Sharky Malarkey: A Sketchshark Collection

By Megan Nicole Dong

Bruce is equally outlandish and relatable—he’s vain but insecure; hotheaded but cowardly; craves attention but fears intimacy—his over-the-top antics are all too human. Based on Megan Nicole Dong’s popular webcomic, Sketchshark, her debut print collection mines the absurd in everyday life. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781449498566

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Reviews for Sharky Malarkey

[pardamustang · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sharky Malarkey by Megan Nicole Dong is a random collection of sketches and cartoons divided into several chapters. Chapter One was called ‘Malarky’ and consisted of bizarre stream of consciousness-like sketches of people in odd situations, and/or doing odd things. The second chapter is 'A Shark in Los Angeles, a series of cartoons about Bruce the shark. Third is 'All About Ladythings’. As it suggests, these are cartoons focusing mostly on lady issues. Next is' ‘The Animals and Plants Channel’, featuring cartoons about wildlife and nature. Chapter Five, ‘A Toad Makes New Friends in the Forest’, follows a toad as he grows up and ventures from his creek home into the forest and farms nearby in order to meet new friends. Poor Toad's quest doesn't fare so well as one might hope. The last chapter ‘Some Sort of End’ consists of more stream of consciousness-like sketches. These chapters are preceded by a intro-like section of random cartoons about Bruce the Shark being a taxi driver and the perils of being a cat owner. This was an… interesting collection. I was not familiar with the webcast, but the description of the book sounded neat. The description seemed to indicate most, if not all, of the cartoons would be of Bruce. That wasn't the case. Most were human-centric. While I enjoyed most of the art, the humour escaped me. Many of these sketches feel like non sequiturs, very stream of consciousness. Mayhap even drugged stream of consciousness. There was also a fascination with asses and boobs I failed to grok. If you are a fan of the Sketchshark web cast, I am sure you will enjoy this book. To other humour seekers- this book would appeal to people who like the bizarre and the random, who enjoy non sequitur humour with plenty of ‘wtf’ moments. ***Many thanks to Netgalley and Andrews McMeel for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

[librarianryan · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was not my type of comedy or my type of art. For starters the words were sometimes so mushed or hastily done that they were hard to read. The it was just another collection of strips meant to be the funny life of someone with anxiety, but It just wasn’t for me. Everything was colorful but the way the lines in the illustrations varied between thick and thin, the colors not staying in lines, etc, this book did everything it could to make you think the character was the one writing (which is probably was), and it looks a mess. And I don’t mean a Bridget Jones mess, where you see the mess but love the person because of it. More like Spike from Notting Hill where it's kind of gross, wants to be funny, but is just a big turn off.