As far as I can tell, this 2018 book is the only collection of the "Sketchshark" comic - more than that, it's creator Megan Nicole Dong's only book to date, and "Sketchshark" was the title of her (long-abandoned) Blogspot site and maybe the original title of the (only mildly abandoned) related Tumblr, which now uses the book's title.
On the other hand, she's got a day-job in animation as a director and storyboard artist (including what looks like three shows this decade, one upcoming for 2027), which probably takes most of her artistic energy and drawing time the last bunch of years.
Sharky Malarkey feels like one of those "throw in everything to fill up a book" collections, divided into chapters with somewhat different kinds of cartoons. There's a twenty-page introduction, which I think was new for the book, in which the creator is picked up for a rideshare by her shark character (Bruce), incorporating what may have been a few separate individual strips about Dong's life and cat. That's the only major autobio material; Dong doesn't seem to be the kind of creator who wants to talk about herself.
The first chapter, Malarky, has a bunch of general cartoons - people on phones, anxiety issues, other life issues and relatable content, and a bunch of comics about butts. (Millennial cartoonists cartoon as much about butts as Boomer-era cartoonists did about tits - though the millennials are more gender-balanced, both the cartoonists and the butts they draw.)
Then we get the Bruce-centric chapter, There's a Shark in Los Angeles. Bruce is shallow, self-obsessed, and a minor celebrity (at least in his own head). The fact that he is in Los Angeles is definitely not random, and I wouldn't be surprised if Dong started doing this character when she began looking for work in Hollywood. (The book includes some pieces - older, I assume - in which the main character is still in art school, too.)
Next up is Ladythings, which somewhat heads back to the general humor of the first chapter - but focused on physical or cultural issues that are female-coded. (Often in weird ways, because Dong is a cartoonist and they have goofy ideas; there's a short sequence about prehensile boobs, for example.)
Then comes The Animal + Plants Channel, which is pretty random. For most cartoonists, a chapter about animals would imply pets - dogs and/or cats, depending - but Dong's work is wilder than that, with a lot of squirrels and horses, plus whales and a few returns of Bruce. And, yes, there are strips about plants as well.
Fifth is A Toad Makes New Friends in the Forest, which starts out as a picture-book-style story and morphs over into more traditional comics as it goes. It's also an unsubtle racial allegory, and runs into the final section, Some Sort of End, in which Bruce returns for one last time to lead the big kids-movie all-singing, all-dancing ending. (Dong spent most of the first decade of her career making animation for kids - I'm not sure she's entirely moved beyond that now - and is deeply familiar with the story beats and particular bits of laziness of that genre.)
Dong has an organic, appealing style, with bright colors enclosed by confident black lines all basically the same weight. And her humor is quirky and specific - the jokes and ideas and setups in Sharky Malarkey aren't derivative, or ever obvious. It would be nice if she had time and energy and enthusiasm to make more comics like this, since her work is so distinctive, but it looks like animation has been taking her creative energy since the book came out - and probably paying much better. But time is long and Hollywood is fickle; who knows what will happen next? Maybe she'll make more cartoons and be a massive success at something unexpected.
English (US) · 