Caught Short

Caught Short

By Brian Howard Heaton (Grub Street)
ISBN: 978-0-95881-760-1

Here I go again bemoaning the gradual loss of the cheap ‘n’ cheerful cartoon paperbacks that were so ubiquitous in the past but are now fast fading as the much more important sounding Graphic Novels and Trade Collections carve a niche in our psyches and on our bookshelves. And here’s another disturbing thought – how many people these days even have bookshelves and any sort of tome to put on them?

None of which matters a jot or tittle as I call to your attention a relatively late entry in the field from Brian Howard Heaton subtitled “89 ways to pee in public without being spotted”. This sort of themed gag-book was the last commercial gasp in a tradition of pictorial entertainments that began with Punch, and evolved into a saucy standby of British life.

Heaton is a competent artist in the modern style and the gags range from contrived to fiendishly clever, all delivered with easy charm and utterly without text – never an easy job in cartooning. If you find this book or anything similar give it a try; this sort of thing use to be bread ‘n’ butter in our game, and you really will mess them if they disappear forever.

© 1992 Brian Howard Heaton. All Rights Reserved.