And other Useful Guides by The Oatmeal

It’s a little embarrassing, reviewing a book like this on my blog. But since my tagline states that I focus on “mostly Christian book reviews,” those few that are definitely outside the fence of “mostly” are to be expected occasionally. At least on Saturdays.

Before finding this comic book where it didn’t belong (on my favorite kids’ book shelf in town at our Lutheran thrift store which never sells books for more than $0.60 apiece), I had never knowingly heard of The Oatmeal or its creator, Matthew Inman. The closest I had come was reading an off-color comic sent to me by a friend on Facebook several years ago. That single comic was funny, but it was also crude, and that’s about the best way to describe the majority of comics in this book. They’re crude enough to make me think that I should probably set it down, yet funny enough to convince me: “Just one more page.” I guess I’m wearing my lack of self-discipline openly on my sleeve here! Well, it’s for your benefit, I guess.

Inman’s artistic style is simplistic, using computer graphics from the early 2000s to make round, plumpy, human-ish figures with gaping mouths and pupil-less eyes in some of the most incredible predicaments you can imagine. There’s a lot of death in these comics, occasional bathroom humor, and a large swath of frustration at other people’s computer illiteracy (harking back to Inman’s former life as a website developer).

For some of these cartoon, I think Inman must have pulled two random ideas from hat (i.e. “dolphins” and “hatred”) and then set to work making a list of reasons why they ideas belong together. In fact, it reminds me an ESL exercise I used overseas one year, crafting three sentences about why  “__(a concept)__ is like __( a concrete noun)__.” One of my favorites came from a Chinese guy who spoke almost no English: “Women are like computers, because you can push their buttons.”

Just a small sampling of the first seven comic titles in the book might give you a taste of the fare that’s available here:

8 Reasons to Keep a Canadian as a Pet
Why It’s Better to Pretend You Don’t Know Anything about Computers
How to Pee Like a Champ
The 9 Types of Crappy Handshakes
The Words You Need to Stop Misspelling
Failed Bearcut
Five Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth

And as for those “five very good reasons,” I’ll share them here (since they’re the title of the book) to give you an even better sense of what might await your inside:

1. When a dolphin makes those cute whistling and clicking sounds, they’re actually vulgar insults.
2. Their rubbery, soft skin is easy on the knuckles and makes for a great undersea punching bag.
3. Dolphins play their entire lives. Humans only play until we reach adulthood—this is unfair. Make it fair by landing a roundhouse kick to the face.
4. Dolphins love to think that they’re the strongest and the fastest. Ever seen them swim with a boat? To them it’s a race. Put them in their place with a solid left hook to the jaw.
5. Anything that smiles that often needs to be reminded that the world is a cruel, dark place.

Comics and graphic novels have been my go-to entertainment outlet for a while now. In fact, I haven’t watched TV at night in four months, and I’ve yet to miss it! Sometimes the books I choose are serious (like The Faithful Spy), and sometimes they’re just plain fun (like The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil). Sometimes, I choose the book simply because it’s in a style I might like, eventually discovering that it’s juvenile, crude, and yet somewhat humorous. That’s this book in a nutshell.

I can’t say I’d recommend it, so I won’t. But I also can’t say that if I see another Oatmeal book for sale at the Lutheran thrift store, I won’t get it. You can interpret that as you wish.

©2023 E.T.