Customer Reviews

I Saw You...: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A book of short comics based on missed connections, sidelong glances and secret trysts, as reported by the anonymous multitudes on Craigslist and the personals columns in newspapers.

Ranging from the hopelessly romantic to the definitely bizarre, these fleeting encounters are brought to vivid life by a variety of artists.

I SAW YOU . . . EDITED BY JULIA WERTZ: The next time you pay a visit to Craigslist (and I'm sure you check it every day now for the job postings), look under the "Personals" column and you'll see a option titled "Missed Connections." It's where men and women seeking women or men recount a recent chance meeting with someone who captured their heart in the blink of an eye. Perhaps it was a short but sweet conversation over the purchase of a latte; or gazing into one another's eyes on the train to the work; or even the smile from a distance. We all see people each day, strangers whom we wonder might be; strangers who might even be the one. But then the opposite of serendipity blocks your path and you never see the person again. If this is the case, then Missed Connections is for you; where you can pour out your heart to that human who stopped you in your tracks for a second, with the lone hope that he or she may one day read it and somehow find you.

In the fall of 2006, Julia Wertz, cartoonist and creator of The Fart Party, put up a blog requesting comic strips from volunteers inspired by "Missed Connections". Soon her inbox was overflowing! In I Saw You . . ., Wertz collects them together, providing a short introduction to why and how she did this. The result is a very entertaining book featuring a wonderful variety of artwork from some of today's finest graphic artists as they take a sentence or two and turn it into something happy, or something sad, but always entertaining piece of art.

So whether you're looking for a laugh, or for your heart strings to be pulled by some sad words and some sad eyes, I Saw You . . . is the book for you. A perfect paperback to read through in your spare time, while on the bus to work in the morning, as you glance up at that special someone looking right back at you, never to see them again.

This was a pretty funny book. The premise started to get old, but then I figured out that I didn't have to read it all at one time. Problem solved!

I've recommended this book to everyone I know because everyone I know is secretly obsessed with craigslist ads.

I ended up buying this book after having read most of Wertz' other work. I knew that this book was compiling work from several authors, so I knew that the artwork & storytelling abilities would differ from person to person. For the most part this is actually a pretty good book.

The listings in this are pulled from craigslist as well as other venues, but seems to be predominantly craigslist. The stories run from funny to sad to downright tragic. We see possible reactions to these listings running from the embarrassing to the joyous. Some of the more memorable strips (to me anyway) had to have been the librarian strip as well as the "cute girl in the diner" mixup.

The artwork in here ranges from the cutesy to the elaborate to the surreal. Sorry I'm not more descriptive, but you'll find all types in this book. For this reason there might be some readers who will adore one style, only to be turned off by another. The overall impression I had of this book was favorable. It's a nice cute read that's perfect for picking up & flipping through at random. I'm sure you'll find your favorite but overall most of the excerpts were gems.

i love this comic and I also own the print edition but the kindle edition is low resolution blurry and hard to read. i am going to try to get a refund.

As I have stated on the title, I bought this book to read on my iPad, and trying to read a graphic novel purchased from Kindle bookstore on iPad is a bit disappointing. More on that later.

The book itself is an anthology of different short stories based upon the "Missed Connections" section on craigslist. I am not a craigslist junkie myself and did not know such section existed, but I'm pretty sure everybody has a story of encountering a stranger somewhere some time ago without knowing anything about that person, only to think back and wishing they got to know that person better. "I Saw You:..." is exactly about these kind of stories, and while some stories are really interesting, some are quite mundane, and some are just creepy- just the kind of stuff you'd expect from craigslist anyway.

As it is an anthology, there is no single author, instead it's a collaboration between various graphic novelists all showcasing their talent, and there are some talented artists/storytellers here, while some simply doodle along- when the artwork is great and the storytelling augments an already intriguing story, that's great, but when someone scribbles along a story worthy of drawing on a napkin, it can be quite frustrating.

All in all, your mileage may vary- I thought it was interesting stuff, quite good actually, but hardly memorable book. I think the subject matter itself is more fascinating than anything.

And for the iPad experience- since I do not own a Kindle, I am guessing the other reviews posted on this page stems from positive reading experiences, while the iPad version does not fare well. With its beautiful color screen, you'd imagine that reading graphic novels on the iPad would be a great experience- nope. While I can understand Amazon focuses on the Kindle readership, I wish they would work a bit harder on delivering on different markets, no matter how big or small they may be. Graphic novels on iPad via the Kindle app shows each page as a single image that can be zoomed in when touched, but the image quality is not great- some of the texts from the book is quite small or handwritten, which makes zooming in an absolute necessity, but due to the crappy image, it is very hard to make out the small letters.

Overall, the book itself is about three and a half stars, but due to the bad transition from Kindle to iPad, I'm taking off half a star. With Apple's iBook store low on graphic novel stock, I try to do the right thing and purchase my books instead of illegally downloading them, but it sucks paying 9 bucks and not able to read some of the lines! Hope this issue gets fixed soon.

Some of the art in this is amazing! There's some serious talent on display. Sadly, the gimick wears thin quick and it all starts to look pathetic...even the ones that aren't obviously about stalking.

Missed connections ads are often cryptic, with lots of information missing, waiting to be filled in, like a good comic script. Julia Wertz, genius that she is, realized this and conceived an anthology made of of comics based on the text from Missed Connections ads. The result is even better than you'd have thought.

I Saw You...: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections

Everyone at some time or another has looked at the personal ads. This book has a variety of artists and their version of what goes through peoples' minds. There is a little bit of bathroom humor, but who doesn't like that if no one else is looking. Fun easy read.

this book at times was a little difficult to read on the kindle, however i got through it and enjoyed every laugh out loud comic about the pathetic souls who put out and answer missed connections adds, it reminded me of the movie ghost world with thora birch ( one of my favorite movies)