Cover Image: Herding Cats

Herding Cats

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Member Reviews

Six word summary: My life displayed in comic format.

What I Love: Everything. These are so hilarious because they are absolutely relatable. I feel like every page I am nodding my head thinking "I thought I was the only one!"

Who should read it: People who also find life ridiculous at times, but enjoy fun as well!

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Sarah’s stories are still incredibly relatable, adorable and funny.
As always, I’m looking forward to reading more!

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This book was so perfect for lifting up my spirits. I love Sarah's books. They're always so funny and super relatable. This was a fun & light read & absolutely hilarious. It would be a perfect gift for a friend.

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I love Sarah's scribbles, and Herding Cats was no exception. In addition to the usual funny-usually-light hearted comics, Herding Cats came with a powerful message: CREATE. This struck home for me, because it IS easy to get caught up in the criticism and fear of messing up. It's harder to push past those feels and just keep creating for no other purpose than your own enjoyment. Because of the simplistic style of these comics, it risks becoming repetitive, but I always find each new batch just as entertaining as the last.

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I loved this, it was sweet, relatable, perceptive and eloquently argued (when something needed to be), and for most of the time, I was lost in Sarah's world. It had a nice adding at the end (with more text), but I wouldn't like to spoil it for any potential readers. I'd just say: if you haven't had acquaintance with Sarah's work yet, this might be the best one to start with.

ARC from NetGalley (just in time!), thank you kindly.

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This book takes a great look at coping with those anxious thoughts lots of us go through. Great illustrations make it easy to relate to.

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This was the post-Trump comic I needed so I could be sweetly and hilariously reminded that a lot of us are in the same space right now and that, no matter what, pets and Fall are still great.

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Sarah Andersen's comics about cats, introversion, and the life of an artist are always adorable and easy to relate to. In this collection, it's more of the same (which is good!), plus a helpful, brief guideline at the book's end for creative folks who sometimes struggle. If you haven't been reading Sarah Andersen, you are missing out on great stuff.

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Andersen's drawings are both hilarious and relatable; it's hard to go a few pages without saying, "That's me!" It takes skill and insight to depict true emotion in a few drawings, and Andersen has both in spades.

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I will not lie. I am not the biggest fan of this artist/author usually. I like bits here and there and then the rest isn’t for me. I thought that when I first picked up this galley, and now at the end I have had a change of heart. This book is full of the usual comic strips. The ones about books are my favorite, but then I hit this strip about the Nerd being bullied in public, to go home and become the online bully themselves, and it just hit me with all the feels. The author goes further, and towards the end of the book, calls out our lives as lived on screen, and that everyone who wants to create should. That there will be trolls and bullies, but also helpful criticism both good and bad. Never stop creating. Never let the trolls take over your life. I love the message at the conclusion of this book so much, it shot my review up to the best I give. We need more authors and illustrators making comments like this. Good job.!

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Liked this one better than the previous one. The last chapter especially, sound advice on how to survive as a creative person on the internet... Good advice for anyone on the internet, really.

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Sarah Andersen did it again! She keeps slaying with her funny comic strips. Now with more cats and social criticism.

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L'ansia, le scadenze, la creatività, l'amore, i gatti, l'inverno: condensata in poche, geniali vignette c'è tutta la vita, sopratutto interiore, di quella che ho scoperto essere un'artista sincera e sensibile.

Saggia, con il sorriso, e un oceano di forza interiore che usa per sopravvivere al mondo e a sé stessa ogni giorno.

Perfetto per farsi due risate, perfetto per trovare di che pensare, perfetto per sentirsi vicino qualcuno.

Perfetto.

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Oh, wow, another Sarah Scribbles. I am well pleased. :)

If you have been following Sarah's cartoons, you know what you are in for, and you should buy this book to have them all collected in one place. If you are not aware of her cartoons, here are my favorite ones in this volume:
<img src="http://www.reyes-sinclair.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Screen-Shot-2017-12-05-at-12.03.39-AM.png">
<img src="http://www.reyes-sinclair.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Screen-Shot-2017-12-05-at-12.04.34-AM.png">
<img src="http://www.reyes-sinclair.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Screen-Shot-2017-12-05-at-12.02.44-AM.png">
<img src="http://www.reyes-sinclair.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Screen-Shot-2017-12-05-at-12.01.54-AM.png">

And, even if you have been reading her online, she has bonus material in this book, about creativity, and not giving up, and enjoying your art, and good pep talk for future or current artists.

And her final words? "Go Make Stuff".



Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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This collection of "scribbles" is entertaining enough, though it's probably best enjoyed in small chunks, as it begins to feel redundant if you read it all in one sitting. While the majority of the cartoons were generally directed at anxiety/awkwardness/introversion, there were some more pointed political ones, and the reader's own opinions will inform if they enjoy those specific pieces. The back section is more of an advice chapter to artists/creatives aspiring to build a career and foundation in today's world where there privacy and politeness can be hard to come by, particularly online. If you're not interested in this information, I'd suggest skipping it. It feels a little disjointed and preachy when set against the frantic whimsy of the rest of the book, but it does add a grounded layer that may be helpful for those seeking such advice.

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I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

Sarah’s Scribbles is one of my favourite web comics and I was so happy to see a new book! I laughed loudly all the way through the book, stopping to show my kid funny pages. My only complaint is that it isn’t 500 pages long. Oh well, can’t have it all!

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This was exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it today.

If anyone has read Sarah's work before, such as Adulthood Is A Myth, they will know what they're getting into when they pick up a book by this author.

For anyone else, they are in for a bunch of funny, real life short comic strips that document life under crippling depression and anxiety. It's great! Surprisingly, perhaps, many of us have a great sense of humour about it all, and Sarah's illustrations capture that feeling perfectly.

The only thing this one has that other collections of hers don't is a How To Artist section at the end. Honestly, I would have chosen to put this at the start of the book, given it is very text heavy, after three quarters of a book that is... not. I love the advice Sarah has to share, about artists and the internet and love that it is included in this collection. I just wish it didn't feel like an afterthought.

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I love Sarah's Scribbles. She takes tough subjects, like anxiety and the news, as well as everyday subjects, like pets and music, and makes them relatable and funny with her expressive meme-like drawings. This book also contained an interesting section where she gave serious advice to young/aspiring artists on both being an artist and dealing with toxic internet culture, sprinkled with funny comics to illustrate her points, which was pretty cool.

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This was an okay collection, which is actually kind of a shame to say, because I generally have very much enjoyed Sarah's Scribbles comics. And I enjoyed these, but there are definitely some problems with this as a collection.
Specifically, I didn't like the fact that this re-used a fair number of strips from previous collections. It's way, way too soon to be doing something like that. People are paying for more, new content, and that's not really happening with this. That said, the new content was generally quite good and funny. Some felt like it was rehashing previous jokes in a new way, but it was still fun and charming. The message in the last section was nice-- it's good to have something encouraging people to create things-- but I felt like the comic strips were just so-so through the section, I would have liked them to be funnier to keep me entertained through what was essentially a mini-sermon on not giving up on your creative dreams. Also, it was directly pointed at visual artists, when just by rephrasing a few things could have been expanded to any sort of creative artist (writers, musicians, et cetera) very easily, which I think would have been a good thing for the book.

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I relate this book to an almost disturbing agree; over and over, I looked at the comics here and thought, "That's me... that's me... that's definitely me...". I'd seen some of these online before, but others were new to me. Besides identifying with it personally, I think some of the pieces dealing with anxiety would be really helpful for my students, as would the guide to being creative in the back. Great collection.

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