Last November, I read and reviewed How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You. It was the second collection of off-the-wall web comics by cartoonist Matt Inman based on his website: The Oatmeal. I thought that book was the most brilliant thing since Gary Larson's The Far Side. It had zany, unexpected panels of comedy. There were listicles of how to's about unusual circumstances like you might see in a MAD Magazine. And it was thought provoking and entertaining while using pop culture in an irreverent way similar to Adult Swim's Robot Chicken.
Thus, in early May, when I found another collection from The Oatmeal for only a dollar, I immediately put it in my to buy pile of books. 5 Very Good Reasons is Inman's first collection of bits. I would have to say that the humorist is still trying to polish things in this volume. Compared to Plotting to Kill You, this batch of material was much more crude, with tons of penis and testicle jokes. The F-word was used to near Tarantino levels at times. And quite a few of the strips ended with someone being mauled by a bear. Often for no reason except to end the skit.
As unrefined as I found this book, I still got some laughs and enjoyment. Inman's essays on how to use apostrophes and the correct usage of words were both educational and wacky. His primers on the correct way to use English when writing should be the model for how we teach grammar in school. I felt that Inman's ability to help readers learn by the use of absurd statements was the type of learning that anyone could relate too. In fact, I've actually been able to reflect on some of those tricky grammar rules thanks to what I learned from The Oatmeal as opposed to years of schooling.
I'm going to chalk the flaws in this book up to inexperience. I think Inman had some great ideas about where he wanted The Oatmeal to go. But at this early stage of things, he hadn't quite perfected his recipe. It's like the first season of NBC's Night Court. The light of the sets was too dim. Some of the actors hired weren't the right fit. Plus Dan Fielding was too much of a gentleman and Bull the Bailiff wasn't enough of a mutant. But once the show added Mac and Christine to the line-up and switched from video to film (or vice versa), the show really gelled in a comedy that is beloved by generations.
I think that is what is happening with this book. While I don't plan on keeping this one, I will be on the look out for the other 7 editions of material from The Oatmeal. I just hope that those future volumes have an easier way of reading the included bonus posters without having to tear them out of the book!
Rating: 6 out of 10 stars
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