Poodle the Other White Meat: A Sherman's Lagoon Collection

Beware! Do not read this book when you are eating or drinking. You will either choke or deliver the contents of your mouth all over the immediate environment.Also not recommended for anyone who has undergone stomach or throat surgery: you will burst your stitches.so what are the rest of you waiting for? Jump in, the water in the lagoon's great -- and it may not be radioactive anymore.

I have been an avid Sunday comics reader and collector of certain strips books and none have tickled me or even made me laugh out loud like "Sherman's Lagoon". I was overjoyed to see that there were two books so far! Can't wait for the next, then I can clean off my kitchen cabinets were I have many taped upon! Another reason I so enjoy this strip is that I grew up reading "Pogo" collections by Walt Kelly at my grandfather's summer place. Next to the lake that was my most anticipated item! "Sherman's Lagoon" carries much of the same type of humor and fellowship that the "Pogo" gang had. Its a new generation piece that I would save for my future grandkids as my grandfather had for me.

Jim Toomey's "Sherman's Lagoon" combines enormous wit and intelligence with hilariously funny drawings. Nobody since Walt Kelly has succeeded so well in putting human expressions on animal characters. Somehow Jim Toomey manages to fit an extraordinary panoply of human situations, common to life in contemporary America, into a very small canvas. There are only a few main characters, sea creatures in a lagoon in Micronesia, but many more pass through the strip briefly, sometimes to disappear into the maw of the great white shark, Sherman, who gives the strip its name, or his wife Megan, distinguishable from her husband only by the necklace of faux pearls around her neck. Only in Sherman's Lagoon will you find a shark wife dragging her reluctant husband to a motivational lecture; an Easter Island-type deity who when asked for advice, tells his hearers to dump their high-tech stocks; or a great white shark singing "La Bamba" at the top of his lungs while using an outhouse.

Clever, insightful, and fun to boot -- Sherman's Lagoon includes a fun cast of characters and a subtle social commentary. At first sight, Sherman's Lagoon may seem no more than an aquatic Garfield, but from Fillmore's dating troubles to the recent cheez whiz spill in the lagoon, there is more than meets the eye! I don't read comics often, but I always remember to flip to Sherman's Lagoon. Thanks, Jim Toomey!

I've only been a Sherman's Lagoon fan for a short while, but already it has become the only other strip besides Peanuts that I make an effort to read daily. Toomey is hilarious, and this is the best cast of characters I've seen since Bloom County. Each strip is hilarious on its own, but in addition this book has a sense of continuity often missing in collections of newspaper comics. My only quibble is that the dates are left off the strips. As a collector I like knowing exactly when something ran. But other than that, this is a superb collection. Now, when's the third book coming out