In the last few months, I’ve posted a couple reviews at The Comics Journal of books that are simply (or at least, mostly) humorous.
One, “The Success of Failure,” takes a look at Shannon Wheeler’s latest collection, I Thought You Would Be Funnier. Some people (like me) think of Wheeler mainly in connection to his strip Too Much Coffee Man. But now he’s also doing cartoons for The New Yorker — or trying to: this book collects the ones they rejected.
The other review is of the latest Lio collection, There’s Corpses Everywhere. I compare it to the Calvin and Hobbes book, There’s Treasure Everywhere. This isn’t doing Lio‘s creator, Mark Tatulli any favors — but, hey, he started it.
Attentive readers may recall that in January I also beat up on Nevin Martell for his biography of Calvin creator Bill Watterson.
So I both began and ended 2010 with attacks on people trying to follow in the steps of Calvin and Hobbes. There’s probably a moral here somewhere, if we look for it.