By: John C. Mayberry
“It’s not his fault that being a single parent in America is kind of a nightmare” is the precise line that first drew my attention to Derek M. Ballard’s Cartoonshow. A maker of American family comics, Ballard gives us all something quite special with this series of comic essays that demonstrate the many trying challenges that single parents encounter daily. Throw a little satire into the mix, and you have a graphic novel that’s as funny as it is touching.
The satire is as visual as anything written in here, with the artwork drawn in a cartoonish style and in exaggerated detail. Some might see the artwork as messy or maybe off-putting, but I assure you it’s a very good thing that it is. Ballard’s illustrations, along with the lettering, successfully adds a more chaotic and comedic effect to each story written in Cartoonshow (one thing particularly funny was the addition of a laugh track that appears at only awkward or stressful moments)! And that’s just one half of what makes this a great read, the other part that makes this such a fun read; the way it was written.
Satirically brilliant, it’s the writing that, aside from how exaggerated and expressive our hero of the story is being written, realistically defines the hard parts of being a single parent, especially being a single parent in a world that does nothing more than squeeze everything it can out of you. I cannot begin to list all the times I laughed out loud reading this, sometimes for the sole fact that the material is completely relatable. There were even several stories in this collection that were similar to situations I’ve been in myself, which not only made it funnier, but made me love it that much more. So don’t be at all surprised if you get a copy of this for yourself and find yourself shouting “That’s so freaking true!” at least once for every story you read.
And there’s several stories in here to keep you entertained, so why it is you’re still reading this and not snagging a copy of Cartoonshow for you collection right now is beyond me. This is satire at its finest, and attached to situations that would normally drive us to the brink of sanity itself, you get graphic novel gold. You’ll laugh, you might cry a little, and any and all readers, especially those of us who are parents, will not only identify with this brilliance, but will grow to love it right away.
