Real Life: The Year One Collection [Paperback]

Greg Dean (Author), Scott Kurtz (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2004

Based strictly in the bounds of reality, Real Life is based on the experiences of the cartoonist and his friends. Whether they're gallivanting around 14th century France, building sentient computers, or taking a road trip to Michigan, be assured that everything in these pages actually happened. Well, except for the Michigan thing. See how it all began, with added commentary by the cartoonist, as well as extra material not seen online.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Starline Multimedia Inc. (September 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974696625
• ISBN-13: 978-0974696621
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,990,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HILARIOUS STRIP THAT HITS CLOSE TO HOME, September 9, 2005

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Real Life: The Year One Collection (Paperback)

I love comic strips...good comic strips and so I was delighted when I had a chance to read Greg Dean's "Real Life" collected edition of his online strip. This book collects the entire first year of the strip starting in November of 1999. Dean's strip revolves around the exploits of his main characters Greg (himself) and his two close friends Dave & Crystal. Call it kind of like a Drabble for today's twenty-somethings. Greg & Dave are a couple computer nerds whose life revolves around playing games like Final Fantasy, Ultima Online, Quake, Diablo and also playing computer-aided Dungeons & Dragons in true, Uber-nerd style. It fits all the clichés of geeky behavior and it's also damn funny. And I would be lying to myself if I didn't admit that some of the strips about Dungeons & Dragons didn't hit dangerously close to home.

Throughout the daily black & white strips and color strip on Sundays, the trio, when their not engaged in the above activities, have an assortment of adventures such as going camping...where Dave goes through withdraw symptoms due to being away from his laptop. There's also a hilarious romp back in time to France with a time machine built from old hard drive parts. Greg suffers through "transmission errors" due to his time pod being built out of Maxtor drives. Now that's a pretty deep in-joke but if you're familiar with Maxtor it's just about right on the button. There's a number of other hilarious diversion in the book such as Greg's ridiculous lemon of a Volvo, dealing with tech support, and his quest to find an original NES game system.

Since these cartoons are five years old now, a lot of the subject matter, especially as related to technology is outdated. But that's where the real fun of the strip comes in. You not only get a year full of strips, but much like a DVD, you get the creator's commentary. Greg Dean provides commentary on each and every strip of the Real Life, sharing his thoughts on the creative process, anecdotes about the real life incidents the strips were based upon, as well as taking some humorous jabs at himself for his writing or drawing style, particularly in the very early strips. This commentary helps you look at the book in a whole new light. Bear's self-deprecating comments are a scream...especially when you know darn well he could be talking about you! Dean used Adobe Illustrator to make his strip and the result is a simplistic, yet very clean cartooning style that makes good use of his character's expressions.

Real Life is a quality comic strip and very funny. It's subject matter may have a somewhat limited appeal, at least in these early days but it's extremely well done.

Reviewed By Tim Janson

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HILARIOUS STRIP THAT HITS CLOSE TO HOME, September 9, 2005

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Real Life: The Year One Collection (Paperback)

I love comic strips...good comic strips and so I was delighted when I had a chance to read Greg Dean's "Real Life" collected edition of his online strip. This book collects the entire first year of the strip starting in November of 1999. Dean's strip revolves around the exploits of his main characters Greg (himself) and his two close friends Dave & Crystal. Call it kind of like a Drabble for today's twenty-somethings. Greg & Dave are a couple computer nerds whose life revolves around playing games like Final Fantasy, Ultima Online, Quake, Diablo and also playing computer-aided Dungeons & Dragons in true, Uber-nerd style. It fits all the clichés of geeky behavior and it's also damn funny. And I would be lying to myself if I didn't admit that some of the strips about Dungeons & Dragons didn't hit dangerously close to home.

Throughout the daily black & white strips and color strip on Sundays, the trio, when their not engaged in the above activities, have an assortment of adventures such as going camping...where Dave goes through withdraw symptoms due to being away from his laptop. There's also a hilarious romp back in time to France with a time machine built from old hard drive parts. Greg suffers through "transmission errors" due to his time pod being built out of Maxtor drives. Now that's a pretty deep in-joke but if you're familiar with Maxtor it's just about right on the button. There's a number of other hilarious diversion in the book such as Greg's ridiculous lemon of a Volvo, dealing with tech support, and his quest to find an original NES game system.

Since these cartoons are five years old now, a lot of the subject matter, especially as related to technology is outdated. But that's where the real fun of the strip comes in. You not only get a year full of strips, but much like a DVD, you get the creator's commentary. Greg Dean provides commentary on each and every strip of the Real Life, sharing his thoughts on the creative process, anecdotes about the real life incidents the strips were based upon, as well as taking some humorous jabs at himself for his writing or drawing style, particularly in the very early strips. This commentary helps you look at the book in a whole new light. Bear's self-deprecating comments are a scream...especially when you know darn well he could be talking about you! Dean used Adobe Illustrator to make his strip and the result is a simplistic, yet very clean cartooning style that makes good use of his character's expressions.

Real Life is a quality comic strip and very funny. It's subject matter may have a somewhat limited appeal, at least in these early days but it's extremely well done.

Reviewed By Tim Janson

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, December 4, 2008

By 

Zachary B. Beason "www.zachbeason.com" (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Real Life: The Year One Collection (Paperback)

Greg Dean is a great artist. Sure his drawings are all only done once then manipulated in pagemaker, but they are great none the less. his online presence is on par with the greats of webcomics - as involved with his fans as Scott Kurtz or Shirt Guy Dom. he makes you care about the story's even though he can't draw hands for beans.