Product Description

The Argyle Sweater is a comic for grown-ups but it's inspired by a childlike imagination and charm. Follow bears, bees, chickens, wolves, dogs, cats, zebras, cops, game shows, phones, cavemen, and even nursery rhyme icons and an evil scientist, into the mischief and perfect-fitting dialogue of The Argyle Sweater world.

Hilburn jokes he thought about naming the strip For Better or For Worse but noted "that that one was already taken."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125101 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780740776953
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Scott Hilburn lives in Texas.

Customer Reviews

Funny but Uneven
Why the Argyle Sweater? Basically just because it's silly, and the author likes the sound of it. It's impossible to pin one label on Scott Hilburn's style of humor evidenced in his cartoon panels. Foremost are the puns, visual, verbal, and even a simultaneous dose of both in some cartoons (double enpundres). Also forming the basis for his humor in individual cartoons are impossible situations, the ridiculous, anthropomorphisms, anachronisms, and malapropisms. His cartoons sometimes feature famous personalities, both fictional and nonfictional, and occasionally border on the offensive or distasteful.

One familiar with Scott Hilburn's cartoons will notice repetitive themes or characters. There are lots of talking dogs, chickens, dung beetles, wolves, pigs, and moths for fans of personification. One cartoon features "Fang Sinatra", a wolf wearing a sheep disguise who's singing "I've got ewe over my skin." It's one of the funnier ones.

Often the humor in these cartoons isn't immediately apparent. A little thinking, some connecting the dots, or some prior knowledge is required to get the joke. If one is not familiar with Popeye, Naomi Campbell, Captain Kirk, Mr. T, Alfalfa of the Little Rascals, Nancy Sinatra, Gary Coleman, D.B.Cooper, or Puff the Magic Dragon, some of the humor simply won't register.

Though I mostly enjoyed this book, the humor quotient from page to page is uneven with wild swings of the humor meter. Unless one has a broad sense of humor, some of the situations might cause some bristling or sour puss faces.

What happens when Care Bears stop caring? The Argyle Sweater knows...
Cartoonist Scott Hillburn and I have a lot in common. We both share the same first name and we were both exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation as children. We also have all our teeth, a weird sense of humor, and a strong affection for puns. Unlike me, however, Hillman is also a talented artist, and a hilarious cartoonist.

The Argyle Sweater is a collection of Scott Hillerman's single-panel cartoon by the same name. The influence of Gary Larson's Far Side comics is easily noticeable when enjoying Hillerman's work, yet it never feels like he is attempting to copy or mimic Larson's work. Hillerman's humor is his own, a laughable blend of bad puns, unfortunate antonyms, and other fun examples of humorous wordplay.

This is where a book review would normally give a more detailed description of the contents, but I simply refuse to be the guy who sits there describing cartoons and ruining the joke. All I can tell you is that I will never look at the Pillsbury Doughboy the same way again. You can count on laughing out loud every so often, in between the giggles and chuckles that will no doubt follow any reading of The Argyle Sweater.

The Argyle Sweater is a great collection of Scott Hillerman's past work, but there's no need to stop there. You can also view his newest creations at theargylesweater.com, many of which no doubt comprise another wonderful collection in the near future.

There are so few cartoons left that are worth reading, let alone worthy of open laughter. Do yourself a favor and don't miss out on this one.

A good chuckle, especially for fans of puns
It would be impossible to review this book without mentioning The Far Side cartoons. While author Scott Hilburn shows tremendous artistic talent and a clever sense of humor, I think that he has a while to go before being equal to Gary Larson. That said, I think that Hilburn steps up and honorably fills an empty void that has been left since Larson retired in 1995. At that time, Larson's stated reason for retirement was that he felt that his humor was getting repetitive. Unfortunately, repetition would have to be my biggest criticism of The Argyle Sweater.

The Argyle Sweater is 128 pages long, with 2-3 cartoons appearing on each page. There are a handful of cartoons that make you laugh out loud, a handful that may leave you scratching your head and go "Huh?", and a whole lot of just regular, mediocre kind of funny. Most of the jokes are play on words or puns. A lot of the humor is based upon American popular culture. Some examples include the imaginary characters (unicorn, mermaid) conversing over a high school crush in a cafeteria bemoaning that he doesn't know I exist! Puff, the manic dragon who sits on Freud's couch. And the "Swat Team" comprised of flies holding bug swatters that has surrounded a spider's web who's holding another fly hostage. But after awhile, the jokes get repetitious, the puns are obvious, and the humor seems labored. There are probably 3-4 cartoons about the three little pigs, a handful about dung beetles, and a bunch more about fairy tales.

I haven't seen much of the daily comic strips that I grew up with and loved since I stopped my newspaper subscription and started reading the news online. As such, I haven't seen any of Hilburn's cartoons in any of the 130 syndicated papers across the country. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable read and I see tremendous potential in this author/cartoonist.