Book 596: Bob’s Burgers: Volume 1 (Bob’s Burgers #1) – Chad Brewster, Jeff Drake, Rachel Hastings, Justin Hook, and Mike Olsen

Tim found the first three when we swung by Midtown Comics in NYC with an hour to kill before seeing Wicked. I’m looking at these as palate cleansers between the other books I’m reading. I don’t give major reviews of these, because there isn’t a lot to review. Each issue, of which there are four or five in each of these collections, in general consists of five parts: Tina’s Erotic Friend Fiction, Bob’s section, Louise’s Unsolved Mysteries and Curious Curiosities, Linda’s section, and Gene Belcher Presents. Linda and Bob’s sections changed (or were left out) between this first collection and the second, so I’m not sure what to call them.

The highlights in this first collection, by far were the opening “Tina’s Erotic Friend Fiction Presents: My So-Called Life as a Horse,” and the letters Linda writes to various entities when she may or may not have been drinking wine. Bob’s section, “Burger of the Day Ideas” was a total throw away for me in this collection and Gene and Louise’s were okay, but not as good as Tina’s.

The writers and illustrators did a great job of finding the quirky parts that make the show Bob’s Burgers work so great. I also figured out where a lot of the animation style came from that appeared in the Season 8 premiere: Brunchsquatch (IMDb.com link). It definitely lessens the excitement and novelty, for me, of a “fan drawn” episode, when I found out that quite a few of the longer fan drawn sections look identical to those in these comics. They did include a lot of one of images from fans I will give them that, and I know it takes a lot to animate vs draw, so there is that, but still.

Recommendation: These are great palate cleansers between larger heavier books. They capture some of the magic of the hilarious TV show and delve deeper into things that are occasionally mentioned (like Tina’s Erotic Friend Fiction), highlight the obsessions of the Belchers (wine, musicals, food, etc.) and overall they’re great enough that as I was watching a few episodes recently, I questioned whether something I remembered was in the comics or the TV show!