(#49) / Girl Stories / by Lauren R. Weinstein / (Book)

Opening

Bibliographic Information:

Girl Stories / by Lauren R. Weinstein

ISBN-10: 0805078630 / Henry Holt and Company  

p. 240 / $7.18 (Amazon)

2006

Body of Content

Summary: The comic book is a compilation of individual comic strips from writer Lauren Weinstein.  The vast majority of the book contains comic narratives – short humor stories in comic strip form – that might stretch from four to fifteen pages worth of information each.  The artistic style is rather simplistic – with the human faces bearing little difference between people.  The style of the comics, thus, contains a sketched, draft intentionality by the author.  The comics are in color – but the shading and tonality of the hues differs from one story to the next.   Overall, the book offers over 35 comic stories – stretching over 240 pages.  The basis of the comic series is the adventures experienced by the self-portrayed author at a younger age – as she relives 8^th grade and high school experiences – centering on teen issues like relationships, school work, interactions with her parents, and general experiences endured by teenagers. 

Critique: While some comics rely on puns or physical comedy, Girl Stories fully embraces the awkwardness of the teenage years in a person’s life.  This is painfully evident as the author discusses relationships with boys.  In one comic, the author writes about an awkward breakup experience – deciding to end the relationship – after returning from a visit to Washington D.C.:

            Lauren: “Well, I got a present for you, too!”

            

            Boyfriend: “A bag of dirt!?”

           

            Lauren: “Yeah, like soil from our nation’s capital!”

            

            Boyfriend: “Oh.”

           

            Lauren: “Um, I think we should just be friends.”

Boyfriend: [turning as he leaves, says] “I can’t believe you gave me a bag of dirt and then broke up with me!”  (pp. 167-168)

From covering up hickey marks after a “math study session” to enduring secret rashes caused by belly-button piercings, Lauren goes through the tumultuous teen years – trying not to die of embarrassment.  In another comic, frustrated by lack of success with boys, Lauren creates a home-made boyfriend from various household items:

            Robot Boyfriend: “Lauren, I am sexually attracted to you, may we kiss?”

            Lauren: “Yes, Robot Boyfriend, yes!”   … [Wait] … “STOP!”

            Robot Boyfriend: “What is wrong? Do you need space?”

Lauren: “No! I just don’t want to make out with someone whose tongue I made with a remote control!”   (pp. 222-224)

Lauren stumbles through the awkwardness of life and relationships.  Her teen audience can likely sympathize with her ordeals – given similar experiences that likely reside in their own personal backgrounds.

Teaser: Life is strange – and these stories are full of both life and strangeness.

Information about the Author: The 36-year-old cartoonist hails from Brookline, Massachusetts.  Educationally, she graduated from Washington University (St. Louis) before settling in New York City around a decade ago.  Her comic strips first appeared online – through gURL.com, along with Seattle Stranger.  Weinstein pick up a Xeric award – for her comic strip Inside Vineyland – an award given to non-mainstream comic artists.  Her next project was the aforementioned Girl Stories.  Over the last five years, her work has also fared in compilation books – The Best American Comics (2007 and 2010 editions).  In her personal life, Weinstein also dabbles in a rock band – as the lead singer to Flaming Fire – a band that has released three albums over the last decade (Wikipedia, 2011). 

Supplemental Material

Genre: Comics / Humor / Drama / Romance

Curriculum Ties: Art Class – drawing techniques, narrative writing

Booktalking Ideas: 1) If you think Weinstein’s humor is a little bit strange, her music is beyond description! 2) Relive the awkwardness of various romantic first-times.

Reading Level: The book probably has more of an interest from females – given the angle of the comics.  Reading level extends to all high school grades – i.e. ages 15-18.

Challenge Issues and Defense: The comic has some suggestive humor, along with some romantic/sexual situations.  The book is not horribly crass – but librarians should be aware that it is not squeaky clean.

Personal Reasons for Inclusion: I wanted a humor genre source from a female perspective (for the sake of balance).

Last Thoughts

References:

Wikipedia. (2011). Lauren Weinstein [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/Lauren_Weinstein_%28comic_book_artist%29

Listening to (Music):

Artist – Joy Williams / Album – “Genesis”  

(#34) / The Ninth Garfield Treasury / by Jim Davis / (Book)

Opening

Bibliographic Information:

The Ninth Garfield Treasury / by Jim Davis

ISBN-13: 978-0345416704 / Ballantine Books

p. 120 / $11.21 (Amazon)

1997

Body of Content

Summary: The book is a compilation work – of Jim Davis’ famous comic strip.  With the beloved feline at the helm, The Ninth Garfield Treasury follows the cat adventures of the title character and his master, Jon Arbuckle.  The duo is joined by Arbuckle’s pet dog, Odie.  The book is presented in full color – with six frames generated for each individual comic strip.  The book continues some of Garfield’s center themes – the cat’s love of food, naps, and insolence – Odie’s blind allegiance and non-speaking roles – and Jon’s attempt at finding romance.  Other standard themes emerge – like Garfield’s displeasure against spiders – and odd interactions with neighborhood dogs. Overall, the book offers the signature style of Davis – quick, narrative humor with minimal dialogue spoken between characters.        

Critique: I wrote comic strips for school newspapers in college and graduate school – and I can speak from experience that the craft of writing plausible dialogue is difficult – mostly due to the space limitations – for space is, indeed, limited.  In the cartoon strip business, rarely do readers see a frame within the comic where the dialogue exceeds 20 words.  Now, I have seen some horrible comic strips – particular some local entries – where the writer basically performed a data-dump of information.  When a readers starts to see 30-40 words in a frame – the reader can decipher the cartoonist for a novice – or the benefactor of nepotism.

What sets Davis apart from both novice and professional cartoonists is his narrative simplicity.  Davis can deliver a punch line with just a handful of words. Now, part of his scheme is geared towards placing his characters in moving actions – from one room of the house to another – and in this way, Garfield has an action-feel to it – with some levity supplied by physical comedy.

But the hallmark of Garfield is his simple prose – and quick exchanges between Garfield and Jon Arbuckle. Consider the following exchange:

            Garfield: “Sigh …” [Garfield stares out a window]

            Jon: “Pretty dull, huh?” [Jon joins him]

            Garfield: “I’m gonna try another window.”

Jon: “Any better?”

Garfield: [Looking at the same scene, of a circus walking down the street] “… Not really.”

                                                                                                                          (1997, p. 73)

Or consider a similar methodology in another entry:

            Jon: “Garfield!”

            Jon: “Dinner!”

            Garfield [Scooting lazily towards Jon]

            Garfield [Opens mouth – points for Jon to pour it in, while still reclining]

            Jon: “You are incredible.”

            Garfield: “First food, then compliments.”                                                   (1997, p. 103)

Davis has an artistic knack for sparse dialogue that still communicates a comedic delivery.  Such an approach is subtle in wordplay with a higher difficulty for pulling off effectively.  While other comics feature reasonable amounts of dialogue – often contained in sentence-long elaborations – Davis finds a way to say the same amount of verbiage is fewer words. Again, as a novice cartoonist myself, I marvel at Garfield – at the craft of saying more by saying less.     

Teaser:  This compilation work follows the humorous interactions between Garfield, Odie, and their owner, Jon Arbuckle.

Information about the Author: Davis was born in Marion, Indiana – living on a farm – where his parents also raised Angus cows.  As an adult, Davis studied at Ball State University – pursuing courses in art and business.  He broke into the comic business by working with Tom Ryan, who penned the Tumbleweeds strip.  Davis would seek to launch out on his own – and he noticed an absence of cat-themed comics, though many comics revolved around dogs. Garfield hit a handful of newspapers in 1978 – and grew throughout the 1980s.  Currently, the cartoon strip is syndicated in over 2,600 newspapers – making it the most widely distributed comic (Paws, 2011).

Supplemental Material

Genre: Humor / Compilation

Curriculum Ties:  Art Class – drawing techniques, dialogue, writing jokes 

Booktalking Ideas: 1) How has Jim Davis found the hearts of America readers? 2) How does Garfield as a character compare to other adaptions of felines within comic strips?

Reading Level: Garfield is for younger teens – 13-16 mostly.  Adults may side with Jon Arbuckle – but teens register with the lead character – who embodies the stereotypical “teen laziness” in cat form. 

Challenge Issues and Defense: There really is not much objectionable material in Garfield.   

Personal Reasons for Inclusion: This is one of the few newspaper comics that I read daily while in high school.    

Last Thoughts

References:

Paws, Inc. (2011). Garfield: Behind the comic [Webpage]. Retrieved from

http://www.garfield.com/about/jim.html

Listening to (Music):

Artist – Soundgarden / Album – “Down on the Upside”   

(#27) / The Far Side Observer / by Gary Larson / (Book)

Opening

Bibliographic Information:

The Far Side Observer / by Gary Larson

ISBN-13: 978-0836220988 / Andrews McMeel Publishing

p. 104/ $9.99 (Amazon)

1987

Body of Content 

Summary: The Far Side is a comic strip that features one-box, one-off entries – as opposed to multi-box, serialized comics like Garfield or Peanuts.  Often, the premise of the cartoon resides below the picture, which helps the reader understand the basic notions, setting, occasion of the humorous attempt.  Larson’s content contains references to pop culture, anthropomorphic assertions, historical do-overs, along with themes of psychology and science. Cartoonist Larson contains his own unique artistic style – particularly with human characters that visually represent an unpolished uniformity to them.  Some cartoons contain only a handful of words; other entries contain a brief paragraph of dialogue.  This particular volume of work is a collection of early comics (more accurately, the eighth collection) from the syndicated series – totaling a little over a hundred individual entries.     

Critique: Many of the comic entries have anthropomorphic notions and dialogue attached to them.  Larson draws animals in human settings – and then he points out the absurd parallels.  One entry has a group of penguins standing around a dead penguin (like at a crime scene) – with a penguin plainly stating, “He’s dead, all right – beaked in the back … and, you know, this won’t be easy to solve” (1987, p. 11).  As a premise, Larson points out the uniformity of penguins (i.e. the indistinguishableness of their black-and-white appearances) and he does so in other comics, too (cf. 1987, p. 53). 

Often, the humor draws parallels between human and animal kingdoms.  For instance, one entry shows a woodchuck staring into an open refrigerator – staring at various sizes of sticks and logs (1987, p. 36) – thus showing the commonality of late-night meals between the species. 

Virtually any animal (snake, shark, chicken, etc.) can serve Larson’s musing.  One cartoon shows chickens standing in a circle around a cooked turkey – with the chickens wearing hoods, only beaks visible – then contains just two words for a premise: “Chicken cults” (1987, p. 91).  In this way, Larson alludes to animals having religious capacities – clearly a human activity – thus an example of anthropomorphism.      

Teaser: “A collection of comics – random and humorous – one The Far Side comic demonstrates that even penguins need their C.S.I. skills – if they’re going to solve this fowl murder.”

Information about the Author: The Far Side is the brain child of Gary Larson – who, now retired, wrote the comic syndicated strip in the 1980s and 1990s.  Over the years, Larson generated enough material for 23 compilation books – selling over 45 million copies.  Although the series ended in 1995, Larson released a compilation calendar (one-comic-per-day) in 2006 that accumulated 3 million in total sold units.  Larson is an animal enthusiast – and contains a fervent belief in the conservation and protection of endangered species – leading him to donate $2 million dollars from the calendar project to a like-minded charity – Conservation International – which protects endangered tigers, elephants, crocodiles, etc. throughout southeastern Asian countries (Weise, 2006).        

Supplemental Material

Genre: Humor

Curriculum Ties: Art – drawing, humor, dialogue  

Booktalking Ideas: 1) Looking for random, cerebral, and/or comic musings? The Far Side really does come from the far side of reality.

Reading Level: The jokes have a certain cerebral quality to them – requiring older teens as an audience – to begin to appreciate them. Best for latter ages (16-19).

Challenge Issues and Defense: Challenges are always possible for humor genre – as a joke may not lend itself to everyone’s social mores, etc.  The comic strip does contain some sexual innuendo – but the language is pretty safe.  The humor genre also protects the work – since works involving satire are often viewed more generously.  

Personal Reasons for Inclusion: A thoroughly funny comic strip, The Far Side is a cult classic.  

Last Thoughts

References:

Weise, E. (2006). Larson is drawn to the wild side [Newspaper article]. Retrieved from

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2006-11-20-larson-cover-usat_x.htm

Listening to (Music):

Artist – Meredith Andrews / Album – “As Long As It Takes”  

(#19) / Dark and Stormy Rides Again: The Best (?) from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest / (compiled) by Scott Rice / (Book)

Opening

Bibliographic Information: 

Dark and Stormy Rides Again: The Best (?) from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest /

(compiled) by Scott Rice

ISBN-13: 978-0140254907/ Publisher / Penguin (Non-Classics)

122 p. / $8.95 (Half.com)

1996

Body of Content

Summary: The creative writing contest is an annual competition, but only a handful of (annual) compilation works appear in print.  This volume received publication in 1996 and represents the fifth inclusion to the print canon (Amazon, 2011).  The premise of the contest revolves around writers attempting to write (on purpose) the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel.  The book is broken into a variety of sub-categories – with dozens of “winners” included in each category.  The sentences vary in length – some of which look more like an opening paragraph.  The aforementioned categories include the labels “Purple Prose” (intended elegance) – “Fabio Had Everything Marissa Had Ever Dreamed of in a Man” (romance) – and “As Warp Speed Rattled the Bridge” (science fiction) (Rice, 1996).  The book makes fun of the British author Bulwer-Lytton, noting that he contained “that rare genius who could extrude instant clichés – expressions immediately stale (Rice, 1996, p. 1).

Critique: The book contains one of the cleverest premises for a comedy work – as intended horribleness is the goal.  Many of the sentences are phenomenal – proving that it takes skill to write such poor literary efforts.

For instance, the following entry flowed from the James Thielman,

“As Sonia entered the ballroom, her despair cascaded to the parquet like ionized salts in a faulty centrifuge, to steal from Tolstoy” (Rice, 1996, p. 9).

Like many attempts at poor beginnings, this example holds two central characteristics, 1) wild similes (“ … like ionized salts …”), along with 2) random inclusions of literary or historical allusions (“Tolstoy”) that are off-topic within the framework of the sentence.    

Many of the entries also have love and relationships as a backdrop, including the following entry from Mike Valcho:

“Allan, who throughout most of his forty years read only children’s stories, found that Mother Goose did not prepare him for his night with Helen who was illiterate, but worldly.” (Rice, 1996, p. 68)

Again, the random craft – of finding a manner to stitch a nursery rhyme author with a person’s casual first date – shows the type of humor offered by the compilation book – often unexpected in content, often humorous in affect. 

Given the literary nature of the book – as it uses, understands, and re-deploys key literary devices and vocabulary – the book could easily supplement a high-school level English class – as the teacher could ask students to find the example of “simile” within the entry – and offer students a chance to write their own version of a simile. Overall, the book is a gem.       

Teaser: “Want to read ‘the best’ of ‘the worst’ literature ever written?  Enjoy a contest like none other!”

Information about the Author: Scott Rice serves as editor for this compilation work.  Rice is a professor at San Jose State University – within the English department.  He teaches a multitude of courses – including courses on Satire, Freshman Composition, and Children’s Literature.  The professor holds a terminal degree in his field from the University of Arizona (SJSU, 2011).

Scott started the contest in 1982, and it has since continued as an annual contest.  The inspired title leads allusion to Edward George Bulwer-Lytton – who wrote the eternal words “It was a dark and stormy night …” – as the beginning to his novel Paul Clifford (Rice, 2011).  The contest deadline is flexible – but it officially (and probably purposefully) coincides with April 15^th – tax day for Americans (Rice, 2011).

Supplemental Material

Genre: Humor

Curriculum Ties: English – composition, literature theory, genre, contest

Booktalking Ideas: 1) If you were to sit down and write the worst opening to a novel that you could imagine of – how would it compare to these entries? 2) What is the backdrop for the contest – why do the individual authors lampoon the allusions to the author Edward George Bulwer-Lytton.

Reading Level: A person must know the English rules to break the rules of English language – and as such, the older high school students could very well read this as a supplemental textbook in an English literature class. Best for ages 16-19.

Challenge Issues and Defense: The subject matter contains some sexual innuendos and some language.  The purpose of the content defuses the situation – somewhat.  The language and content is still within the confines of PG-13 and it should not have any problem residing in a high school library or a public library YA department.  

Personal Reasons for Inclusion: This is an absolutely humorous book – most entries produce at least a smile – several entries could function as a weight-loss, comical-inspired diet. This is a must-read for any high school student who dreams of one day majoring in English literature.  

Last Thoughts

References:

Amazon. (2011). Dark and Stormy Rides Again [Webpage]. Retrieved from

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Stormy-Rides-Again-

Bulwer-Lytton/dp/0140254900/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322544099&sr=8-1

Rice, Scott. (2011). The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest [Webpage]. Retrieved from

            http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

San Jose State University. (2011). English department faculty [Webpage]. Retrieved from

            http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/faculty_Full.htm

Listening to (Music):

Artist – Remedy Drive / Album – “Daylight is Coming”