Gronk: A Monster’s story volume 3 has the same appeal as the first book by Katie Cook. Each page is a four-panel strip, often quite funny.
Dale’s still a beleaguered substitute parent, dealing with the little monster Gronk. My favorite strips are those that either 1) comment on popular culture or 2) treat Gronk as the equivalent of a toddler, operating on her own logic and (usually) utterly destroying part of Dale’s world.
You can imagine, then, how tickled I was by this one, which combines My little pony references with an unexpected bit of heart-warming emotionalism. It’s a unexpected touch for what’s typically a humor book. It also demonstrates how well cook can show feelings in Gronk’s easy character design.
Gronk (and thus, Cook) is also quite imaginative. A later strip where Gronk rampages among cereal boxes has Dale exasperatedly asking Gronk to use empty boxes, only for Gronk to reply, “I like to pretend the Cheerios are fleeing citizens.” Well, ok, yeah, that makes sense.
Another strip is amusing much more for the setup than the punchline. Gronk is playing a card game with the huge canine Harli. The dog, of course, holds the cards in his mouth, resulting in copious amounts of drool all over the game.
A number of gags this volume relate to winter season and snow, but as numerous deal with technical toys, like playing with an iPad while viewing a movie. I was amazed but pleased to see several strips that avoid the typical punchline in favor of cogent observation. The book ends with the expected set of Gronk drawings by other artists.
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