Micrographica

by Renée French

Micrographica takes Renee French's Ignatz Award-nominated online strip of the same name and turns it way up. A mob of tiny rodents live la vida loca, led by the trash-talking bully Moe and his trash-talking sidekick Preston. Add in Nubbins, the big guy; poor, sweet crapball-lovin' Aldo and a rotting corpse turned playground, and you'll never find a more moving affirmation of traditional values. Inspired by a bald bird sighting while the author was wandering Hunter's Hill in Sydney, Australia, this book is pure weirdness - just what Renee French fans dream of. With guest drawings by Jim Woodring, Penn Jillette, Dean Cameron, Dylan Williams, James Gunn and more.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Humor

208 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2007

About the author

Renée French is a an American cartoonist and illustrator. Her work has been widely anthologized, and she is the author of the graphic novel The Ticking.
French is also a children book author, with the pen name Rainy Dohaney .

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

No funnier book about crapballs exists. Do you need something to put in someone's stocking this holiday? Then buy this book, and put it in that stocking, and it will fit.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird. Some of her work is stylish. This is deliberately not, to fit the focus on crapballs and animals and jokes among and about same. Made me smile a bit but not my fave of hers.

[Vel Veeter]

So here’s what the first book looks like:

And also it looks like this: And sometimes it even looks like this: . Indeed, my friend.



This is a book about hamster like creatures arguing on a ball of crap. Sometimes one of them gets a swelling on his nose and it looks like the swelling on the nose you see above. The best part of this graphic story is the guest artist section in the back, because the artist found several of her friends and colleagues, including Penn Jillette, and had them do guest drawings of the ball of crap. It’s actually kind of charming. Or it would be:

If I could figure out what was going on in the story. Sometimes I get things like this. I am no artist, and I am at best an amateur storyteller. But I have read a decent number of books and generally can take a thing on its own terms and then move accordingly. But I couldn’t with this one.

[Sabetha · Rating 3 out of 5]

a craptastic book of metaphors with creepy drawings.

[Brent Legault · Rating 4 out of 5]

She made me teary for field mice. Is that what they were? Or were they voles? Voles sounds better, I admit, but I'm unsure of the taxonomy here. But she made me get all carey about them. That doesn't happen much. It happened with Maus. It happened much earlier with, with. . . What was that story where the mouse rides a motercycle? Wears half a ping-pong ball for a helmet? It happens from time to time. But these mice weren't all that cute. And they had a thing for crap which I could somehow relate to. And what she does with her pencils! She makes volehills into mountains out of her pencil's tip. She makes me, an otherwise rational adult, get all gooey-hearted over the pictures she draws.

[Nafiza · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the oddest book I've ever read.

[Ana Hurka-robles · Rating 4 out of 5]

has haunted me for over a decade

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four rodents talk trash and play with crapballs. Awesome and hilarious. French really simplified her style, but it really works and she has some great, great deadpan moments in the dialogue.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull.

[Jemiah Jefferson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deceptively adorable tiny book, Micrographia instead is sad, wrenching, filthy, grim, and because it's Ms French, incredibly hilarious and unexpectedly touching.

[Laura Kershaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book about a lot of crap - art was kinda cute

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what to say about this. Odd, obscure, weird, disturbing ... very disturbing. The book is a palm-sized square, however the original art was done in one-inch squares and is very simplistic yet charged with emotion. The mole characters (naked mole rats the back cover tells me) are fighting over a ball of crap; somehow this is absorbing. One of them gets upset and his nose swells up and again somehow I feel sorry for him. Next they go off and investigate another object which we only get small glimpses of certain portions of it since it is so big. It is with frightening dismay when the simple words and recognition of an eye come together and we are sickened to realize it is a human corpse. The story continues; there is life and death, sadness and joy, curiosity and acceptance. Ultimately bizarre and yet somehow sentimental. The book is not for children, there is swearing and as I've said it is disturbing, but absorbingly so :-)

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

inscrutable this book was. I'm sure there's some underlying metaphor I'm missing, what with all the poop and itchy nubbins and holing up in warm orifices. But as Kingsley Amis pointed out, Kafka's "Metamorphosis" was as profound a metaphor of a hangover as there ever was or will be. So maybe Miss French's book has just one more layer I need to peel through. I was also expecting it to contain the original one-centimeter square illustrations, but I think they were blown up to 2-square inches for publication. c'est la book.

[Zefyr · Rating 4 out of 5]

French's sense of subtlety and strangeness won me over instantly, and I love her art. This story was her challenge to work more simply, and weirdly that results in a different level of detail - blowing up each image from its original one centimeter square size, on the creamy-brown paper, gives the drawings a touch so soft that I remembered the pages being a fibrous translucent tissue. Rereading it now I see that wasn't the case. Oh, and it's a story about futility and rodents and crap and crawling around in an eyeball.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

SUPER SHORT read...like seriously...it only took about 10 minutes to read from cover to cover. It's a 'graphic novel' that was adapted from teeny tiny 1cm square comic strips. And they are funny as fuck. I saw at least 20 that I wanted to snap a picture of for Instagram, and that's really saying something since there's only about 100 boxes. I'll narrow down my favorite soon and Instagram it. Even though this is so short, it manages to be incredibly funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and everything in between. Highly recommended.

[N.A.K. Baldron · Rating 2 out of 5]

From what I can tell, this book is odd for the sake of being odd. While I get that the pile of crap can be a metaphor for all the useless things modern society places value on, there are better critiques. Overall this book was ok. I think if it was not for French's previous success this would not have been published.

However, this was by far the best dollar book I've picked up in a long time and will be reading it again.

[Angypants · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't read the disclaimer about how small the drawings originally were (roughly one centimeter square) until halfway finished with this little tale, which I enjoyed immensely. The "Waiting for Godot" of crapball comics. Take five minutes out of your day and thank Renee French after reading this little gem of a book.

[James Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the cartooning is top notch - we know to expect this from Renee French by now - the storytelling is a bit weak, and the story is disinteresting. I did not have a bad time reading this, but I think that perhaps my problem is that the story is asking me too much to take it on its particular terms, rather than allowing me to enjoy it in a way I would like to.

[Paul Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odd, entertaining little graphic novel. Beautifully presented on high-quality paper.. The story is about little critters enjoying/fighting over crapballs.. but it's told with a seriousness, at times, that brings it to a whole new level of weird..

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This little book revels in it's simplicity. Three little mice, hankering after a piece of crap. And then life happens. Mouse life. Anyway, you'll want to hug your little brother or sister or cousin after reading this. Just to reassure them.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read - the book was originally online (http://www.serializer.net/comics/micr...). Fairly stupid and nonsensical story, but still worth the 30 minutes it takes to read it.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, cute, rodents and crapballs - what more can I say?

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A going away gift from very special friend in California. This one is a little twisted. It was great.

[Phyllis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little too cute for me. the original drawings are one centimeter square, which makes them very complex, given their size. I plan to give this to my 21 year old daughter for a laugh.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

simple but intriguing.

[Sonic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smart-ass naked mole-rats and their crap-ball, ... it's a heart-warming story we all can relate to. Heh heh heh!

[Jehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chuckle!

[Michelle B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who doesn't like a good story about a crapball?

[Tara Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty funny.

[minnajee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lyhyt sarjis joistain jyrsijöistä. Oli sillä hetkensä.