitting at my desk in downtown Seattle all day. I even find my mind wandering-pretending that I am with Smoke on his advenures. Do yourself a favor and take a hike---with Smoke!

This strip rocks. I shudder to think how much it would mean to me if I were an American baby-boomer university graduate.

I might go as far as saying that since Schulz died, this is the best newspaper strip out there by far, to my taste.

I have been reading Doonesbury since the first book I found in "Shakespeare and Co" in the late 70s in Paris. The latest one about life in college now is great, as usual. G Trudeau should publish more often and his books are hard to find in bookstores this is why Amazon is so useful.

Trudeau is one of the amazing artists, historians, and commentators of our age. Pick up any of his compilations and you get an accurate slice of history and culture from the past 30 years or more. His characters age and grow with the times, and if you've followed them, as I have, over the years you'll start to feel they have a life of their own.

WHAT THE L? is one of the more satisfying books of Comedy that reminds us of the true definition of the term. For centuries Comedy and those who practice it, be they Greek players, court jesters, standup comedians/comediennes, or tabloid philosophers such as Will Rogers, depends on searching for human foibles and folks along the edge or in prominent positions of power and bringing those absurdities into the focal field of the public eye. Comedy's contralateral face is Drama/Tragedy and it is the admixture of the two that creates the pungent dialogue that induces gales of laughter followed by gasps of recognition of truths uncovered.

Kate Clinton is a brilliant mind with a keen gift of finding the words and phrases to defuse popular heroes and heroines and myths and rumors and, yes, intolerable facts. Covering the years 2001 through 2004 she adroitly addresses issues of our government under the reign of King George Dubya and his smarmy court, gay marriage and all the implications of that nascent institution, such famous folk as Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Hilary Clinton, Ellen Degeneres, gay and lesbian comics, global warming, and international political arenas - all with informed skill and fine writing. She makes us laugh with her wit and candor and at times venomous diatribes but she also makes us think (remember 'thinking'?).

Kate Clinton has been the Governor of New Jersey, a columnist for The Advocate, The Progressive, and has been on many talk shows and newscasts. She is a 'Lesbian American', able to speak sensitively for minority groups, and able to inform us on nearly every topic that graces (and gets lost in) the media. She is a true master of Comedy in the ancient sense. And she is just plain hilarious!!! Highly recommended reading ...and re-reading and re-reading. Grady Harp, May 05

In _What the L_, Clinton proves she is a courageous and hysterical smart-a** who is not afraid to take anyone--the W administration, the Catholic Church, the LGBT community-- to task for hyprocrisy. Read _What the L_ and laugh, it may well keep you from weeping the next time you watch the news.

Reading "What the L" is like having Kate in your kitchen, mulling over the most incredible news of the day. If you've ever been in one of her audiences you'll hear her voice, imagine one eyebrow archly raised, pause a second while her words sink in. And then you'll laugh. Omigod, you'll laughandlaughandlaugh. She delivers weapons-grade comedy--for our safety and survival and the defense of democracy.

This book is a lot of fun. It has something for everyone, poignant and hilarious the perfect graduation gift. I give it to anyone I can.

I picked this up at a bookstore. My cousin was going to be graduating, but I wanted to read it before I gave it to her. It has all these really great lines from commencement speeches. A lot of them are funny (Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Conan O'Brien, Kermit the Frog) and it's weird because they're not all by people you'd think were funny, like Kofi Annan and Colin Powell. My favorite advice in the book is from Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, "Avoid jellyfish." I ended up keeping my copy and getting another one for my cousin.

I just got this as a graduation gift and it is so wack. Really funny excerpts from graduation speeches with hilarious illustrations. I plan to put a few on my bathroom wall...if I ever get my own bathroom.

A wonderful collection of quotations by women.

Great Ceasar's Ghost! Roz Warren has scored a huge hit with her new quote book, "Women's Lip." Warren, who edited a groundbreaking and much loved series of women's humor anthologies & cartoon collections (see her "Women's Glib," "Women's Glibber, " &c.), raises the bar here for quote book quality in the spirit of her earlier "Glibquips." If you are the kind of person who usually only buys humor books to give as gifts, do yourself a big favor and pick up a second copy of this one for yourself. Go ahead! You're smart enough, you're pretty enough, and you could use a good laugh! I understand that the earlier titles in the series are coming back into print soon. Hurrah! Did I mention that I like this book!?

This is hella-cool book of quotes from important women through history. I enjoy it and put it to everday use. I recomend this to anyone who is interested in womens studies or feminism.