Book & Webcomic Review: Lapses in Judgment: Kidnapped by Gnomes Volume 1 by Kathy Peterson

Kidnapped by Gnomes (www.kidnappedbygnomes.com)
By Kathy Peterson

Webcomic artist Kathy Peterson was a couple of tables down from us at the recent Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo in Columbus Ohio. This event, called SPACE for short, is a showcase for independent and self-published comics. It features mostly print media, but there were some webcomic artists in attendance as well (a full report on the convention will be posted on Gather soon. Look for it in my Geek Travel group!).

It was great meeting Kathy Peterson at SPACE, and I got a chuckle from the sample webcomic panels she'd brought with her.

Her first book, Lapses in Judgment, collects some of the early material from her webcomic, Kidnapped by Gnomes. It features the adventures of a pair of house gnomes (depicted as furry big-eared, weeble-bodied cartoony critters) who have occupied the home of the hapless narrator.

Much like the grownups in Peanuts, Ms. Peterson appears in voice only, a cynical, harried, and suspicious bit of dialogue from above, usually wondering what the gnomes have bought when they helped themselves to her credit card.

The critters themselves, Ed and Wilson, spend their days wrecking their owner's home, squandering her money, and debating politics.

Ed is a conservative who dreams of conquering the State of Delaware and turning it into his personal empire. Wilson is a liberal with a crush on Ann Coulter.

The political humor is sharp without coming across as venomous, and it raises the intellectual level of the comic, although there are plenty of slapstick laughs to be had as well. Running jokes like Wilson's Ann Coulter crush and the "Pandora's Box of Political Lies" add some good continuity to keep things interesting.

This is an amusing comic, and a very worthwhile compilation volume.

Lapses in Judgment: Kidnapped by Gnomes Volume 1 was book #9 in my goal of reading and reviewing 50 books in 2008. It gets a rating of 8 out of 10 in my comic review rating system.