The Non Sequitur Survival Guide for the Nineties

The best cartoonists are right about their subject matter yet make it appear simultaneously bizarre and normal. Wiley is one of the best, as can be seen from this collection. My favorite is a three-caption cartoon that has a man sitting at a bar with two women a couple stools away. He tells the bartender, "But I've always been my own worst critic." The women turn their heads and with smiles on their faces the closest one asks, "So... You've never been married?" Wiley satirizes all aspects of life in the nineties, from those fed up with the world to people trying a new and unusual way to cope with a common situation. Death, taxes and many not so inevitable situations in between are covered, and this is literal. One caption has a funeral where the headstone says, "I thought it was death or taxes." If life has got you down and you feel the need to fight back by laughing at it, then this is a book for you.

Wiley likes lawyers. Or no, actually maybe not. It's interesting to see how much this has evolved into something of a daily New Yorker panel written for the Washington Post from its origins as a relatively (logical.. pro-sequitur?) series of little picture stories played out in the Sunday papers. I remember when the life cycle of a mosquito (or dragonfly, or just bug?) was first printed. Interesting to note he draws all his dailies twice (long and square formats) and I think maybe some of the Sunday panels too. It's worthwhile to check out Homer and Danae as well, but expect to do a lot more thinking. Those strips harken back to the days when people used to READ the comics. I think I might use that line in another review now.

This book is incredably funny. It will make your day.

This is my kind of humor - often reminds me of G. Wilson (Gaham - sp?) style... I want to buy a collection of his "Homer" adventures. Wiley, you're a genius!