The Rejection Collection Vol. 2: The Cream of the Crap

#118
Title: The Rejection Collection Vol. 2: The Cream of the Crap
Editor: Matthew Diffee
Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment
Year: 2007
Genre: cartoons, humor
293 pages

A weak follow-up to the first collection. Only one or two of the cartoons included made me laugh. Scatology seemed over-represented (the subtitle "Cream of the Crap" might have been a clue). The cartoonists' self-completed bios were far more entertaining than their rejected cartoons in most cases. Diffee's explanation of the submission-to-rejection process is interesting and his appendix on reasons for rejection is more entertaining than some of the cartoons.

I may have been biased by an interview with Matthew Diffee that I heard on on National Public Radio before reading the book. Diffee explains a cartoon of his, beginning "It's Che Guevara--or however you say his name, I don't even know." "Sigmoidoscope," he says in relation to another cartoon, "I didn't know that was a real thing." In my head, I hear Hermione Granger: "What an idiot." I think less of Diffee after hearing him attempt to explain the cartoons, though his point that it's odd to narrate cartoons on the radio is well-taken. For his part, the interviewer also mangles the word "tyrannosaurus" ("tyrannus rex") and says it has "forepaws," which is rather shocking for Fresh Air. Since none of this reflects on the book per se, I have tried to put it aside.

In summary, the book was mildly entertaining, but for my money, the first collection is better.