Reading: Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Ignores Helpful Advice by Scott Adams
Music: John Hartford
TV/Movie: Waiting For God
Link o' the Day: the blog of Stephan Pastis



When I hit a bookstore such as Borders or Barnes & Noble, it's in a fairly preditable pattern. I start in the front with the new books, weave past the periodicals for either poetry journals or fictionmags, then up to science fiction to see if there's anything new I haven't heard about, over to graphic novels for more of the same. I make a brief pass by the film books, then down to the bargain books for any last-minute possible pics. Hidden gems and so forth.

Bookstore employees must hate me because on my journey I collect a stack of potential buys, then before checkout I weed through the books, leaving the temporary rejects in a neat pile, while selecting only a couple of volumes for actual purchase. If I worked at one of these bookstore, I'd be flicking paperclips at my head the entire time.

This past week's excursion to the local B&N was not much different, and the hidden gem uncovered in the reamindered stacks was a little book by cartoonist Scott Adams called Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Ignores Helpful Advice. It's not a Dilbert book, but a collection of short essays--mostly taken from his blog--in which he espouses his brand of "philosotainment".

I'm enjoying it. The essays are the perfect length of bathroom reading or reading whilst waiting for coffee to brew. The spurring for the collection is apparently the idea that many people have advised Scott Adams against going for certain ventures, e.g., creating a syndicated comic strip, owning restaurants, and writing books--and in a number of these cases, Adams found not the predicted failure, but great success. The idea is that one should take chances--particularly when it comes to something one feels passionate about. I guess if it could be boiled down to a pithy saying it would be, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

Good advice at nearly anytime. (I wouldn't recommend something like, say, retrieving a wristwatch from an alligator's jaw. In that case, nothing ventured means no lost limbs. Watches can be replaced.)

Anyway, it's a fun little book and it didn't look like it took a lot of work to put together. They're basically blog entires. There's a lot there that you might even see in pages like mine. The big difference, of course, is that Adams gets about 1.5 million readers a day. I get a couple of thousand a week. I could try and figure out the mathematical proportion by which Scott Adams is more popular than me, but my bagel is done and I'm going to go put cheese and chourico on it. Be right back.

...okay, where was I? Oh yes. I suppose another reason why I like the book is that Adam's writing resonates with me. We're on similar wavelengths. Not exact, mind you. We have a few differing philosophies, but there's a lot here I identify with just the same. Plus, he's a geek-made-good. That's very inspirational for a guy like me. If he can do it. Why not me? Or you?

And it's a fun book. Can't overlook that. For you Dilbert fans, he occasionally treats the reader to two different versions of some of his strips: the one that was printed in the newspaper, and the one that was deemed too dangerous for anyone without an internet connection.

Is it recommended? Sure! Hey, check the remaindered piles for a cheap hardcover. If it's not there, I would even recommend shelling out for a full-priced trade edition. There are versions in audio and Kindle as well.

Share and enjoy.

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In keeping with a cartoonist theme today, today's link takes you to the blog of Stephan Pastis, creator of the syndicated comic strip Pearls Before Swine. I doubt it has the same number of newspapers as Dilbert, but it's out there. Better yet...you can get any number of collections at most bookstores. Fun stuff. Crudely drawn. Surprising writing for a syndicated strip. Look for the books, and check out the blog which has some interesting bits (joyful rants?) from time to time.




Cheers!