Dreamtoons (Paperback)

~ (Author) "I WAS LIVING IN AN APARTMENT BUILDING..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sometimes an idea is so perfect that it can't miss. Dreamtoons, collecting 109 of Jesse Reklaw's Slow Wave comic strips, is subconscious journalism at his best. Reklaw asks readers and friends to send him descriptions of their dreams, which he then renders in classic four-panel, inked comic format. From silly to terrifying to profound, each dream is summed up neatly and illustrated faithfully. The giant-chicken building gracing the cover, the bacon on the communion plate, and the class taught by death are just a few highlights from the sleeping landscapes; the artist captures them all and breaks down our barriers between "normal" reality and our dream creations. Peppered with quotes from luminaries like Marcel Proust, the book also has a few pages of dream information resources appended. Dreamtoons draws its readers into other peoples' minds and keeps them there just long enough. --Rob Lightner

From School Library Journal

YA-Dreams are seen here not as earnest messages, but as marvelously creative, often hilarious, and always nonthreatening adventures. Reklaw understands that dreams are hard to share: "unlike last night's hit show, even the best dreams often leave friends and family bewildered." Happily, he has overcome the difficulty of describing dreaming in the usual way ("with only clumsy words and gestures")-through expressing its visual quality. For several years, he has maintained a Web site (www. slowwave.com) where people can view his work and send him their own dreams, along with pictures and descriptions of themselves. With a clear, uncluttered, pen-and-ink style, he takes this highly subjective and usually surrealistic content and transforms it into zingy, black-and-white, four-panel cartoon strips with titles like "Heavenly Paper Bag," "Super Blueberry Woman," and "Love and Darth." An apartment house turning into a chicken ("It still had windows and stuff, but it was definitely a chicken") would seem to be a difficult thing to explain with any clarity, but, as a glance at the front cover shows, Reklaw has the talent to do just that. Dreamtoons gathers Reklaw's favorite strips, organizes them loosely around a variety of quotations about the topic, and concludes with a list of "Dream Resources," in print and cyberspace, for readers who wish to pursue the subject further.
Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 126 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala; 1st edition (July 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570625735
• ISBN-13: 978-1570625732
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,095,670 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dream On..., July 28, 2000

By	Brainsample (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

Have you ever had one of those weird dreams that you can't quite explain to people? Jesse Reklaw can help.

This book is a compilation of the internet comic strip "Slow Wave" in which people write in to tell Jesse about their strange and goofy dreams. He in turn creates a comic strip from those dreams and posts it for everyone to see.

Jesse is a visionary as well as a talented cartoonist. He seems to be able to capture the mood and feeling of even the most bizarre dreams. I should know too, the apartment chicken on the cover is one of mine.

I highly recommend this book for cartoon fans and anybody who is into general weirdness. These aren't all funny cartoons - after all, some dreams can be quite frightening - but they do make you think.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surreal Snippets, July 8, 2000

By	C. Meyer (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Dreamtoons is a collection of comic strips drawn from people's real dreams - those short odd sequences of adventures remembered in the first moments of waking. They pack their own weird humor and truth. The book is a gas.

Highly recommended for the coffeetable or the bathroom library, as the book can be picked up and enjoyed a page at a time or en toto.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Little Nemo, Move Over, October 4, 2001

By	Stefan Jones (Suburbs of Portland, OR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Send Jesse Reklaw a description of one of your dreams, and he might make it come to life . . . in his weekly comic strip "Slow Wave."

"Slow Wave" is available in several underground newspapers and on his web site. This book collects the first few years' worth of strips.

Despite being limited to four panels, Reklaw manages to convey the essence of his collaborators' dreams. Some are disturbing; some are very funny;, all have the twisted logic and unsettling creativity of authentic dreams. Reading them is not only a pleasure, but oddly reassuring: It's nice to know that other people have dreams just as, if not more, bizarre as mine.

For maximum effect, savor the strips a few at a time.