Thinking of You

by Sam Brown

Genres: Art

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Sam Brown, pseudonym of Adam Culbert, is an American illustrator and author most noted for his website, explodingdog. The gimmick of the site is that he draws pictures based on titles that visitors to the site send him via email or Twitter.

Reviews

[thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't let the name of this guy's website (Exploding Dog) fool you: his comics are amazing. Sweet, endearing, sarcastic, beautiful, hideous, ironic, witty, and macabre: often all rolled into one.

Here's how it works: a fan submits a sentence/idea, and then Sam Brown fashions a very simple sketch inspired by said sentence. His characters are often stick figures — simple in form but packing a lot of wallop in terms of impact.

But I'll admit, he's not for everyone. I've showed friends my copy of Thinking of You and about half subsequently express concern for my mental well-being (facetiously of course, but you get the idea).

This collection in particular spans Sam's very early career with this theme but quickly develops into something more polished with every turn of the page.

If you like colorful stick figures who say a lot with very few words, Exploding Dog — and Thinking of You — is the creme of that particular crop.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deceptively simple captioned cartoons that actually reveal depth, sadness, longing, loneliness and other human conditions of a depressed spector. Most excellent and highly recommended.

[Patrick Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am shocked at how, on the whole, Brown's work doesn't hold up. Having just re-read this at 31 after buying it at 25 or so it seems drastically less poignant.