Cheerful Abandon by Joshua Smeaton

While writing about Undercard, the new boxing comic from Dennis Culver and Chris Gumprich (read an interview with them here) I happened upon the work of a friend of Culver’s, the well-named Joshua Smeaton, who works mainly as an illustrator. He has a new book out called Cheerful Abandon, a fun collection of short slice-of-life stories.

In addition to the pretty cover you see here, the book holds seven stories in 24 pages. Smeaton’s illustrations are cartoony along the lines of Alex Robinson, though not so advanced in shading and without big, splashy pages.

Smeaton keeps the stories confined pretty tightly to a straightforward panel structure, but it fits the subject material, which is an assortment of biographical (I assume) stories that are very small in scope and without heft. While some could level that as criticism, I say the work is simplistically fun. Mostly these are stories of the types of shenanigans that every guy engages in at some point. Things like tossing phone books from a roof, battling with snap pops, pranking your friends and seeing a ninja at the beach. The only adventure is into Ikea. Onward, Average Joe!

If it sounds interesting but you’re not quite ready to drop the $4 cover price and however much for shipping and handling, you can get a better idea of the book by visiting Smeaton’s cartoon journal, which is a surprisingly extensive collection of quick illustrations from his daily existence. You can find that here.

To buy the book, visit Smeaton’s store here.

And as always, if you have a book that you’d like us to review, you can send any of the Doomers a message.