Book review: Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles Into Comics by James Sturm et alt

Title: Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles Into Comics (Adventures in Cartooning #1)

Author: James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, Alexis Frederick-Frost

Published Date: March 31st 2009

Number of Pages: 112

Book Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

In this action-packed cartooning adventure, kids will have as much fun making comics as reading them!

Once upon a time . . . a princess tried to make a comic. And with the help of a magical cartooning elf, she learned how – well enough to draw her way out of an encounter with a dangerous dragon, near-death by drowning, and into her very own adventure! Like the princess, young readers will discover that they already have the drawing and writing skills it takes to make a comic – they just need a little know-how. And Adventures in Cartooning supplies just that.

Review:

So, I've been in a very big reading slump, and by reading slump I mean I haven't read any books for months and in the last 2 years I only read a handful of "fun" books. My usual pre-reading slump schedule was 1-3 books a week, so needless to say a big change. At the start of COVID I was on a roll with reading (see previous book reviews) and then I fell back into a slump.

Now, why am I telling you this? Well, I decided that the best way out of this slump would be to start off easy. A quick read, which wasn't too serious or complex and was also a whole lot of fun. This is why I chose Adventures in cartooning.

This book is part introduction on how to write a cartoon and part silly adventure story with a charming ending. I'm not an avid comic book reader so I can't properly judge the technique or advice they give on how to make a cartoon, but I can say I really enjoyed it!

The advice was quite simple and seemed more geared towards kids, at first the advice kind on grated on me as it seemed less story and more a how-to. As the story progressed I found the advice became more and more ingrained within the story line itself and added to the story we were following.

Maybe it's because I am rusty with reading but I did not see the ending coming, it was a nice little twist. I also liked the illustration style. It worked well to show that anyone can draw (they even did a handy how to draw these characters at the back of the book) and was at the same time complex enough to be engaging and cute.

If I had to choose my favorite thing which stood out the most for me, or that I enjoyed the most it would be the humor in the story. It's the exact kind of wacky, out of nowhere humor I love in books.

Overall I would recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about the basics of comics or who wants a very quick and sweet read. It was just the thing to nudge me back into reading.