I'm trying very hard not to sound like a spoiled Tudor, ENTERTAIN ME BETTER JESTER, but I was kind of disappointed.

Brosh has had a lot of awful stuff happen to her since we last saw her, and her worldview has taken a nosedive down the pit of nihilism. I do not share this worldview (admitedly, I've never had a single awful thing happen to me), so I didn't find that flavor of humor funny.

Also, I read a recent interview with her and she's a frequent drug user. I really don't care about that. However, I do want to address the existence of an extended essay about an intentionally bad acid trip. Brosh isn't the first user who's thought that what they experienced is profound/funny/enlightening and felt compelled to share that in some way (See: Beat Poets, all). I went to art school, and after a couple semesters of critiques it becomes painfully obvious who thinks their work is profound based on the trip they had while making it, and who sat down and made good work that people can appreciate while sober. The acid trip essay is a key to understanding why the entire book falls flat. To clarify, I do not think drugs turn you into a lazy bum, but I have seen time and again how weed and acid rob people of their creative potential by giving them the false idea that they have reached a creative peak when it is clear to everyone else in the room that they, in fact, have not.

In terms of illustration content, I kind of want to reread Hyperbole and a Half because I remember there being a lot of punch in the panel sequencing. Like part of the joke was because of the timing of the panels. In this book there were many times that the panels did nothing to move the narrative forward, to make a punch line, or to set up a joke. Several times there is a sequence of what is functionally the exact same panel. This happened in some of the more serious essays. If the panels weren't there to make a joke, and they weren't even carrying the narrative because the essay is quite understandable without any illustration, then why are they there at all and why are there so many of them? Unfortunately I noticed this quite early on in the 500+ page book and then I couldn't unsee it. I started thinking that Brosh felt like her readers expect her to follow a certain format (we do) and we will give up reading the book and hate her forever if she doesn't stick to the formula (we won't). In fact, you might say that the formula backfired: based on the format, we expect comedy. When there is no comedy, we feel bad for expecting that. "SORRY I WANTED YOUR LIFE'S TRAGEDIES TO MAKE ME LAUGH, JESTER." But actually it's not our fault: Brosh gave us a dish that had FUNNY written on the plate but the food served was actually SAD SANDWICH. From a functional perspective, it would have been better to break the format to let us know we need to change our expectations. For example, there are a couple times where she breaks from her characteristic MS Paint style and gives us an illustration that is profoundly beautiful and gesturely expressive. In that interview I read, she said that she has been studying a certain artist and grown a lot in her technical skills... we can catch a glimpse of this in an illustration of a fish and another in a full page of a rural road. So why not give us 1-2 illustrations in that style to accompany a heavier story, and ditch the pink stick girl altogether? We'd be on the same page from the get-go and we could see more dimensions of Allie Brosh the artist as well as learn more about Allie Brosh the profound thinker whom we love and will follow down whatever tangent her heart desires.

I have not given up on Allie Brosh. I think this book is worth reading and it will make you laugh at least once. But I see something deeper in her and I sincerely hope that she has the courage to let it out.


Food Pairing: PB&J, toasted to make it fancy.