ADVENTURES IN CARTOONING

This is a Zen sort of art book. It teaches advanced art techniques while hardly talking about drawing at all.

If the book had an index, there would be entries for “Boat-a-saurus” and “Clown-a-clops” and “Bandit raccoon” and “Witch, 7 years old.” There are more characters on the cover of the book than in some entire novels. The authors write: “…the ones we couldn’t fit INSIDE the book are here, on the back cover!” There’s so much going on in this drawing book that there’s barely any room for drawing tips. Most of the drawing lessons appear between pages 48 and 53. The rest of the book is an adventure story with knights and frogs and, for some reason, a movie director. And yet, the drawing tips are remarkably useful. The authors explain in just a few panels how a peanut shape can be turned into every possible character or personality type. It goes without saying that they draw dozens of sample characters. This is, in short, a very silly book. The About the Authors section takes up two whole pages and contains no information about the authors. But it has a cowboy and a robot and a monster with two heads, and for fans of the series, that will be more than enough.

Hysterical—and useful.