Review 71: Loads of Cartoons by Nigel Sutherland

Loads of Cartoons
Nigel Sutherland
Copyright: © 2009
$10.26 Paperback
$3.36 E-Book
108 Pages
ISBN: 9781409256946

I’ve always been a fan of the single panel cartoon ever since the days of Larson’s The Far Side.  As a child, along with reading the Sunday comics, the three single panel cartoons in the back of the Parade magazine were also required reading.  Nigel Sutherland, one of the UK’s top cartoonists, is a master at such humor and has collected over 200 of his cartoons in this book published this year through Lulu.

Most of Nigel’s cartoons focus on the baby-boomer generation of married couples….wives going to the beauty salon or out to a restaurant with their husbands.  There are quite a few involving marriage counselors or couples standing at the alter.  A wife and her best friend make sly comments while standing over the husband sleeping in his recliner.  Customers stand at the the complaint desk or in the grocery store making dumb comments…”Is it two for the price of one or buy one get one free?”

Nigel has captured quite a few of those “Duh!” moments that each of us has probably experienced or thought of at some point in our lives, like standing at the ATM machine only to have it laugh at us and say “You want how much?!” or “Don’t spend it all on beer this week!”

Even better, there are some of Nigel’s cartoons that don’t even require words to get the joke across…a clown with over sized shoes waiting in line for a shoe shine, astronauts in space watching mail being dropped in through the mail slot on the door, someone in a theatrical supply store picking up a container of “canned laughter,” an elevator packed full of people in a sardine packing company.

The book is printed in a 6 x 9 size with two panels on each page.  I would have like to have seen this book in more of a square size with only one panel per page.  While the two cartoons on each page don’t relate to one another, I can see where there might be some confusion among some.  Even printing the book side ways as a 6 x 9 with the pages having to be flipped up might add some unique style to the book as opposed to the traditional 6 x 9 format.  But no matter what, the physical book itself does not distract from Sutherland’s classic cartoon style and humor.

Sutherland’s humor is both clean and adult.  There’s quite a bit of “across the big pond” humor that you might find yourself Googling to get his point, but overall Loads of Cartoons is a nice collection of comics for adults who need a laugh. There’s a bit of everything here for everyone to enjoy passing around in the office or to just pass some time on a long trip.

Well done!

Tweet This Post Buzz This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook MySpace Reddit Stumble This Post