The Follies of Richard Wadsworth by Nick Maandag Review

A clueless philosophy teacher repeatedly makes a fool of himself in front of his colleagues, boss and students. A night class goes off the rails when the local fire chief takes it upon himself to punish the students for asking questions. A co-ed Buddhist retreat becomes a hotbed of sexual frustration for one man and his monkey.

I really liked Nick Maandag’s The Follies of Richard Wadsworth. Of the three stories collected here, the titular one is the best. Richard is such a weird dude - he doesn’t get puns, he gets into bizarre scrapes, and does absurdly inappropriate things. They’re really funny - I enjoyed seeing his nonsense build up and up toward inevitable disaster, and his inner monologue is so bonkers - but I do wonder if Maandag went too far; is Richard much too stupid to believably be a philosophy professor?

Night School is shorter but probably the funniest story of the three. I loved how everyone’s crazy behaviour was just tolerated. The fire chief takes it upon himself to punish the adult students who don’t do anything to deserve it, and everyone just accepts it and goes along with the nutso punishments.

The class starts out as a dry business management lecture and then veers off wildly into insane visual aids (headless squirrels!), and then a new character is introduced: a senile custodian trapped in a Kafka-esque nightmare where his days are seemingly the same and he can’t escape the building! I laughed so much at this one.

The Disciple was the only story that I didn’t love. It’s kinda banal and lacking in comedy for large stretches, but it has some amusing moments here and there (Brother Bananas!) and ends up in a completely unpredictable place.

The comics are well-written and anyone pulling off successful comedy is doing something exceptional. The stories are creative and original and I liked the spare but elegantly simple drawing style that gave you everything you needed to see on the page. It’s almost all good stuff here and I thought this was a really fun read. If you’re a fan of Seth and Dan Clowes, definitely consider checking out Nick Maandag’s The Follies of Richard Wadsworth.