{"id":15727,"date":"2016-11-20T08:00:42","date_gmt":"2016-11-20T08:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=15727"},"modified":"2016-11-19T16:41:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-19T16:41:22","slug":"dog-butts-and-love-and-stuff-like-that-and-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2016\/11\/20\/dog-butts-and-love-and-stuff-like-that-and-cats\/","title":{"rendered":"Dog Butts and Love. And Stuff Like That. And Cats"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Jim Benton<\/strong> (NBM)
\nISBN: 978-1-56163-846-8<\/p>\n

Although in something of a decline these days, for nearly 200 years gag-panels and cartoon strips were the universal medium to disseminate wit, satire, mirth, criticism and cultural exchange. Sadly, after centuries of pre-eminence, these days the cartoon has been all but erased from printed newspapers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as indeed the physical publications themselves have dwindled in shops and on shelves.<\/p>\n

However, thanks to the same internet which is killing print media, many graphic gagsters and drawing dramatists have enjoyed resurgence in an arena that doesn’t begrudge the space necessary to deliver a cartoon in all its fulsome glory\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Mainstream cartooning remains an unmissable daily joy to a vast, frequently global readership whose requirements are quite different from those of hard-core, dedicated comic fans, or even that ever-growing base of intrigued browsers just starting to dip their toes in the sequential narrative pool.<\/p>\n

Even those stuck-up holdouts who have pointedly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153never read a comic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d have certainly enjoyed strips or panels: a golden bounty of brief amusement demanding no commitment other than a moment’s close attention. Truth be told, it’s probably in our genes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

And because that’s the contrary nature of things, those gags now get collected in spiffy collections like this one (and also in e-book editions) to enjoy over and over again\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

With that in mind, here’s a long-delayed peek at some less well known strips by one of America’s most innovative and mordantly surreal creative stars.<\/p>\n

Jim Benton began his illustration work making up crazy characters in a T-Shirt shop and designing greetings cards. Born in 1960, he’d grown up in Birmingham, Michigan before studying Fine Arts at Western Michigan University.<\/p>\n

Now earning a living by exercising his creativity he started self-promoting the weird funny things he’d dream up and soon was coining beaucoup bucks from properties such as Dear Dumb Diary<\/strong>, Dog of Glee<\/em>, Franny K. Stein<\/em>, Just Jimmy<\/em>, Just Plain Mean<\/strong>, Sweetypuss<\/em>, The Misters<\/em>, Meany Doodles<\/em>, Vampy Doodles<\/em>, Kissy Doodles<\/em>, jOkObo<\/strong> and It’s Happy Bunny<\/strong> in a variety of magazines and other venues\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The particular gags, jests and japes began life on Reddit<\/strong> and are delivered in a huge variety of styles and manners: each perfectly in accord with whatever sick, sweet, clever, sentimental, whimsical or just plain strange content each idea demanded.<\/p>\n

Despite the risk of laughing yourself sick, you’ll want to see how some dads treat their kids; learn how deer see the hunters; explore the wonder of breasts; observe the lighter side of inebriation, seduction and mate-selection and much more.<\/p>\n

You might discover Not-Facts that will change your life after gleaning Benton’s take on aliens, zombies, ghosts, assorted movie franchises, busking, business fashions and evolution in single page giggle-bombs ranging from strident solo panels to extended strips; silent shockers to poetically florid and verbose tracts.<\/p>\n

You will laugh out loud and want more.<\/p>\n

You will also want to send \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How to explain things to the stupid\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> to all your friends.<\/p>\n

Don’t.<\/p>\n

Just make them buy their own copy of this glorious book.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2014 Jim Benton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jim Benton (NBM) ISBN: 978-1-56163-846-8 Although in something of a decline these days, for nearly 200 years gag-panels and cartoon strips were the universal medium to disseminate wit, satire, mirth, criticism and cultural exchange. Sadly, after centuries of pre-eminence, these days the cartoon has been all but erased from printed newspapers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as indeed … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Dog Butts and Love. And Stuff Like That. And Cats”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[90,113,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartooning-classics","category-comedy","category-humour"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-45F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}