Books about Comics

Perhaps the most famous cat in the world, Garfield delivers in this book. This is a collection of past Garfield comic strips with the cartoonist Jim Davis explaining some of his decision making process. Davis has a different idea about commercialization than Watterson (of Calvin and Hobbes) and he makes a compelling argument.

Garfield, as usual, torments his owner and everyone who comes in his path. There is lovable Odie. There is the gluttony and mad rushes at lasagna. There is Garfield's laziness which results in the audacity of the mice in the house. And finally Garfield's terrible singing on the fence in the wee hours of the night.

Tags: comics humor

Calvin and Hobbes is among my favorite comic books, up there with Tintin and Asterix. This particular edition is more than just a collection of comic strips. Bill Watterson explains some of the background stories and considerations behind some of the more popular and controversial strips that he created. He also reiterates his commitment to keeping Calvin and Hobbes free from being commercialized.

Tags: humor comics

The first 2 years of Peanuts strips and a collector's dream. The book also has a short biography of Charles Schulz, an interview with him and an excellent essay on the influence and reach of the Peanuts strip.

Tags: humor comics

Business management through humor. Almost everything that Scott Adams writes can be found in real life - the clueless managers, the cliched mission statements, the unrealistic deadlines. There is a judicious selection of Dilbert cartoons sprinkled throughout the book. Many aspects of the operations of a company (marketing, sales, management) are viewed through the eyes of sarcasm. It is unfortunate that Adams is so close to the truth, but that is the reality.

Tags: humor comics

An unlikely book and a work of love. The author explores the antics of his favorite super heroes through the eyes of a physicist. What superpowers are possible given what we know about physics? And what super activities are inconsistent within the context of accepting the miraculous nature of the superpower. A really fascinating book. I deducted one point for the book being somewhat tedious in middle, but overall a worthwhile read.

Tags: science physics comics

The horrors of stupid management! Scott Adams goes into the brains of incompetent managers and their evil schemes to exploit workers. Fun, even though the book never reaches the audience (managers) it should.

Tags: humor comics

A book of cartoons on aging, retirement and death by different artists. Reasonable good set, considering the sombre subject. The compiler of the cartoons also added several pages of Q&A from the cartoonists, some of which were interesting, but perhaps could have been avoided to have more cartoons instead. Anyway, it is a quick fun read. So no harm done.

Tags: comics humor

A fun book comprising of short pieces of writing from the author about his comics, ideas, opinions, various incidents and everything in general. Some thought-provoking ideas here and there, but mostly it is nothing more than a pleasant way to spend some time.

Tags: humor comics

A wonderful short book that details the world of comics in countries around the world. It is packed with several illustrations of comics from places all over like Japan, Belgium, India, Australia, etc. There are biographies of prominent cartoonists and the history of the cartooning tradition in different nations and regions.

Tags: humor comics

The Far Side comic strips offer alternate views of events and situations. Most commonly, Larson uses animals to present his thoughts and views. The humor is rather uneven: there are some hilarious ROTFL-type cartoons, while others leave you scratching your head. I suppose the range of situations that Larson uses for his comics is one factor causing the inconsistent feel.

Tags: humor comics

Oh, well! Once you read one book by Scott Adams, you have read them all! I don't mean it in a bad way. It is an enjoyable way to pass your time and if you are reading a Dilbert book for the first time, you might just be mistaken that it is a classic! But after reading several Dilbert books, I cannot find anything new to say about this particular book.

Tags: comics humor

This comic strip book is about the Nixon-Agnew years. Some of the jokes are funny, I guess. But definitely outdated, especially with Nixon's resignation. Oliphant also seems to be verge ever-so-near into racial caricatures. I suppose I should try some of his more recent books.

Tags: humor comics

For those who have seen the movie (that includes me), the book holds little surprise. I didn't like the movie very much and the book didn't do much to improve matters. I suppose the reason is that the plot plays out as a Greek tragedy. We know where the story is headed towards and are passive observers instead of being drawn into the minds of the characters.

When you write a story with a narrator, the narrator changes the perspective of the story. It changes our attitude towards the characters. It also prevents us from understanding the motivations of everyone except the narrator, who has to take guesses at them. And it hides certain events unless the author uses some other mechanism (like newspaper stories or second-information) to reveal that to the reader.

There are excellent novels that have narrators, but "Road to Perdition" is not one of them. It keeps its main character, Michael O'Sullivan, at arm's length when the reader should really be involved with his grief, suffering and anger. The death of Michael's family happens for very clumsy reasons: the crime mob's reasons should have been stronger to take such drastic actions. There is too much action and too little pause for thought and story development. A disappointment.

Tags: comics fiction