Flyboy Action Figure Comes with a Gas Mask

Anyone with a sense of adventure should read this book! This as well as Munroe's other two books are three of the BEST books I have ever read!

I picked this book up in the library one day, unemployed and depressed and looking for something fun to read. I didn't know it was going to be THAT fun. Munroe does several things with this wonderful book. First of all, he made me laugh with the unobtrusive but offbeat humor I look for and rarely find in literature often described as "hip." He also totally nails realistic dialogue down for the 90s generation (whether you're "X", "Y", or "conscientious objector" is entirely up to you, if you dislike media labels) without being TOO self-consciously pop-culture savvy. I think if you're going to be pop-culture savvy, it's impossible not to be self-conscious, but Munroe comes closer than anybody I've ever read (or watched on TV or in film). Finally, he proves that it's possible to be politically and socially concerned and still maintain a sense of humor and fun. While the stereotype nowadays is that the two cannot coincide (sometimes they don't, but just as equally they do), Munroe reminds us of the opposite view. The issues are sensitively and humorously explored without becoming especially didactic. I can't end this without praising Jim Munroe for creating Jack and Phil, too of the more amusing roommate characters in modern fiction. "There's a bee in here..." Congratulations, Jim, and keep 'em comin'!

Occasionally a novel comes along that is so compatible with your life... your situation... that it just pours into you like a continuous chug of grape flavoured Kool-Aid. This was that book for me. I read it from front to back without stopping. Munroe successfully captures the setting of urban university life that can most accurately be described here as what the tv show "Felicity" tried to do, but failed (of course that's where the similarity stops). With casual narration and often blunt conversation between characters, he describes people we've known for years, and events that have happened to us. Through all of the crazy, yet somehow realistic Super Hero entertainment, he manages to build an intense and true relationship between the heroes. He is able to fully describe any relationships between Flyboy and the people he knows and meets in a simple sentence, or a clever dialog.While the anti-corporation messages occupy a fairly small portion of the novel, they are incredibly blatant. They are effective, but I think the social commentary could have been toned down and presented more subtly as he managed to do in his second book "Angry Young Spaceman" (which if you haven't read, is also excellent). It just seemed like the character was rambling in a few places.The story that is created here has so much depth that the ending seems to come too soon, like a movie that plants the seeds for a sequel.

I accidentally came across this book in the US, and only realized it was about Toronto (where I'm from) after reading the first chapter.I couldn't put the book down: I read it in 2 days. I identified completly with the life of the character even though only choice elements of his life paralleled my own.I think Canadians in their early twenties would find it hard not to love this book. Anyone in their twenties should be able to identify with it though.The ending was okay, but somehow didn't completly satisfy me as the rest of the book did. In that respect the concept would be perfect for a television series.

This book is worth reading just for the slam against Kafka if nothing else. Munroe has a wonderful narrative voice that I found to be personal, infectious, and dead-on realistic to the voice of this generation. Obviously, this book contains a bit of the unreal, but the topics that are discused are serious issues, and Munroe does a wonderful job of using the fantastical parts of his work to highlight the reality he explores. That his characters, under the guise of superheroes, undertake tasks that many of us, at one time or another, would like to have done, makes Flyboy and Ms. Place true superheroes to be admired. The only complaint I have about this work is that it is Munroe's first, and so far, only, work. I look forward to reading more by this unusual Toronto author.