You Need This Book Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

Sherman's Lagoon #27

by Jim Toomey

Take a dive into the hilarious underwater world of Sherman's Lagoon, where humor, conflict, local politics, and pop culture all collide in an amusing maelstrom of aquatic comedy.

Welcome to Sherman's Lagoon, an imaginary lagoon somewhere in the tropics, inhabited by a cast of sea creatures whose lives are curiously similar to our own. Through his popular, long-running strip, cartoonist Jim Toomey explores many of the issues that we face daily in our world on dry land. By putting them in a different context, he helps us laugh at ourselves. His characters attempt new business ventures, go on disastrous dates, try fad diets and read the latest best-selling books. But, they also have problems that are unique to fish. Throughout the pages of his newest collection, Toomey explores environmental themes in a light, apolitical way. And, he takes his characters out of the lagoon and into various travels where they explore different parts of the ocean and meet native species on their journeys.

Genres: Humor

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 18, 2022

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.

Reviews

[Jocelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Fun. For me this is a trip down memory lane back to the days when I used to read the comics in the daily (paper) newspaper. I’m finding it an enjoyable to dip into every now and again when I need a diversion, so this will be an ongoing book.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't read the funnies in the paper anymore. Mostly I follow some on Instagram these days. But I've been getting more Sherman books as gifts in recent times after doing a re-read through of my old comics collections. It seems that I may have laughed the most whilst reading about the goings on under Kapupu Lagoon.

This toon still stands up after all these years. So many of my favorites in the past had gone stale, causing me to drop them, but this one still makes me laugh after all these years. Kudos to you Mr. Toomey and your excellent fish, crustaceans, and sea reptiles. And yes, I suppose the hairless beach apes as well.