Cidu Bill on Apr 21st 2013
Filed in Argyle Sweater, Bill Bickel, Comics That Made Us Laugh Out Loud, Doug Bratton, F-Minus, New Yorker, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, Scott Hilburn, Snow White, Stonehenge, Tom the Dancing Bug, Tony Carrillo, Zach Weiner, comic strips, comics, humor, lol | 38 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Mar 19th 2013
Yeah, bummer that Coyote keeps injuring himself in his quest to catch Road Runner; but what’s the joke here?
Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Doug Bratton, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, comic strips, comics, humor | 13 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Mar 10th 2013
Filed in Arlo and Janis, Bill Bickel, Comics That Made Us Laugh Out Loud, Dave Coverly, Doug Bratton, Hilary B. Price, Jimmy Johnson, M.C. Escher, New Yorker, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, Rhymes With Orange, Speed Bump, comic strips, comics, humor, lol | 45 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Nov 14th 2012
Filed in Bill Bickel, Doug Bratton, John Deering, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, Strange Brew, comic strips, comics, humor, synchronicity | 27 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Jul 8th 2012
Filed in Argyle Sweater, Bill Bickel, Comics That Made Us Laugh Out Loud, Cyanide and Happiness, Doctor Octopus, Doug Bratton, Garfield, Jim Davis, Pardon My Planet, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, Scott Hilburn, Spider-Man, Vic Lee, comic strips, comics, humor, lol | 17 responses so far
Cidu Bill on May 20th 2012
Filed in Adam Huber, Avengers, Bill Bickel, Bug, Comics That Made Us Laugh Out Loud, Doug Bratton, Hilary B. Price, Hulk, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, Rhymes With Orange, Thor, comic books, comic strips, comics, humor, lol | 29 responses so far
Cidu Bill on May 6th 2012
Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Doug Bratton, Pac Man, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, comic strips, comics, humor | 15 responses so far
Cidu Bill on May 1st 2012
Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Doug Bratton, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, comic strips, comics, humor | 19 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Mar 31st 2012
Filed in Bill Bickel, Doug Bratton, Ewww, F-Minus, King Kong, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, Tony Carrillo, comic strips, comics, humor | 24 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Mar 18th 2012
Filed in Adam Huber, Bill Bickel, Bug, Comics That Made Us Laugh Out Loud, Doug Bratton, New Yorker, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, comic strips, comics, humor, lol, xkcd | 11 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Dec 7th 2011
Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Doug Bratton, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, comic strips, comics, humor, m&m's | 24 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Dec 5th 2010
The other day, I was in the library and I happened to be leafing through Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man. For those of you who don’t know, this book is essentially a collection of his short science fiction stories, held together by the premise that there’s this crazy tattooed dude, and each of his tattoos comes alive and segues into the short story. Or something like that.
I guess the point of the exercise was to give the thing the illusion (as it were) of being a unified novel rather than just a collection of short stories because, you know, who would want to read a collection of science fiction short stories by one of the greatest-ever writers of science fiction short stories?
Anyway, as pointless as I thought the Illustrated Man conceit was, it didn’t take anything away from the stories themselves.
Just a couple of minutes after I left the library — literally, since the post office is right down the street from the library– I received my copy of Doug Bratton’s new book. It’s a collection of Pop Culture Shock Therapy strips, held together by the premise that they’ve all been taped into the journals of a deranged stalker who’s obsessed with Doug Bratton. Or something like that.
Okay, honestly? The premise doesn’t work for me. No more than that tattooed dude did, which I dare you to say five times fast.
That being said — sorry, Doug, I know you put a lot of work into giving us something extra — the collection itself is well worth the price. If you’ve been visiting Doug’s web site, you pretty much know what to expect. If you’ve been visiting this website, you should pretty much know what to expect as well, because PCST has been well represented in the weekly LOL postings (and is no stranger to the CIDU postings either): Doug lampoons superheroes (especially Batman, by far comic strip writers’ favorite spandex-wearer), Disney characters, other comic strips, cartoons, Sesame Street, and more. This book would make a nice addition to your collection of comics compilations, or a good holiday gift for a like-minded friend who might not be familiar with this strip.
With the caveat that many of the comics are not child-appropriate (in addition to the fact that readers under a certain age might not get a lot of the jokes).
For the sake of family harmony, I should probably tack on another quick plug for Creepiosity. If your house has two bathrooms, there’s no reason not to buy both of these books.
And here’s today’s trivia question: What do Creepiosity and the film Parenthood have in common?
Filed in Bill Bickel, Creepiosity, David Bickel, Doug Bratton, Illustrated Man, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, Ray Bradbury, book reviews, books, comic strips, comics, humor | 18 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Nov 2nd 2010
Doug Bratton’s book is being published today. I can’t tell you much about it, because his publicist was supposed to send me a review copy and she never got around to it, but I imagine it’s a whole bunch of Pop Culture Pop Therapy strips, and we know they’re funny, and Doug entertains us with new strips just about every day which we get to read for free, and I met him and he’s a nice guy, so why not buy a copy? The guy’s got to make a living you know?
And speaking of books published by Andrews McMeel that I was promised a copy of but never received, my baby brother’s book Creepiosity is in its second printing. The biggest difference from the first printing is that I finally got my photographer’s credit in the back of the book, so I can drop my lawsuit.
Filed in Bill Bickel, Creepiosity, David Bickel, Doug Bratton, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, books, comics strips, humor | 6 responses so far
Cidu Bill on Oct 19th 2010
(originally published in 2007, but reprinted today)
Filed in Bill Bickel, Doug Bratton, Pop Culture Shock Therapy, Robin, comic books, comic strips, comics, humor | 24 responses so far
