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FUNNY BOOK #1
edited by Eric Reynolds
(
Fantagraphics Books; available soon in the
Poopsheet Shop)
Reviewed by Jeff MasonFantagraphics Books'
Funny Book #1 is one of the better anthologies I've read in quite a while. Eric Reynolds put together a rather good book in which he packed a dense mix of comics that have appeared in print before and of comics previews of upcoming books.
Although the scales tip in the favor of reprinted comics, they certainly don't wear out with age.
Funny Book #1 reminds us why Fantagraphics Books may accurately be described as publisher of the world's greatest cartoonists.
Classy minimalistic Art Direction from Adam Grano atractively supports
Funny Book #1 rather well, with my only complaint being that I didn't care for the starkness of the low-rez black and white character images on the cover.
Eric Reynolds has honed his promotional patter to a high lustre over the years, and his introductory editorial sets the stage for a fast paced and well thought out arrangement of strips.
Chris Ware's "Our Great Book Trimming Machine" makes a grand appearance on the inside-front-cover, but seems not to have merited him a paragraph on the "about the authors" inside-back cover. That omission is a minor quibble — I only have minor quibbles about this very solid anthology. For example, I would have loved to have seen at least a mere tip of the hat to Fantagraphics' great line of classic comic strip collections.
From just the first page, reading again Ivan Brunetti's "How to Draw Cartoons" and "22 Panels That Always Work* (*sometimes)" I was compelled to wallow through Brunetti's website and to sift through the archives of his Doodle-a-Day blog. Peter Bagge's "The Adventures of Bat Boy" lead to a similar digression, this time to the copy of
Hate Annual #5 and
Apocalypse Nerd #1 I purchased on Free Comic Book Day today. As I read, many of the other strips made me start looking through my back issues to re-read some of my favorite Fantagraphics books.
Funny Book #1 as gestalt does exactly what it is supposed to do — it makes us want more.
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