Review: UPDATED: Generally Funny but May Be Too Pricey
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 23, 2014
UPDATE: Since I published this review, the author has reduced the price of this collection and his other collections on Amazon from $2.99 to 99 cents. The lower price makes it a closer call as to whether the collection is worth the price or not. I have raised my original review from two stars to three stars as a result. I think there's good material here which, at 99 cents, may or may not be worth a buy for any particular reader.MY ORIGINAL REVIEWWhen I assign a star grade to an Amazon product, I look at two separate factors. First, I try to consider the quality of the product... for a book, it's the entertainment or informative value. In that regard, I could recommend "Laugh Toonz," a cartoon collection by Anthony Jengadi. Second, I ask myself whether the product is worth what it's selling for. In that regard, "Laugh Toonz" is definitely not worth the $2.99 it usually sells for (admittedly, I got the book as a free promotion, but that's the normal selling price)."Laugh Toonz" contains 40 (I counted them) one-panel comic cartoons, most of which center on the work environment, computers or both. Take away the visual aspect of the cartoon (and while they are amusingly drawn, in almost none of them is the humor dependant on the artwork) and you're left with 40 short one-liners. I did enjoy many of them... over half made me smile and a couple definitely made me chuckle. Jengadi has a good eye for office politics, and several of the cartoons could easily have been Dilbert cartoons. I couldn't find any biographic information about Jengadi, but I believe I've seen his cartoons in national magazines. He's a good cartoonist.My problem with this book isn't with the quality of the cartoons in general... it's that Jengadi wants $2.99 for 40 cartoons that will take most people five to ten minutes to read and which have very limited repeat value (once you get the punchline, it doesn't get funnier the second time around). Most joke and cartoon collections of that approximate length sell for a dollar or less, and it's questionable at that price whether you get fair value. At three dollars, you are likely to question just where your money went.As long as Jengadi offers this book for free, I can recommend it for a few decent laughs. Once it reverts to the regular price (as his other cartoon collections are priced), the laugh will likely be on the reader who buys it.