Herding Cats: A “Sarah’s Scribbles” Collection (No.
3). By
Sarah Andersen. Andrews McMeel. $14.99.
Fly Guy #18: Fly Guy and the Alienzz. By Tedd Arnold. Cartwheel
Books/Scholastic. $6.99.
Sarah Andersen continues to offer her
skewed and often perceptive take on the life of a modern young woman in the
third Sarah’s Scribbles collection, Herding Cats. Actually, what Andersen –
or her cartoon avatar – mostly herds is her own uncertainties, insecurities and
irritations at the ups and downs of everyday life. Andersen pictures herself as
a big-headed, rectangular-bodied character with huge eyes that are decidedly not anime-like but that are very
expressive. The Sarah’s Scribbles
drawings can include just two panels or as many as seven, depending on what
mini-story Andersen is telling. One five-panel example has her enjoying some
simple, silly things in life, from a flower crown to a choker she thinks is
cute, while outside-the-panel voices criticize everything – leading to a
plaintive, super-bulging eyes comment in the final panel, “I just want to enjoy
being alive.” Another five-panel sequence, “How to Put a Shirt Back When
Shopping,” starts by showing her neatly re-folding the shirt and putting it
back on a pile, only to decide self-consciously, “You ruined it,” followed by
“You ruined everything,” followed by a final panel showing everything
everywhere in flames: “How did you mess up this badly?” This sort of wry
self-awareness permeates Sarah’s
Scribbles. One sequence shows “Present Me” and “Future Me” with a pile of
work between them – until “Present Me” shoves all the work onto “Future Me” and
runs away. On another page, “an old song you used to like” returns to bring
happiness – but turns out to be dragging a gigantic ball labeled “terrible
memories.” And there are several instances recognizing the extent to which both
real and online life seem increasingly unfriendly nowadays: Andersen is happy
and feels “we’re actually making progress” when a character with a U.S. flag
(sort of) for a head mentions “pre-2016” that same-sex marriage has been
declared legal – but then, “post-2016,” a panel shows everything burning and
people screaming and fighting as Andersen cries out, “What is happening?” Elsewhere,
Andersen releases anger that she describes as “petty,” only to find out that it
is boomerang-shaped and comes back three years later to smack into her with
renewed force. The unique style of Andersen’s art makes it amply communicative
with only a few words – which, however, means that the final part of Herding Cats, an extended essay that is
“a guide for the young creative” and has only a few illustrations, is the
weakest part of the book. This is a well-meaning discussion of the importance
of staying true to your creative impulses even if your parents disapprove, even
if Internet trolls try to take you down, even if you self-sabotage by diving
into depression upon hearing one single item of yours described as “bad thing”
when everything else you do is described as “good thing.” But the illustrations
(good thing, good thing, good thing, good thing) are so much better than the
mediocre text (bad thing) that the essay makes it clear, as does the rest of
the book, that where Andersen excels is in visual, not textual communication.
Another character with gigantic, bulging
eyeballs on a disproportionately small body is Tedd Arnold’s Fly Guy, whose
adventures are aimed at kids rather than adults. The latest of them, Fly Guy and the Alienzz, is more
elaborate than many of the earlier ones. Fly Guy and the boy who keeps him as a
pet, Buzz (whose eyes are also huge and bulging), get together to make a movie
using Buzz’s cell-phone camera. Arnold is clever here in showing Buzz doing
things that a young reader of this book could actually do to make his or her
own movie. Buzz shows Fly Guy how he drew three green aliens, “cut them out,
and glued them on sticks, like puppets.” There is a “secret hero fort” made of
cardboard and a “solid-gold spaceship” that is clearly shown to be a flashlight
with cardboard tail fins taped to it. The movie starts with Fly Guy and Buzz
Boy (also cutouts on sticks) captured by the aliens, with Fly Guy escaping as
Buzz Boy is tied up. Then things get complicated as Arnold brings in other
characters – Dragon Dude and Fly Girl – as Fly Guy talks in his usual buzzy
manner (“Oopzz!”). Eventually space pirates steal the aliens’ solid-gold
spaceship, so the aliens are marooned on Earth and decide to become good guys,
while Buzz and Fly Guy are left to think up a movie sequel. This is a lot to
pack into 30 pages, but Arnold does a good job of pacing the story and keeping
it and the characters consistent. There is a lot of Fly Guy material out there,
including fact books as well as adventures with Buzz, and kids who enjoy
Arnold’s characters will appreciate the fact that they stay true to type from
book to book and continue to be amusingly offbeat.
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