Twitter: The Comic (The Book): Comics Based on the Greatest Tweets of Our Generation

by Mike Rosenthal

From a simple, brilliant premise—to create comics from the weirdest and funniest tweets around—artist Mike Rosenthal (@VectorBelly) has crafted a hilariously surreal world that has attracted over a million followers to his blog The Comic. Each carefully curated tweet delivers concentrated humor in the language of the Internet, reproduced in the comics with typos and all. As envisioned by Rosenthal, each comes to life through a bizarrely recognizable cast of bassoon-playing cops, sarcastic teens, bear MDs, clueless dads, potential insect overlords, and more. Featuring more than 120 of these comics, including dozens unique to this book, The Comic (The Book) is a dementedly funny vision of our strange online age.

Genres: Humor, Comics, Graphic Novels, Adult, Comedy, Graphic Novels Comics, Ebooks

144 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2014

Reviews

[☮Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not sure why these comic strip style tweets would be considered to be the greatest tweets of any generation. I thought they were lame. As in ... Not funny. I did not even crack a smile. Not once.

[Lady Lioness · Rating 2 out of 5]

Snagged from NYPL's ebrary. It's a short little book, but the biggest problem is that the original tweets weren't included with the comics. You just have these purposely absurd comics without any kind of context. I've never visited the original tumblr, so I didn't even have that as a frame of reference. As a result, I was mildly amused at best. I recommend borrowing, not buying.

[☺Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really quick read with amusing cartoons illustrating an assortment of bizarre and funny tweets. Would have appreciated having the original tweets provided for context. I have not visited the author's tumblr site which, if I had, may have also increased my enjoyment.

[Reagan Kapasi · Rating 1 out of 5]

There has gotta be better tweets out there than this... @PattonOswalt save me

[Am Y · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very amusing. The bulk of the comics were not the least bit funny nor witty. The best the book had to offer was probably the famous "Sarchasm" comic. The rest were really really mediocre.

[Nic · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5, maybe? Not all the way to four stars, but pretty fun.

[Alya AlShaibani · Rating 5 out of 5]

super funny! loved it

[Dorothea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tweets were obscure and there were hardly any, if not, none of the context given for the tweets. Didn't see and enjoy the humour.

[Michele · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am so confused about the premise of this book. The title looked like it’d be funny, and essentially the creator of the book explains that he collected funny/strange tweets over the years and then created a tumblr where he illustrated said tweets. But in this published book format, without the screenshot of the tweet for context, the comic loses its humour for me. He says he kept all the text exactly as it appeared - typos and all - but were all these original tweets written as dialogue? Or he turned them into dialogue? To be honest, I didn’t find any of it funny - just random in an ineffective way. Even the subtitle that it’s “based on the greatest tweets of our generation” is a HUGE stretch that I found no evidence of whatsoever, even from 10 years ago when this book was first published.
Glad I borrowed this from the library and not purchased a copy.

[John Naylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was occasionally funny.
The two problems I had with it was the lack of the original tweets for context and the fact that some of the jokes predated Twitter by decades.

I feel an expanded edition containing the original tweets would be a lot better. I will now go back to recycling jokes on my own Twitter (@JohnPaulNaylor).

I got this book in a clearance sale for £1. It was worth that.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read to be sure - but this collection of comics based on strange/amusing tweets was absolutely hilarious! I laughed out loud a number of times, it certainly goes to show that everyone's weird, some more than others. ;O)

[Lauren Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun and cute set of short comic strips that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I’d love to read a comic from this guy that’s more of a narrative, since you can definitely see his humor here, but just in short snippets.

[Eloïse · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest I was just in the biggest reading slump of my life, and I needed something lighthearted and funny to get me back in the mood. This book's funny sometimes, but the comics are really hit or miss, although I do think Rosenthal did a good job adapting tweets into comics.

[Angelika · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was short but really funny. I read this book in probably less then an hour but it was a lot of fun.

[Kailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick, funny read. I really enjoyed the drawings.

[Kelly K · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amusing read. I remember seeing a few of these floating around online before.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun and worth the read.

[Salty Swift · Rating 4 out of 5]

First you chuckle, then you cry....

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

When it's funny, it's really funny. But when it's not, I'm totally lost. Wish this book included the original tweets for context. All in all, a solid short borrow from the library

[Pongsak Sarapukdee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit old now but some gags were so hilarious.

[XUE · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's difficult for me to echo with the sense of humor in this book. I don't find it funny for most part. It might be more enjoyable if the original tweets were accompanied by the side.

[Harry Palacio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most hilarious account of twitter memes as illustrated to fit the taste of the layman

[JY · Rating 3 out of 5]

Translating tweets into comics is much easier said than done. Quick and witty read, not meant for kids.

[Emmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some where hilarious, some where inappropriate, and some simply made no sense. All in all, a pretty decent collection.

[Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these are very funny, others are lame, but overall a fun collection of cartoons.

[Cara Patel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the art style, but I didn't really get the humour of a lot of these. Maybe I'm too old for them.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of things I do when I need a good laugh is trying to find funny tumblr post and tweets, I even follow pages on facebook for this very reason. Twitter: The Comic is basically one of those facebook pages (or in the case a tumblr page devoted to tweets).

Each tweet is kept in it’s original form, and illustrated to perfection. It’s a hit or miss book depending on your love of jokes about dad jokes, pessimism, or being alone…but I think the hits are definitely worth it. The illustrations are pretty spot on too, I’ve seen a few of these tweets before sans pictures and I’d say the artist did a pretty good job of pulling stuff directly from my had in some cases.

It’s a silly a little book, and good for a few laughs for sure. I’m not sure if I’d pay the full cover price for it but I suppose that’s what his tumblr page is for.

[dejah_thoris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda cute little book based on a webcomic where the author tries to depict interesting tweets. Neat concept (should've thought of that myself!) but I found it kinda hit or miss. Some will make you laugh and others just made me shake my head. I'm also not seeing how these are the "definitive tweets of a generation" but maybe the introduction is a little overblown.

[Jeremy West · Rating 4 out of 5]

A much longer extension to the hilarious Tumblr dedicated to the same idea of creating comic strips from tweets. I laughed out loud many times! If you're looking for a funny, quick read, flip through this humorous book of comics!

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!