Review: Red Monkey Double Happiness Book by Joe Daly

by Chriss Cornish published: July 16, 2010 No Comments

This Book Is About

Set in sun-drenched Cape Town, South Africa, The Red Monkey Double happiness Book features two full-length stories – “The Leaking Cello Case” and “John Wesley Harding” – about the monkey-footed Dave and his freeloading hippy pal Paul. The book’s stuffed to the gills with mystery, suspense, action, adventure, conspiracy theories, and cool cars as Dave and Paul thwart criminal malfeasance even as they ponder the larger questions. Such as, “What steps can I personally take to help protect Earth and the species that inhabit it?” (Though most people’s answers don’t involve sword fights and hovercrafts.)

The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, brings a dry, deadpan wit anchored in everyday reality combined with unnervingly deranged plots, rendered with a half-realistic and half-cartoony TinTin-style crispness. Suited to adults and older teens.

My Thoughts On This Book

The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book is a fun graphic novel that features a humorous balance between normal and weird. I like the characters, who say ‘dude’ and sound like someone I’d know here in California even though it’s set in Cape Town (in South Africa). I’d gladly read more.

Dave, the main character, is a graphic-artist with red hair, monkey feet, a pet catfish, and a love of drawing mandalas. Dave’s experiencing an artistic crises, he has to draw bricks without faces for a brick company’s catalog. Dave’s best buddy, Paul, is a hippy stoner who makes didgeridoos, takes care of the piggies at an animal sanctuary, and mooches Dave’s cereal and cash.

The book consists of two short stories drawn with a realistic cartoon style…

“The Leaking Cello Case”

Dave’s working at home in his recently flooded apartment, struggling to draw unique and tasteful looking yet face-less bricks, but he just can’t work. Not only is he babysitting the son of his Chinese neighbor, who has to dash off to her husband’s restaurant to tackle an exploding rice maker, but he’s distracted by constant pounding on the ceiling and other weird sounds coming from the apartment above. His cereal mooching buddy Paul is convinced the noises are made by a sinister horde of dancing Russian midgets. The truth may be just as unbelievable.

This is my favorite story of the two. I really enjoyed “The Leaking Cello Case” and kept wanting to re-read it while flipping through looking for panels to scan for this review. It’s also the most normal of the two stories.

“John Wesley Harding”

When the animal sanctuary is burgled, Paul enlists Dave’s help in tracking down a capybara, named John Wesley Harding, who escaped into the wetlands during the robbery. While on the elusive swamp rat’s trail they discover a land developer’s conspiracy to use an evaporation ray to destroy the wetlands. Soon Dave is playing spy and battling attack baboons under the guidance of white-suited retired PI Joe De Marco.

This is a weird eco-conspiracy story and the strangest of the two tales in this book. There are surreal dreams, which are cool, and most of the story takes place at night. Joe De Marco manages to be both creepy as all-get-out and trustworthy, and I’m not quite certain how the author managed that.

Artwork

I like the artwork in The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book. The art style is a realistic cartooning that’s well inked and colored. It was fun to look at, was easy to follow, and told the story well.