chadstep's review against another edition
3.0
Fun, honest, self-effacing, and yet not too overwrought with male self-effacement to be cringe-worthy. I actually was asking myself at some points how he could accomplish so many believable voices for all the characters to be both distinctive yet interrelated in such a bio-comic, whereas most bio-comics are more self-centric ad unable to paint a clearer picture of the central character. One star less for the silliness of the ending. And one more star because of the somewhat dated battle-with-age-and-male-chauvanism which seemed stuck in the eighties.
chelseamartinez's review against another edition
2.0
The cover really says a lot... I did my best to avoid coming from the perspective of the three frowning women on the front but it kinda tells you what you need to know! It's interesting to think about how much a may have identified, or felt I should, with middle-aged dudes as a 20-something person trying to appreciate film, books and music. Even though the 90s and 00s were pretty good for non-dude film, books and music, looking back on it now, I do see that that was unnecessarily what I sought out. The kid's musician character is pretty good, I think it could have been even better if the story was even more 1/2 and 1/2 than "mostly my story but let me try to put myself in her head for a bit of balance"... I know the Bechdel test is not a real thing but it would have been cool to hear more about her beyond her troubles with suitors, business contact/suitors, and drunk friend bandmate dudes; even though the seeds of a great character are there, she doesn't get to do much other than respond to buffoonery.
vylotte's review against another edition
4.0
I'm surprised how much I enjoyed this story of an aging hipster starting life over again with a new wife and baby, and the children's show star he is obsessesing over. Just the right amount of snark to keep it self-effacing but not mean.
veewren's review
4.0
A pretty good character study of a (very) flawed man. I enjoy Ollmann's depictions of people, and would definitely read more.
londonmabel's review against another edition
3.0
Funny, and I cared about the main character. His descriptions of his feelings for his children (both young and old), how he feels he failed them when he went through his divorce, how he feels he never had a "youth" cause he had children so young--it was all touching. But I was less interested in the storyline about the children's singer, and didn't think it added anything to the depth or the conclusion of the book.
richard's review
I expected not to like this since it is about a man thinking about cheating on his wife, which just seems like an incredibly boring story that continually gets written. However, this book is really funny and reminds me of the best of 1990s era alternative comics.
davramlocke's review
3.0
This is a strange graphic novel. It is, as the title would suggest, about a man in the middle of his life. He's forty years old, once divorced and remarried, and has recently birthed a third child with his new wife, their first child. The mid-life crisis story is one that's been told a thousand or more times, but there is a genuine quality to the tale in Ollman's view of things, and it's clear that if this isn't largely biographical, that it at least draws many parallels to his own life.
The story itself follows a man named John and his struggles with the more mundane aspects of his life and the temptations he finds outside of it. I'm not sure it really goes beyond that, and any drama that exists is largely in his own head. The story also follows Sherri, a children's performer derivative of Raffi, who once had a promising star as an actual musician. The stories are related and eventually come together, but, much like in reality, very little actually comes of any of it. In the end, the feeling a reader is left with is one of stagnation almost. The problem posed here was that of middle age, but nothing was done about it. The value of a mid-life crisis in my eyes is that it gives a man or woman a chance to evaluate their options and to make changes, but neither character in this book does that, and to me a large part of telling a good story is showing how characters change. I suppose some will argue that they did change, and even if they didn't, the book ends too abruptly for them to change and so we don't really see if they could or did. Maybe that's true. I just didn't feel particularly satisfied with how everything stopped.
Regardless, worth a read, even if the art style is a little visually disgusting at times.
The story itself follows a man named John and his struggles with the more mundane aspects of his life and the temptations he finds outside of it. I'm not sure it really goes beyond that, and any drama that exists is largely in his own head. The story also follows Sherri, a children's performer derivative of Raffi, who once had a promising star as an actual musician. The stories are related and eventually come together, but, much like in reality, very little actually comes of any of it. In the end, the feeling a reader is left with is one of stagnation almost. The problem posed here was that of middle age, but nothing was done about it. The value of a mid-life crisis in my eyes is that it gives a man or woman a chance to evaluate their options and to make changes, but neither character in this book does that, and to me a large part of telling a good story is showing how characters change. I suppose some will argue that they did change, and even if they didn't, the book ends too abruptly for them to change and so we don't really see if they could or did. Maybe that's true. I just didn't feel particularly satisfied with how everything stopped.
Regardless, worth a read, even if the art style is a little visually disgusting at times.
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