1. Lindsey Hallgren
2. “The Book of Grickle” is a short graphic novel of two-hundred pages. The book is comprised of mini comic strips. The characters switch throughout the book between many people. There is no main or specific character in the book, but more of the people in this place called Grickle. Graham Annable makes the comics funny but also relatable to real life instances. The first comic in the book is called “Commercial Success.” It compares different brand preferences between people in a humorous way. “Walk-In” was one of my personal favorites. It’s about a man, Billy, who goes to a walk-in clinic when he has a terrible cough he cannot get rid of; most people are able to relate to his experience. “Articulate Conception” is about a man writing about a woman who he is in love with from afar. The next comic is called “Dead Weight.” Tom and his friend want to go to a party but do not have a ride. Instead of taking the bus, they decide to get a ride with Danny. Danny is more like the annoying friend that everyone has. He tends to embarrass them by the things he says. On the way to the party many mishaps happen, making you wonder if they will ever make it to the party anyways. “Misery and His Company” is about a grandpa who is going to die soon. His grandson Billy is there to keep him company, along with his friend Sam. The only problem is the children make the grandpa more miserable by being there until he tells Billy something to scare him off. In “Futile Space” Johnson, Smith, and Davis are astronauts on the moon. “Decency is about Bobby throwing rocks at a frog. His friend Tony would not do it, until Bobby justified that they had to put him out of his misery. When the frog finally dies Bobby was ready to leave and go to Jimmy’s. Tony has more of a sensitive side for the poor frog and instead buries the frog. “Old Man River” is about a town flooding. “Fishing Trip Johnny and Timmy are out ice fishing. When nothing is biting Johnny tells Timmy he is leaving to another dimension. The comic starts to get more geometric shapes in the dimensions, then it switches to abstract. At the end it gives definitions of things like knees, knowledge, people, etc. Meanwhile Timmy started catching a ton of fish. “The Bomb” is about Tom’s car breaking down and Bobby comes to find him. Then Bobby tells Tom some very big news he did not know. “Love Monster” was a funny comic about a man at a restaurant. The waitress is nice to the man, making him question maybe she likes him, or has been watching him. The he starts thinking about love and the right person, making him run out of the restaurant. The waitress comes back and says “That cheapie didn’t leave me a tip!” The end makes me laugh and think of people who miscommunicate feelings between friendliness, crushes, and love. “Photo Opportunity” is about a man at Bobby’s Burger Lodge taking tons of pictures of himself. He then notices another couple is extremely bothered by two other men smoking in the lodge. When nobody does anything about it the man decides to, which may or may not have been a good idea. “Sea Life” is about an average man who went fishing and felt miserable about it, so he decided to throw himself into the lake. Then a sea woman saves him and teacher him the sea life. “Slight Aberration” is about a man who does not realize he may have accidently committed a crime. “By necessity is the longest mini comic strip in the book. Todd is the main character who recently started living with his girlfriend, Sharon. She has a dog named Billy Joel, who is very hyperactive. Their neighbor Mrs. Anders is always worried that Billy Joel is going to eat her pet wombat, Cheeves. Every time Billy Joel gets let outside he tries to play with Cheeves. Mr. Anders says she will sue if Billy Joel hurts Cheeves. When Todd tells Sharon about this he is worried since Todd is between jobs. Sharon mentions him moving to Pillsberg with her. Instead he makes excuses about not finding a job there and how big of a change it would be. Then he realizes they left Billy Joel outside. When they open the door they find Cheeves dead in Billy Joel’s mouth. The question of the ending is will Mrs. Anders find out Billy Joel killed Cheeves and will Todd move to Pillsberg with Sharon? “The Sound of Paste” makes fun of how loud toothpaste is when you squeeze some out. The last mini comic in the graphic novel “The Book of Grickle” is “Wee Man.” This mini comic is about a man finding a wee man in his car one day. The wee man did not seem threatening so he took the wee man to his house. At the house all the wee man would do is draw, shower, and eat cupcakes. Then the wee man stopped drawing. One morning the wee man drew a picture of his home and showed it to the man, and the man knew he had to take the wee man back to his home.
3. The comic use a digital or computer tools with an ink medium and is two dimensional. Most of the comic is dark ink is used but they do not shad in everything in. Only some are shaded. Also dots are used to help form the picture. The cartoons look as if they are sketched and are not geometric. It is also dreamlike or surrealistic art opposed to naturalistic. The comic is a combination of word specific and picture specific. The author uses some forms of narcissism as well.
4. I think the author wrote the book to relate to real life experiences but try to add the comedy to it. Since not everyone has the same view the author may be causing the reader to think about something in a new way. He reveals and some people may say contradicts the truth through his comics. The artisit did this in “The Sound of Paste.” The author wants you to enjoy the books humor and reveal the truth about things.
5. “The Book of Grickle” is similar to other comics I have read. The humor in the truth of reality makes his book stand out. I finished the book easily because it was hard to put down. It was so easy to read and most of the time I found myself laughing or relating to the authors story. I really enjoyed how his pictures were sketched. The character’s eyeballs are drawn to a bigger scale and pop out to me, making it interesting to look at. When I signed up for this graphic novel I did not know what to expect it to be like. When I saw the cover of it with just the characters drawn on it was hard for me to predict what the book would be. I think the form and style synchronizes well with the content or meaning. The flow, transition, and layout of each mini comic were very smooth. Switching from comic to comic was not smooth because the characters and ideas change.
6. The author does not have a huge weakness. Some readers will not find a weakness. Although in my opinion a few of the mini comics were not as good as the other ones. Some were not relatable and not as funny. If I was the artist I would have picked possible a controversial topic to bring the truth to. I think more critics are on the story telling in only some of the mini comics more than the drawings in the book. It would be more on the plot. Also I feel the author could have made more creative name or gave names to all the characters in the book. On the front cover the author uses color of blue and white but inside the book no other color besides black, white, and gray. I think the author could have chosen to use colors, not so much on the characters but their clothing. I think the colors could had made certain characters less similar and more distinct. Annable does make each character look different but they also have many similarities.
7. I would recommend this book to anyone around the age of eleven and up. As long as you can read and comprehend a book then “The Book of Grickle” is for you. It has no specific gender because it has nothing extremely offensive towards gender. Since I bought the book, I would allow my brothers to borrow it to read. I think they would appreciate it since they have the same type of humor as the author of this book. I think my parents would enjoy the book as well. They enjoy reading the comics in the newspaper. Everyone will always have a different sense of humor so it is hard to say who may not enjoy the book. People with no sense of humor may not enjoy the book, as well as people whose humor is too extreme. Nothing in the book makes me feel uncomfortable, which is the main reason I feel I can have such a large range of people I would recommend the book to.
8. Another book you may enjoy by Graham Annable is “Grickle” or “Further Grickle.” “Grickle is an edgy and emotional comic book.“Further Grickle” relates to “Grickle.” It is hard to give a complete summary since it has mini comics, but the reviews seem to show they have the same style.
9. I would give “The Book of Grickle” 5/5 stars. This was a very quick read and was hard to put down and easy to pick up. I enjoyed re-reading it for the project. The stories were very humorous and the pictures were interesting to look at.
10. Here is my extra credit picture I created based on the book. I used a special effect on my camera to create a cartoon version of myself.
