In Art Spiegelman's MetaMaus, the reflective companion to his graphic memoir Maus, Spiegelman claims that in creating graphic narratives, "You've gotta boil everything down to its essence. . . It's a great medium for artists who can't remember much anyway." In David Sipress's memoir What's So Funny? readers encounter a tale that's not necessarily boiled down to an essence, but one that allows Sipress to revisit his childhood and find some clarity in his relatively familiar hurts and triumphs.
In many ways, What's So Funny? is a kind of comfort food narrative, not in that the content is particularly comforting, but that Sipress presents a relatively straightforward narrative. That Sipress is primarily known as a cartoonist for The New Yorker makes quite a bit of sense in considering this stylistically predictable memoir. If they are anything like me, readers might start to find themselves reveling in some of the typicality of Sipress's memoir. It's a tale without much gravity, but I found myself attracted, nonetheless.
In keeping with our book club’s "humor" theme though, Sipress is far quippier than he is hilarious. More clever than comedic. At one point, Sipress acknowledges as much, saying, “the cartoonist has to thread the needle and come up with ideas that aren’t necessarily ha-ha funny and don’t offend but use humor to make a relatable point, ideas that express what everyone is thinking and feeling, and do it in a way that is unexpected.” Most comfortable in digestible cartoons whose humor makes one go "hmmm" than in more complex constructions that might make an audience fall out of their seat laughing, Sipress’s main goal does seem to be cultivating a kind of relatability and inoffensiveness. By and large, he succeeds on those fronts.
While I didn't find Sipress's memoir particularly funny, I think that's okay. Our previous two selections in this book club were decidedly trying too hard for laughs. Oftentimes, I find myself exhausted by a narrow definition of "humor" as merely pushing the envelope, breaking norms, and creating shock for a momentary and affective reaction. Literarily, I prefer authors who forge this give-and-take antagonism with readerly expectations. At the structural level, Sipress is far from doing this in his text, with his style and content mirroring the more traditionalist cartoons he trades in. Still, I appreciate his drollness, his Frazier-esque rephrasing of his life as observational and situational comedy, and again, his extreme commitment to therapy!
While not Earth-shattering or even particularly memorable, David Sipress's What's So Funny? has at least dispelled me of the belief that this entire program of "humorous" books was some elaborate joke that High Plains Public Radio was playing on me. Perhaps not funny, it's at least not unbearable to nod along with Sipress's witticisms, and even at points, eerily comforting in its mundanity.
