Comic Review: Wondermark: Beards of Our Forefathers by David Malki - Page 2

In addition to his strips, Malki includes text giving the faux background story behind several colorized entries, a variety of silly features (like an "Ironic Facial Hair Citation" you can hand out to hirsute acquaintances - if you don't mind cutting up the book, that is), plus an original eight-page comic of murder and deceit entitled, aptly enough, "Treachery!" Beards also includes some "Abandoned Efforts" and four guest strips, all of which illustrate just how difficult this whole repurposing business can truly be.

If I have any plaints about the current packaging, they rest in the layout of Malki's strips, which typically rest two to a page. The jokes in "Wondermark" follow a set format: humorous title (e.g., "In Which Cancer Is Faked"), one-tiered strip plus a capper one-liner beneath the strip. But as Malki has arranged his book, the lower level strips' titles (which typically would appear at the top of your browser in a web comic) are placed off to the side under the comic - disrupting the flow.

But that's a niggling gripe, and a small price to pay for the privilege of being able to shelve Beards of Our Forefathers between a hardbound copy of V for Vendetta and your "DC Archives" of Wonder Woman, right?

Article Author: Bill Sherman

Bill Sherman is a Books editor for Blogcritics. With his lovely wife Rebecca Fox, he has recently co-authored a sudsy comic fat acceptance novel entitled Measure By Measure.

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