Book picks similar to
Applicant by Jesse Reklaw


non-fiction
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humor
nonfiction

How About Never—Is Never Good for You?: My Life in Cartoons


Robert Mankoff - 2014
    Never one to beat around the bush, he explains to us, in the opening of this singular, delightfully eccentric book, that because he is also a cartoonist at the magazine he actually has two of the best jobs in the world. With the help of myriad images and his funniest, most beloved cartoons, he traces his love of the craft all the way back to his childhood, when he started doing funny drawings at the age of eight. After meeting his mother, we follow his unlikely stints as a high-school basketball star, draft dodger, and sociology grad student. Though Mankoff abandoned the study of psychology in the seventies to become a cartoonist, he recently realized that the field he abandoned could help him better understand the field he was in, and here he takes up the psychology of cartooning, analyzing why some cartoons make us laugh and others don't. He allows us into the hallowed halls of The New Yorker to show us the soup-to-nuts process of cartoon creation, giving us a detailed look not only at his own work, but that of the other talented cartoonists who keep us laughing week after week. For dessert, he reveals the secrets to winning the magazine's caption contest. Throughout How About Never--Is Never Good for You?, we see his commitment to the motto "Anything worth saying is worth saying funny."

Comic Genius: Portraits of Funny People


Matt Hoyle - 2013
    Granted extraordinary access, photographer Matt Hoyle has captured his subjects in portraits that are works of art in themselves—by turns zany and deadpan, laugh-out-loud and contemplative. Accompanying them are first-person reflections from each of the comedians on life and laughter that always cut straight to the heart of comedy: it's funny because it's true. Page after sidesplitting page in Comic Genius offers prose as engaging as each portrait is memorable. Here, in one handsome package, is the gift of laughter itself. Comic Genius is proud to support Save The Children.

I Only Read It for the Cartoons: The New Yorker's Most Brilliantly Twisted Artists


Richard Gehr - 1999
    For example, did you know that Arnie Levin is a seventy-three-year-old former Beatnik painter with a handlebar mustache and a back decorated by Japan’s foremost tattoo artists?Gehr’s book features fascinating biographical profiles of such artists as Gahan Wilson, Sam Gross, Roz Chast, Lee Lorenz, and Edward Koren. Along with a dozen such profiles, Gehr provides a brief history of The New Yorker cartoon itself, touching on the lives and work of earlier illustrating wits, including Charles Addams, James Thurber, and William Steig.

The Adventures of Barry & Joe: Obama and Biden's Bromantic Battle for the Soul of America


Adam Reid - 2019
    They were asked to take off all their clothes and hold very still in a fetal position until they felt a painful tingling sensation. Then they vanished. They would awake to find themselves apart, and inside their younger bodies—driven to find each other and change history for the better. Their faithful guide on this journey is Samuel L. Jackson, a brilliant actor from the present who appears in the form of an augmented reality that only they can see and hear. And thus, they find themselves leaping through time, striving to right injustice wherever they find it, looking for a world which they can proudly call home.A visual feast that’s both graphic and novel, this book is a love letter to cheesy science fiction and the two men who can still be counted on to inspire us.  Featuring comics produced by Titmouse Inc (Big Mouth, The Venture Bros.), it’s 224 pages of adventure that will melt your snowflake brain and give you hope for humanity at the same time.

A Really Super Book about Squirrels


Graham Taylor - 2003
    How nice it would be, he thought, if that squirrel could be my friend. So he jotted down a few lines to that effect and displayed his creative endeavor on the fridge, which is where his friend Graham Roumieu spotted it. Roumieu illustrated these meandering thoughts and urged Taylor to do more. The rest, as they say, is history. "A Really Super Book About Squirrels" is a quirky little humor book that combines art and words into a collection that will appeal to both the squirrel lovers and squirrel haters among us. It's a tongue-in-cheek tribute to that backyard rodent that we really want to like.

Hit Reblog: Comics That Caught Fire (comiXology Originals)


Megan KearneyAdam Ellis - 2018
    Follow the ups and downs of internet fame, from IP theft to book deals, and all the trials of becoming an overnight sensation after gaining 10,000 reblogs in a single night. Learn about the origins behind the hit comic strips "This is Fine", "All Houses Matter", "No Take, Only Throw", and frequently-viral webcomics such as Owlturd, Cyanide and Happiness, False Knees, and Poorly Drawn Lines. Each of the twenty artists featured includes a biographical intro by award-winning comic artist Megan Kearney (Disney Princess, The Secret Loves of Geek Girls). Hit Reblog includes comics by webcomic superstars: Anelien, Joshua Barkman, Rob Denbleyker, Adam Ellis, Reza Farazmand, Nick Franco, Craig Froehle, KC Green, Ryan Harby, Maya Kern, Fran Krause, Dami Lee, David Malki!, Dave Mcelfatrick, Alex Norris, Branson Reese, Nick Seluk, Katie Shanahan, Brandon Sheffield, Shen, Kris Straub, and Zach Weinersmith, Kris Wilson. Edited by Hope Nicholson of the multi Eisner-award nominated publisher Bedside Press. Part of the comiXology Originals line of exclusive digital content only available on comiXology and Kindle. This title is available as part of comiXology Unlimited, Kindle Unlimited, and Prime Reading with a print version available exclusively through Amazon.com.

Barely Functional Adult: It’ll All Make Sense Eventually


Meichi Ng - 2020
    Prepare to excitedly shove this book in your friend’s face with little decorum as you shout, “THIS IS SO US!”In this beautiful, four-color collection compiled completely of never-before-seen content, Meichi perfectly captures the best and worst of us in every short story, allowing us to weep with pleasure at our own fallibility. Hilarious, relatable, and heart-wrenchingly honest, Barely Functional Adult will have you laughing and crying in the same breath, and taking solace in the fact that we’re anything but alone in this world

Excuse Me


Liana Finck - 2019
    Excuse Me assembles more than 500 of her most loved cartoons from Instagram and The New Yorker over the past few years, in such distinctive chapters as "Love & Dating"; "Gender & Other Politics"; "Animals"; "Art & Myth-Making"; "Humanity";" Time, Space, and How to Navigate Them"; "Strangeness, Shyness, Sadness"; and "Notes to Self." Melancholy and hilarious, relatable and surreal, intensely personal yet surprisingly universal, Excuse Me brings together the best work so far by one of the most talented young comics artists working today.

My Life and Hard Times


James Thurber - 1933
    In My Life and Hard times, first published in 1933, he recounts the delightful chaos and frustrations of family, boyhood, youth, odd dogs, recalcitrant machinery, and the foibles of human nature.

Brushing Up The Years: A Cartoonist's History Of India, 1947 2004


R.K. Laxman - 2005
    Laxman’s Brushing Up The Years: A Cartoonist's History Of India: 1947 To The Present deals with the author’s cartoons that were regularly published in the Times of India. His cartoons were not just humorous but provided satirical comments on the political scenario of India during his time.Summary Of The BookBrushing Up The Years: A Cartoonist’s History Of India 1947 To The Present by R.K. Laxman is a compilation of cartoons by the author published over sixty years. These cartoons provide Laxman’s own satirical and comical perspective of the Indian common man, the politicians, and the state of the country.These cartoons were part of every Indian man’s morning ritual with the newspaper. The subjects of his cartoons ranged from common marital problems to complex issues like social injustice, corruption, financial crisis, and political power plays. Brushing Up The Years: A Cartoonist’s History Of India 1947 To The Present display cartoons that refer to specific events such as the wars between Pakistan and China, Indira Gandhi and the state of Emergency, Nehru’s Five Year Plan, and more. He even provides comments, through his cartoons, about the rise and fall of the Congress and the BJP.Laxman’s cartoons were philosophical and mischievous at the same time.

The Little Book of Hindu Deities: From the Goddess of Wealth to the Sacred Cow


Sanjay Patel - 2006
    The Little Book of Hindu Deities is chock-full of monsters, demons, noble warriors, and divine divas. Find out why Ganesha has an elephant’s head (his father cut his off!); why Kali, the goddess of time, is known as the “Black One” (she’s a bit goth); and what “Hare Krishna” really means.“Throw another ingredient in the American spirituality blender. Pop culture is veering into Hinduism.”—USA Today

Up Front


Bill Mauldin - 1945
    Week after week, Mauldin defied army censors, German artillery, and Patton's pledge to "throw his ass in jail" to deliver his wildly popular cartoon, "Up Front," to the pages of Stars and Stripes. "Up Front" featured the wise-cracking Willie and Joe, whose stooped shoulders, mud-soaked uniforms, and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect bore eloquent witness to the world of combat and the men who lived—and died—in it.This taut, lushly illustrated biography—the first of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Mauldin—is illustrated with more than ninety classic Mauldin cartoons and rare photographs. It traces the improbable career and tumultuous private life of a charismatic genius who rose to fame on his motto: "If it's big, hit it.

Monsters You Should Know


Emma SanCartier - 2018
    Illustrator Emma SanCartier captures the bizarre and hilarious elements of 17 monsters from around the world in a light, tongue-in-cheek tone, from the Japanese dream-eater Baku and the Persian carnivorous unicorn Shadhavar to the Eastern-European Shurale, a literal tickle monster. Packaged in a textured three-piece case and illustrated in lush watercolor, Monsters You Should Know is a perfect primer for the many strange, frightening, and compelling things that go bump in the night.

Metal Cats


Alexandra Crockett - 2014
    Corpse paint and Persians. Baphomet, pentagrams, blood, and tabbies! Metal Cats combines two amazing subjects: the extreme personalities of the hardcore metal music scene and their adorable kitties. These incredibly cute and fluffy felines have been photographed with their loving owners in and around the dark abodes of musicians, fans, and promoters of metal including members of the bands Black Goat, Thrones, Isis, Lightning Swords of Death, Book of Black Earth, Skarp, Harassor, Akimbo, Aldebaran, Atriarch, Oak, Ghoul, Ludicra, Holy Grail, Xasthur, Cattle Decapitation, Murder Construct, Exhumed, Morbid Angel, Municipal Waste, Skeletonwitch, Gypsyhawk, Nausea, Phobia, and Napalm Death.Metal isn't all dark and disturbing, violent and misanthropic. Metal Cats is proof that while the music may be brutal, the people in the scene are softies for their pets just like you and me...A portion of the proceeds from this book and a series of benefit shows held along the West Coast will go towards one no-kill shelter in each of the four main cities visited.

I Left The House Today!


Cassandra Calin - 2020
    This beautifully illustrated compendium of first-person comics about the trials of the single life, school, stress, junk food, shaving, and maintaining a healthy self-image. Cassandra Calin's comics frequently highlight the humorous gap between expectations and reality, especially when it comes to appearance and how much she can accomplish in one day.