5 out of 5

The webcomics that have stood the test of time often have a secret weapon: variation.  Something about the format, even when it’s a once or twice a week update, makes us want something a little less predictable than the paper format of webcomics – newspaper.  Newspaper strips can pull the same gag / pacing week to week, but the strips that come to mind as Top o’ the Pops for me (true, this isn’t a global census) are able to encompass a range of topics and styles while all clearly in service of the creator’s particular brand of humor.  Of course, the most blatant example of this might be Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics, as it features the same exact images week to week to week to week, and yet it’s consistently readable.

David Malki!’s Wondermark has grown to be much more expressive visually over the years – and part of the charm of this earlier volume is seeing some of that change happen – but early on, it would often follow the static image route as well, using Malki!’s instantly recognizable old-timey public domain images mish-mashed into situations either visually peculiar or made so by the added dialogue.  There’d be no backgrounds, only words.  And so you could tell at that point that there was gold here, because them stiff and still panels are fully capable of eliciting frequent chuckles and sometimes guffaws.  Yes, the humor is often surreal, but the variation would come in how David would bounce between topical humor, childish humor, topical humor, and etc.  The strip could be all things.

In addition to the regular content here, which would still be worth the price of admission – especially, as mentioned, historically, watching Malki!’s style evolve during the course of the book, you get hilarious extra content very much in the Wondermark verbose vein via the hover text, some editorials, and bonus strips that weren’t on the site, as well as some “abandoned” concepts that give a little bit of insight into the dude’s process.  Plus: a 14 page sequential story!  All of this comes wrapped in a pretty handsome (and amusingly titled) hardcover by Dark Horse, with every detail of design (by Malki! and Keith Wood – the end pages, the font, etc.) fully in-line with the vibe of the strip.

If you haven’t read Wondermark, just a glance at any given page will tell you whether or not you will.  And if you do, then this book is certainly worth the price, especially if’n yer like me and are more likely to flip through this than coast back through a website’s archives.