Surfer Safari

Sherman's Lagoon #10

by Jim Toomey

Leave it to Sherman to make waves. This every-guy great white shark has something hilarious to say about everything from George Foreman Grills and "hairless beach apes" to soul-soothing meditation and that popular South Pacific Ocean pastime, American football. Like any good shark, Sherm is relentless in his hunt for laughs. If undersea creatures make you think "Nemo" you haven't yet had the chance to swim in Sherman's Lagoon. This watery world off the imaginary island of Kapupu in the South Pacific is home to a great white shark named Sherman; his wife, Megan; turtle buddy Fillmore; geeky fish pal Ernest; and Hawthorne, a macho hermit crab. The situations this crew manages to get into are definitely not Disneyesque.

This tenth Sherman's Lagoon collection includes all the "up-there" topics that "down-there" sea animals usually miss out on: things like which swimmers taste better, those in one- or two-piece suits; how to repair a dryer at 20,000 leagues; and where to find psychiatric help on a coral reef. You could say Sherman's just a regular guy with a slightly salty look at how things work.

Creator Jim Toomey excels at meshing the human and sea life worlds in a way that makes joke-cracking crabs and style-conscious sharks seem perfectly normal. This collection is sure to hook new fans and reel in longtime Sherman aficionados like never before.

Genres: Humor, Comics, Comic Strips

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2005

About the author

Jim Toomey is an internationally published humor writer and syndicated cartoonist best known as the creator of the popular comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon, published daily in over 150 newspapers including The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune. Jim has produced 28 Sherman’s Lagoon books, published by Andrews McMeel, and most recently a travel memoir, entitled Family Afloat, about his two years sailing the world’s oceans with his wife and family.

Sherman's Lagoon combines two of his lifelong interests: art and the sea. In addition to drawing his comic strip, Jim is active in ocean conservation and serves on several nonprofit boards, including the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Jim has given talks at a variety of venues, including the Royal Society in London, Harvard University and twice at TED. The conservation message in his comic strip earned him the Environmental Hero Award in 2000, presented by NOAA “for using art and humor to conserve and protect our marine heritage.” Jim won the award again in 2010.

Jim holds degrees from Duke and Stanford. He currently lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife and two children, where he tries to get his family back on a sailboat as frequently as possible but can rarely make it happen.