A quirky guide to love as shared by an egg.
In this brief, silly collection, Gudetama, the lazy egg of Sanrio fame, rolls around (slowly), shows its little eggy booty (slowly), and reluctantly doles out dating advice with its buddy Nisetama (slowly).
In a series of comic strips, Gudetama advises people on how to move forward in their relationships. The comedic timing works in the majority of the strips; the remainder are confusing, nonsensical, or just plain not funny. The clean, colorful, and dynamic drawings successfully and concisely explain the arcs and feature just enough of the lazy yet provocative egg to satisfy fans. However, the drawing style veers young, as it is similar in style to that used for Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters popular with younger audiences, while the strips themselves clearly feature older teens or adults in older teen or adult situations. This collection would be best for committed Gudetama fans, as others may find it a difficult entry point for appreciating a pantsless egg that talks to humans. This collection would also appeal to fans of “Neko Ramen,” the ridiculous manga about a cat that makes ramen badly...because it’s a cat. The final pages include Clark’s guide to the making of the book. Human characters have a range of skin tones, including ones not found in the real world.
A quirky guide to love as shared by an egg. (Graphic fiction. 16-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62010-728-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Oni Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Katchor’s wry humor and unique view on the subject are well worth exploring.
The four-year collection of a visionary polymath’s cartoons about urban living.
These delicately constructed, one-page epics originally appeared between 2008 and 2012 as the back page of contemporary design magazine Metropolis. As written and crafted by Katchor (The Cardboard Valise, 2011, etc.), these “picture-stories” are funnier, more interesting and more focused than some of the artist’s other graphic novels. Some of the most imaginative stories involve buildings with peculiar characteristics—the shoe-fitting bench in “The Symbolic Building,” or “The Souvenir Museum,” where a single souvenir is offered for sale in the gift shop. The drawings are spare, and the humor is arid, particularly in the stories about architecture and the way we engage with urban corridors. In “Behind Sty Center,” a lively row of small businesses is wiped away to the desolate blankness of a visual vacuum. “Three hundred feet from the entrance to a mixed-use entertainment complex, two tourists die of boredom,” Katchor deadpans. Still others delve into the psychological effects that design can effect. “Aisle Lights” laments the wanton use of electricity that stems from our increasing consolation from the warm glow of electric light. “Crowd Control” explores that delicious pleasure that stems from ducking a velvet rope—“The physical expression of our free will,” Katchor’s Everyman dubs it. Many others are simply very funny exercises in satire, such as “Under the Bed,” which illustrates the old urban legend about the famine of rental space in our metropolises. Sure, the subject matter can be a little dry, particularly for those who don’t harbor a secret passion for urban planning and product utility.
Katchor’s wry humor and unique view on the subject are well worth exploring.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-307-90690-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
Intermittently engaging, but there are more questions than answers here.
In this graphic memoir, a Midwestern preacher’s son loses his faith and discovers art.
Both the style and tone of this coming-of-age narrative sustain an engaging naïveté, even as the young son who is the author becomes a father himself, and the deceptively simple story encompasses three generations of male Browns, who may or may not discover the answers to life’s biggest questions in church. The creatively prolific Brown (Funny Misshapen Body, 2009, etc.) has extended his talents into film, animation and broadcasting (on NPR’s This American Life), and he also teaches comics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Yet there is nothing artistically flashy or academic in this understated, matter-of-fact memoir, which begins, in darkness leading to a glimmer of light (over six large panels): “When I was little, I believed in God. At least I think I did. At some point I realized that I didn’t believe. And I hadn’t in a long time. If ever. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe in something bigger than myself.” Such an introduction leaves a lot of open space for interpretation, and the rest of the narrative, in panels not considerably larger than postage stamps, proceeds to fill in some of it, though by no means all. It’s a story of church, camps and missions, then college, art, museums, sexual awakening and fatherhood, where a son might receive different answers than the father, who is the author, received from his own father. Brown dedicates the memoir to his father and son, and love for both permeates the pages, where epiphanies are small, revelations conventional, and neither the artist nor the challenges he faces ever seem larger than life.
Intermittently engaging, but there are more questions than answers here.Pub Date: June 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-60309-266-1
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
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