Book Review: Revenge of the Librarians

(Crossposted from The Itinerant Librarian)

Tom Gauld, Revenge of the Librarians. Montreal, Quebec: Drawn and Quarterly, 2022. ISBN: 9781770466166.

Genre: comics and graphic novels

Subgenre: literary, humor, comic strips

Format: small hardcover

Source: Eastside Branch, Lexington (KY) Public Library 

This is the latest, as of this post, collection of literary humor comics by Tom Gauld. If you've seen his comics, you can easily recognize his art style featuring simple figures, a style that works very well. Gauld has a good imagination and often he comes up with literary situations that many readers and writers can find relatable. This particular collection was published in 2022, and it contains many comics with pandemic humor. It is a nice way to make light of the lockdowns and the pandemic at least for a while. 

Some highlights include: 

• The revenge of the librarians (opening strip).
• The bookshop cat and the pandemic.
• The library of terror.
• A conversation with the author.
• Village murder mysteries. I've been watching Midsomer Murders, and this reminded me of the series right away.

The humor is nice, but it is not laugh out loud humor. Most cartoons may cause a chuckle, maybe make you smile. There are some comics that are nice but fall a bit flat. I like the book, but it is not terribly memorable. Fans will likely enjoy it, so will folks who like literary humor. It is a nice book book to pick up, read and smile a bit, then move on. It is more a book to borrow. I'd recommend it for libraries with large graphic novel collections. For a small library like ours, I'd consider this optional. 

3 out of 5 stars.