The Ultimate Droodles Compendium

Droodles - "...the new, IMPROVED way to waste time." (Roger Price, 1952)

This is an interesting book mostly because it works on a number of levels. If you remember Droodles, or if you're new to them, you can leaf through the book and admire the wit and clever absurdist artwork. (The book includes every published Droodle, some left over work in progress, and even Droodles used in various ad campaigns.)

If you are a Roger Price fan, there's a lot here in terms of biographical sketches, reminiscences, insider stories, and memorabilia to satisfy your curiosity/devotion. If you wonder what was "funny" in the 50's and 60's, this is a mild but amusing look back at radio, TV, and print humor. Price was also the co-creator of Mad-Libs, so he certainly had his finger on what the public found funny.

So, sure, Droodles were a "fad"; but they were worthy and had some staying power, and they're good for an admiring chuckle now.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

I didn't recognize Roger Price by name, but I did recognize his artwork. Expect plenty of eye rolling and chuckles when perusing this collection.

Thank you to Tallfellow Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

The Ultimate Droodles Compendium: The Absurdly Complete Collection of Roger Price's Classic Zany Creations by Roger Price is a book I requested and the review is voluntary.
I didn't know what Droodles were until I read this and I loved them! Where have I been! The shows a great collection of them. I giggled and giggled at these witty and clever drawing that are labeled so zany! This man and his partner both came up with Mad Libs! I can image that!
This is a fun read!!!

When I was ten or eleven years old I found a book of brainteasers that had belonged to my mom when she was about that age. The most interesting things in it were these strange “guess what this is” line drawings called droodles. Most of them were pretty much unguessable and made you groan when you read the answer. They were basically visual dad jokes. The most famous droodle is “ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch” which was used as an album cover by Frank Zappa (Google it!).

It turns out these things were somewhat of a fad back in the 50’s and 60’s. I’m a child of the 80’s and having only encountered them once before by chance, I had no idea they were such a big deal until running across this book on NetGalley. This large collection provides plenty of laughs/groans depending on your sense of humor…my wife and daughters inform me that they’re mostly stupid, but they think the same thing about my (dad) jokes.

Aside from the absurdist humor, it is entertaining to see the little stories and slices of life that Robert Price could conjure with a few simple lines, squiggles, and shapes…and frequently added to with meandering tangential footnotes. His mind certainly worked in strange ways. That said, I didn’t find the biographical section at the end terribly interesting. However, I’m not usually much into biographies of pop culture icons, so that’s just my own personal taste.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this collection of visual dad jokes and would highly recommend it to fans of absurdist humor and/or minimalist art and creativity.

A great look back at the witty, irreverent cartoon/mind puzzles from the sixties and seventies. Along with an irreverent "lemony-snickett" type narrative, footnotes explain references to popular culture making this a fun glimpse at a time-capsule of history. A great way to discuss the time period with younger generations, while bringing back great memories.

I'm sure my parents knew of Droodles, as they are children of the '50s and this is totally their humor, but I'd never heard of them until I picked up this book courtesy of Netgalley! And boy was I in for a treat! I laughed out loud at the first page, and from then I was hooked. The minimalist drawings are usually nothing without the witty - and frankly, genius - captions describing them. I appreciated the occasional explanation of by-gone references, and I definitely appreciated the section that carried the warning that those contained within were a product of their time and perhaps no longer deemed appropriate (true, although I didn't think they were all that bad!) I feel like Roger Price - also co-creator of Mad Libs - is the most famous person I'd never heard of.