Book Review: Big Honkin' Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Humor from exaggeration sure to make everyone laugh

Cons: The strips aren't in proper order

The Bottom Line:

Laughs and characters

That everyone will enjoy

No matter your age

This Collection is Plasmic

The comic strip Zits focuses on the life of your average teenager, in this case fifteen year old Jeremy Duncan. His life is just like your, only funnier. And if you are a fan, you'll love Big Honkin' Zits, the second treasury of strips. This book collects all the cartoons from the smaller books Don't Roll Your Eyes at Me, Young Man and Are We an "Us?"

For those who haven't met Jeremy, he's a freshman at your typical high school. He's been best friends with Hector for years. The two of them dream of finishing restoring a VW van and driving it across country as soon as they turn sixteen. His girlfriend is Sarah. That is, when he can understand girls. Not helping matters is Brittany, the school fashion expert/information pipeline. There's just no keeping anything from her. And, of course, there's RichandAmy, the school's over in love couple.

On the home front, Jeremy must contend with living in the shadow of perfect older brother Chad who is away at college. Dad Walt is an orthodontist, which doesn't always make Jeremy very popular. And Mom Connie is a stay at home mom who is pursuing a career in writing when she can find the time. Unfortunately, they are the height of uncool. Heck, they have a teen.

And, frankly, that's one of the joys of the strip. While the focus is on Jeremy, it doesn't make the parents out to be completely bad. True, there are plenty of strips about how clueless they are, especially when it comes to technology. But they are much smarter than Jeremy gives them credit for. For example, any times he lies, whether it's about attending the forbidden Gingivitis rock concert or sneaking in to see Cheerleader Sleepover, they quickly catch on.

As with many of the most successful comic strips, this one succeeds because it takes daily life and exaggerates it just enough to make it funny. We get to hear Jeremy's thoughts as he tries to talk to Sarah and then see what he actually says. One running joke is Jeremy's huge feet. When the joke calls for it, those shoes can be enormous. Then there's the time that Jeremy's parents announce they are going out dressed like dweebs in broad daylight. Right. Like any person would make that statement in real life. But it is absolutely funny.

Adding to the joy are the sight gags. In one series, Brittany starts picking on Jeremy's physical features. As a result, Jeremy winds up with a huge nose on a shrunken head. A "cutting" remark can make Jeremy split in two. And those withering looks can wilt a salad. At times, we see Walt turn into a dinosaur when he makes a comment about looking for the fan belt in a computer. And Jeremy's head turns into an Etch-A-Sketch right before he forgets something him mom told him to do.

For the most part, this book is a series of strips about daily life. There are running jokes about Jeremy getting up late or being surly. But every so often, they do introduce stories that cover multiple days of strips. For example, there's the previously mentioned Gingivitis concert (and you'll never guess who meets the band). Jeremy makes the mistake of not noticing Sarah's new boots. Plus he must deal with jealousy when a sophomore asks her to a dance. He shaves his head to help a friend's mom who has cancer. He fills in for a vacationing receptionist at his dad's office. He has to deal with the temptation to buy a school assignment on the internet. And he gets an American Express Gold Card.

And in case you are wondering at the title of my review, at one point Jeremy tries to introduce a new catch phrase. But he gets ridiculed for saying that "plasmic" means fine.

As I previously mentioned, this is a "treasury," which means it is super big and includes all the cartoons from two previously released "sketchbooks." Personally, I always wait for the treasuries because the Sunday cartoons are in color. Sometimes you get cool extras, too. In this book, there's a section in the middle that gives us details on the characters. What's interesting is they talk about one character who hadn't been introduced by this point in the strip. He was in the paper, just not the books yet.

This book does have a pretty serious flaw, however. The strips appear to be here in random order. For example, on one page it's summer, on the next they are in school, and then they are back to summer. As a result it's hard to tell exactly how many strips are here, although they do have two Mother's and Father's Day strips, so we've got over a year. It's even more annoying when we get strips with Autumn, Hector's girlfriend, before we actually meet her in the last few pages of the book.

That quibble aside, I laugh every time I go through this book. In fact, my whole family enjoys the humor of Zits. So if you have a teen or have been a teen, you'll enjoy some Big Honkin' Zits.