If My Dogs Were a Pair of Middle-Aged Men by The Oatmeal/Matthew Inman

I’ve always been a fan of The Oatmeal so I had very high expectations for this little book, which weren’t entirely met.

Matthew Inman tends to go one of two ways with his comics – hilarious or profound. This one was ‘quite funny’, it does what it says on the label and the illustrations are as amazing as you’d expect so I would have loved it if I didn’t know he could be so much funnier.

All that being said, I would absolutely buy a copy of this as a coffee table book for guests to enjoy!

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Fowl Language: The Struggle Is Real – Brian Gordon

Release date: October 10th 2017

Hehehehehe. This was amazing.

Gordon manages to convey the majesty, love and ridiculousness of parenting in this book. I love the illustrations of a duck being driven insane by his ducklings, with the occasional sweet panel of how much all the madness is worth it just to have a cuddle.
If it teaches you one thing: you need a sense of humour if you’re going to get out of parenting with your sanity intact.

 

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Lies We Tell Our Kids – Brett Wagner

Release date: 20th February 2018

Refer to my last sentence for the above review: ‘you need a sense of humour’… I was expecting this little book to be full of really sweet and funny anecdotes about the lies people have told their children, along with accompanying child-friendly illustrations.

What I got was a picture of a rabbit messily eating a human finger and a load of ‘meh’ lies that have presumably been told to children. There’s no doubting the talent of the illustrator, but I think that this book missed the mark where it comes to choosing its audience.

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The Little Red Wolf by Amelie Flechais

Release date: October 3rd 2017

 

EEEEEE!!!!! This book was so beautiful and sweet, I fell in love with it.

The illustrations. The illustrations alone were a thing of beauty – the style is so unique, with amazing use of colours that it was a delight to look at. I definitely see myself buying a print copy of this, just so I know it’s safely tucked up in my bookcase.
The story itself is something special too, a retelling of little red riding hood (could you guess?) that takes a completely different turn that I didn’t see coming. It’s similar to a traditional fairytale in that it carries a moral message while leaving you slightly confused as to what it is.

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I’m really enjoying going back to my roots and reading more comics again, I’ve always been a huge fan of anything with illustrations – comic strips are the perfect way to express something profound in a simple way. As Einstein said: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.

Yep. I’m the insufferable person who just quoted Einstein in a blog post. Let that sink in.