Monstrously Funny Cartoons by Christopher Hart

The Pirate, who is 9 now if you're keeping track, is absolutely obsessed with comics and drawing. Every single worksheet or test from school comes home covered in doodles. He's drawn entire reams of papers of comic books with chapters and plots and plenty of poop humor. This is often at the detriment of his schoolwork, so Mike and I are looking for ways to encourage his artistic habits at times it won't harm his grades. So when Blogging for Books offered me the chance to review Monstrously Funny Cartoons, I had to say yes. Guys, *I* want to sit and read this cover to cover.

Each chapter is broken down into monster type. You have zombies, vampires, mummies, aliens, etc.  The chapters start with the basics of the monster and progresses into details of how to make the monster your own. For example, the zombie page starts with an entire page of eyes, including comparing them to human eyes. By the end of the chapter you've learned how zombie heads lean far back, and easy ways to draw that, to zombie families, to caffeine zombies ("Caffeine zombies are part of a quiet epidemic affecting major metropolitan areas across the nation. You can see them every weekday morning at 6 a.m.- a mindless mob piling into subway stations."), to cheerleader zombies, to zombie sisters ("The only way to tell she's a zombie is when her fingers are too stiff to text.")

Now, I admit, I did not attempt to draw anything from the book, and I'm waiting until Christmas to actually give it to him, but it certainly looks like this would teach him well. I'd go so far as to look for other art books by Hart as he's both thorough and funny and I'm looking forward to hearing Tristan crack up as he reads the accompanying text. Highly Recommended.

Source: Review copy provided by Blogging for Books.