101 Animals (How to Draw) (Paperback)
by
Top That (Editor)
(5 customer reviews)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A good idea, but probably not for children. In fact, probably not a good idea for adults either., February 3, 2008
Well, it started out good enough. Owl, pig, dog, crab: easy peasy, mac and cheesy! I was in a drawing frenzy by animal number 8, which was a lion. I could draw a lion with my toes, and even then I could draw a decent one with only my left pinkie toes using one of those useless tiny stub pencils that you find in public libraries.
So then I turned the page and there was animal number 9: The Fishhawk. I had never seen a Fishhawk before, but there are a lot of animals I haven’t seen. So I learned how to draw this half-fish half-hawk thing and continued on to number 10, which was a Fishbook. Now, Fishhawk, I’ll buy. But I don’t see how something could be fish and book all at once. Furthermore, the Fishbook was pictured as if it was reading about itself in a book called “Fishbooks: A True Story”.
Well, there’s a lot about science and zoology that I don’t know, and I can’t argue if there’s a book out there called “Fishbooks: A True Story”. So I drew this and continued on to number 11, which was, literally, the “Elevenosaur”. Easy enough, I guess, but numbers 12-18 were, in order, the Twelvopotamus, Thirteentelope, Fourteencat, Goatifteen, Sixteengoose, Seventelephant, and Monkeighteen. Each of these was an anthropomorphized version of the number itself, only with some sort of vague animal resemblance.
Nineteen was actually just directions for writing the number “19″. Under the side notes, called “Quick Hints,” it says, “First draw the number 1 and then the number 9! Now combine them!” Number 20 was finally a real animal. It was some guy named Dave who, technically, is a human animal. However, 21 was “Doubledave” and 23 was “Tripledave” and so on until 29, “Polydave.” Each of these was exactly the same drawing as the previous one, only with one more Dave.
The thirties were actually animals 1-10 again, but now with hats or actually themselves in the form of hats. For example, “Cat in a Hat” and “Lionhat” and “Dave wearing a pig hat.” Although, I admit, #35 Crabhat looks pretty cool, but I don’t see how it’s kid-appropriate to have him injuring Dave’s head with instructions on how to realistically draw arterial spray.
At this point, I started to skip ahead. Some of the notable animals in the remainder of the book are listed below:
#40. Beezoriite. A bunch of human-like bees coming out of a nest that looks like, I kid you not, the US Capitol Building. Bees aren’t animals, but at this point I’m not going to nitpick. They are, however, illustrated with a strange accuracy. The queen is apparently Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, and several painstaking steps are included as how his “lipless smirk” should be precisely drawn.
#41. Jackelopemesopotamia. Described as “half jackrabbit, half antelope, half Mesopotamia”.
#42. Dave, once again, but wearing a shirt that reads: “The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” I don’t get it.
#52. The Syrripidon. The author took a full 80 pages to describe how to draw everything involving The Syrripidon. This apparently includes a pencil-like arm that the Syrripidon uses to draw other body parts onto itself. I supposed that explains why it has 4 beaks, 12 sets of legs, and something like 70 arm-like appendages that include a grappling hook, can opener, and “arm made of money”. The final illustration is largely kid-inappropriate because the Syrripidon is pictured in a cartoon saying, in a vulgar and uncensored manner, how he cannot stop drawing things onto himself and that “no eraser can erase this pain.”
As of the date of my writing this, Google cannot find one instance of the word “Syrripidon” on the internet.
#70. Cow. Strangely enough, these are well-written instructions on how to draw a pleasantly-cartoonish barnyard cow.
#72. Dogcow. Okay I see where this is going, all the way up to…
#79. Catdogcowcrabowlpigdavegooserabbit. As a “Quick Hint” the author instructs you that goose genes are the dominant phenotypes here, with rabbits coming in a close second.
#80-89. Multiple poses of the author’s cat, Jinx, who is described as his “only friend now.”
#90. A bottle of whiskey, but with arms. The bottle is drinking a smaller bottle of whiskey.
#98. The Authoridox. I believe this actually some sort of animal incarnation of the author. Included are several pages on how to draw everything from his “heart injured from the evil Exwifica”, to his bloodshot eyes, and his “back, stabbed by the backstabbing best friend I once had.” This is a very challenging animal to draw, which is probably why it’s at the end of the book. I found the Authoridox’s cirrhotic liver to be difficult to render, and I’ve never before attempted to illustrate the effects of a retrovirus-suppressed immune system.
#99. Daveasaurus Rex and Exwifica Regina. Well, this one really isn’t child appropriate, and I don’t see how the publisher failed to edit out this horrible, horrible image. There aren’t even instructions on how to draw these “animals”, but I don’t see why you’d want to draw them anyway. Incidentally, Rex and Regina are the proper Latin words for king and queen, which tells me that a scary amount of thought went into this particular drawing.
Overall, I give this book a 3. I would have rated it lower, but it’s difficult to fault a thorough, 900-page children’s book for being incomplete. I would have rated it higher if not for giving me nightmares.
