I Made Some Brownies and They Were Pretty Good

Rating:
Summary: Since when can't I expect my comedy spoon-fed to me?
Review: *This is monkey_11 again* "Laughing on the inside?" Sounds like you need to talk with someone. I read your prescription, as it were, for the ideal way to absorb yourself in the world of Jim's Journal, and I have one question: are you getting a piece of Dikkers' pie? Buy all the books in the hopes of generating a chuckle or three? Who am I, Rockefeller? Shoot, I pay rent. Look, I mean no disrespect to Scott Dikkers, I love, love, love the Onion (Tuesday evenings when the website is updated is one of few high points in my small little life) and, in my estimation, anyone who doesn't like Our Dumb Century lacks intelligence, a sense of humor, or a measure of both, but inasmuch as all comedy is more or less brain gum, Jim's Journal is the comic equivalent of the kind we used to find packaged with our baseball cards, stale and flavorless. You'd pop it in your mouth because--oh boy, gum!--but minutes later, it's under a chair or on the street. I've got no real use for it. I like to do my laughing on the outside, and the Onion is one of few things that make me do so. As for Jim's Journal, well, I guess I'm just not the kind of person who fancies sitting by the window on a rainy afternoon with a cup of Earl Grey, thumbing through wistful recollections of the charming and fragile small moments we all experience but never share with each other. You want to do that, your eyes crinkling merrily as you laugh on the inside, fine, have a party in there. To everyone else I say tread carefully.

Rating:
Summary: Jim's Journal...zen.
Review: *This is monkey_11 again* "Laughing on the inside?" Sounds like you need to talk with someone. I read your prescription, as it were, for the ideal way to absorb yourself in the world of Jim's Journal, and I have one question: are you getting a piece of Dikkers' pie? Buy all the books in the hopes of generating a chuckle or three? Who am I, Rockefeller? Shoot, I pay rent. Look, I mean no disrespect to Scott Dikkers, I love, love, love the Onion (Tuesday evenings when the website is updated is one of few high points in my small little life) and, in my estimation, anyone who doesn't like Our Dumb Century lacks intelligence, a sense of humor, or a measure of both, but inasmuch as all comedy is more or less brain gum, Jim's Journal is the comic equivalent of the kind we used to find packaged with our baseball cards, stale and flavorless. You'd pop it in your mouth because--oh boy, gum!--but minutes later, it's under a chair or on the street. I've got no real use for it. I like to do my laughing on the outside, and the Onion is one of few things that make me do so. As for Jim's Journal, well, I guess I'm just not the kind of person who fancies sitting by the window on a rainy afternoon with a cup of Earl Grey, thumbing through wistful recollections of the charming and fragile small moments we all experience but never share with each other. You want to do that, your eyes crinkling merrily as you laugh on the inside, fine, have a party in there. To everyone else I say tread carefully.

Rating:
Summary: Since when can't I expect my comedy spoon-fed to me?
Review: *This is monkey_11 again* "Laughing on the inside?" Sounds like you need to talk with someone. I read your prescription, as it were, for the ideal way to absorb yourself in the world of Jim's Journal, and I have one question: are you getting a piece of Dikkers' pie? Buy all the books in the hopes of generating a chuckle or three? Who am I, Rockefeller? Shoot, I pay rent. Look, I mean no disrespect to Scott Dikkers, I love, love, love the Onion (Tuesday evenings when the website is updated is one of few high points in my small little life) and, in my estimation, anyone who doesn't like Our Dumb Century lacks intelligence, a sense of humor, or a measure of both, but inasmuch as all comedy is more or less brain gum, Jim's Journal is the comic equivalent of the kind we used to find packaged with our baseball cards, stale and flavorless. You'd pop it in your mouth because--oh boy, gum!--but minutes later, it's under a chair or on the street. I've got no real use for it. I like to do my laughing on the outside, and the Onion is one of few things that make me do so. As for Jim's Journal, well, I guess I'm just not the kind of person who fancies sitting by the window on a rainy afternoon with a cup of Earl Grey, thumbing through wistful recollections of the charming and fragile small moments we all experience but never share with each other. You want to do that, your eyes crinkling merrily as you laugh on the inside, fine, have a party in there. To everyone else I say tread carefully.

Rating:
Summary: Scott Dikkers, Pretty Good Cartoonist
Review: Dikkers' collection of Jim's Journal cartoons are some of the finest comic strips written. Jim is just a regular guy. Life seems to go on all around him, but Jim usually has no response to it. Jim doesn't go out and get things, things just fall in his lap. The humor in this strip is sometimes subtle, and sometimes it's not really funny at all, but you usually learn something. In many ways, I am much like Jim. I guess that's why I relate so well to this strip

Rating:
Summary: Jim's Journal...zen.
Review: I have all the Jim's Journal books. They're great! Sure, they aren't for everybody...(It's just a comic strip......)

In any event Jim's Journal, for me, reveals the Zen moments present in everyday life. (Hint: life is lived in the details.)

Rating:
Summary: it's the "laugh inside" kind of funny
Review: My friends and I are very addicted to the Jim's Journal books. The best way to read them is to purchase all of the books and read them in a row. It'll only take you about an hour, maybe two.

Jim's Journal was not meant to have a punchline. And that's part of what makes it so funny. It's just a guy drawing little scenes out of his life. He's not documenting the historic moments, but the little silliness that we all go through. When I read "I Went to College..." I would crack up in the middle of a frame because it reminded me so much of myself in college.

There are lots of cartoons out there that don't make you laugh at the last frame, like Zippy the Pinhead or Family Circus. This is one that makes you feel good, make you giggle, and somehow manages to completely engross you even though the topic is nothing.

Rating:
Summary: HOW is this by the same guy responsible for The Onion???
Review: Okay, first things first-- the star was only because I'm giving Dikkers the benefit of the doubt; the guy helped make The Onion what it is, and so I'll RELUCTANTLY allow the possibility that there's something here I just don't get. THAT PROVISO ASIDE, however, my reactions to the average Jim cartoon are usually as follows: A) Confusion-- I'm looking for a punchline, I'll often flip to the next page to see if there's some kind of payoff there. No dice, not ever. This leads to B) Puzzlement/Bewilderment-- who would bother to write a strip so decidedly UNfunny? The subsequent and obvious answer of 'Nobody, that's who," leads me to C) Disgust-- as I realize that the whole comic-reading process has been nothing but a waste of ink, paper, time, and my brain's electrical activity. Now, this is where it gets a little tricky (and is why I gave it that measly star). As I throw the book back down onto the bookstore shelf, I reach D) skepticism-- "Hang on, there must have been SOMETHING redeeming about Jim and his dull, mindless exploits..." This one is brief, however, and quickly gives way to E) Self-Doubt-- as I decide that I definitely can't justify the strip, and so I must be missing something; it must be ME not bringing enough to the table, as it were. A moment of reflection, a quick review of the strip, and we're soon revisting "C) Disgust" in its new incarnation of F) Re-Affirmed Disgust-- as I decide "No, I believe I AM smart enough; that simply WAS NOT funny." From here, I turn on my heel and walk away to begin the process of G) Forgetting It Ever Happened-- I'll try to put the whole thing behind me until I come across the damned comic again somewhere in public, in conversation, or on the Internet, at which point I'll waste even more of my time, breath and/or energy H) Venting. And that pretty much is the sum total of my thoughts on the Jim comic strips. But hey-- YOU have a go at it, I guess. See how you do with them. Me, I'm tired. I gotta go sit down for a while.

Rating:
Summary: Either you get it or you don't.
Review: There's not much middle ground with Jim's Journal. You will love this book, or you will think it is the dumbest thing you ever read. In my opinion, Jim's Journal is probably one of the funniest cartoons of all time. I own all of his first five books and don't regret buying a single one of them.