I feel like you either love Don Hertzfeldt or you don't, but I happen to be someone who loves his work, and oh boy, does this deliver. I starts out delightfully humorous at first, with the spin on the back of the hardcover, the copyright page, the 'other books by' page, and then it becomes fragmented, connecting and touching back to earlier works (not that it's necessary to have seen them to read this). The narrative develops slowly, and then in typical Hertzfeldt fashion becomes alarming, delightful, despairing, horrifying, hopeful, existential.

I devoured it at once, and I am looking forward to devouring it more slowly. If you like his animation and his other art, you will like this book. ( )

Interesting read. Dark comedy with absurd elements. It has complete non sequitur short stories in it (which subtracted from the overall narrative, despite being enjoyable) but overall the book is meant to be dissected with further reads.

The best that I've interpreted is that a meteor containing eldritch monsters crashed down, sending the world to apocalypse, and drive the survivors insane. The main character already had mental problems before this so it becomes difficult to tell when internal factors end and external begins.

I thought the story was alright. My favorite parts were the one liner observations that I thought were interesting, such as balloons being the offspring of ghosts and tires, or when one body ascends to the atmosphere and a corpse falls, a moment aligns when they don't feel like they're in midair.

I didn't know what to expect with The End of the World by Don Hertzfeldt. However, I do like graphic novels, so I decided I'd give this one a try. When I won a copy of this book in Goodreads, I was over the moon!

First off, the illustrations are great. Don't go in expecting fantastic illustrations because these are not. They basic stick figure drawings...okay, maybe a tab better than just stick figures but not by much. I don't mean that in a bad way because I loved how simple the illustrations were. They fit the subject matter of this novel perfectly.

I loved how random this book was. I imagine it will leave some people confused because it seems a bit muddled and all over the place, but that's just the way it's meant to be, and it works. It made me appreciate this graphic novel that much more. It doesn't make sense, but yet, it does. You'll just have to read this graphic novel yourself to see what I'm getting out. It's hard to explain.

This is a very quick read since most of it is illustrations with a quick sentence. I think it took me all of about 15 minutes to read, give or take a few minutes.

I would definitely recommend The End of the World by Don Hertzfeldt. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it was definitely my cup of hot cocoa!
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Thanks to the publisher for sending me a paperback ARC of The End of the World by Don Hertzfeldt. I won this title in a Goodreads giveaway and was not obligated to write a review. ( )

A fascinating verso page quickly gives way to some stick figure cartoons with sloppy hand lettering and non-sequitur punchlines ("She gives birth to a table and it is stupid.") before morphing into some loosely related, rubbish strips about the end of the world (nuclear armageddon? alien invasion? does it matter?). Not funny. Not profound. Not needed? Not by me. ( )

Recommendation: For when you're feeling just a little bit melancholy.

Feels: Somewhere in the middle of meaningful, dumb, and funny.

Hmm. I don't know, I really don't. Where is the line between nonsense and trying-too-hard? Well, one way or another it had a very dystopian "Year Zero" feel to it. I'm glad I waited to read it until I was feeling a little bit tired, a little bit bored, not really all that up to thinking.

As far as Hertzfeldt's other works, this was random-all-over-the-place like Rejected, with a little bit of cartoon quirk, but had the darker feel of It's Such a Beautiful Day. According to the author's journal, "if the films were albums, i guess these would be the b-sides."

Favorites: I liked the art and the phrasing: very simple and bold, characteristic of Hertzfeldt. I like the little notes in the info page.

Least favorites: I wish it wasn't quite so "random“. Certain parts felt like they were trying too hard, like a teenager taking about sporks and penguins.

Writing style: Esoteric, simple, unfinished. ( )