There’s a special kind of delight in Allie Brosh’s cartoon work – cartoons don’t have to be wonderfully detailed or lifelike, but they do need to evoke an emotional response from the reader, and Brosh’s work excels at that. I’m kind of amazed that Brosh can get me to empathize so much with someone whose head and eyes look a little more like they belong on a newt than a human. But those big eyes can say so much.

I love that we get the dog’s perspective in the middle panel, complete with the chair now having teeth and emotional indicators showing the dog’s belief that the chair has hostile intent. The pacing of this sequence is also excellent, with the third panel showing the quiet aftermath of suspicion lingering in the dog long after the chair incident.

Brosh tells a lot of autobiographical stories, effectively interspersing comics panels with small amounts of relevatory text. The vast majority of the book covers comedic tales of Brosh in unlikely situations, and justifiably plants the book in the Humor section of bookstores and libraries. There are a couple far more serious stories in Solutions and Other Problems, including Brosh working through a family tragedy. The juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy in the same work is hard to pull off, but in a brazenly honest tone and with obvious care for the reader, Brosh does an excellent job of it.

I highly recommend Solutions and Other Problems and Allie Brosh’s other work (such as Hyperbole and a Half.) It’s fantastic storytelling in a rare mixed written and visual form.