Too short. But quite a well told story. ( )

Just lovely. I am so impressed with Clowes' illustration style and understated writing. He is a treasure of American literature and illustration. ( )

The Oscar-nominated Clowes, creator of [b:Ghost World|62953|Ghost World|Daniel Clowes|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170613516s/62953.jpg|43003], [b:Wilson|7074482|Wilson|Daniel Clowes|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1288022561s/7074482.jpg|7328391], and Eightball, crafts a bittersweet tale of a middle-aged man's search for companionship. Originally serialized in The New York Times Magazine, Mister Wonderful follows the neurotic, divorced Marshall on his first date in six years. In his typical fashion, Clowes relies on caricature as he expertly reveals complex emotional layers mixed within a heady collection of humorous and poignant scenes. This all-to-real vision incorporates many of our own fears, inadequacies, and hopes. Simultaneously simple/complex, beautiful/ugly, and romantic/cynical, the thin (77 pages) volume engages the reader, successfully lingering long after the last page. ( )

A somewhat absurd tale of finding love out of desperation.

A middle-aged man goes on a blind date and a flurry of fears and hopes run through his mind.

This book is - dare I say the dreaded word - cute. It's a very brief book that could easily be read in one sitting of approximately 20 minutes. We see the main character Marshall on only one night of his life, although he gives us some back story and dreams about the future. That night is one in which he's been set up on a blind date by one of his married friends. We see both the actual events and what he is thinking, including a variety of 'I'm not good enough for this person' type thoughts interspersed with 'I hope that's not the type of person my friends think is for me' while he waits for his date to arrive and then a bunch of imaginings about this woman's past life and their future together after he meets Natalie. Throughout this are a number of identifiable moments and a great deal of laughs (sometimes the humor is there precisely because his thoughts are so spot-on identifiable!).

The illustrations are in the "comic strip" kind of style of graphic novel (think, Chris Ware's illustrations) -- they are colorful with bold lines and live in that space somewhere between the cartoonish and realistically rendered. The book itself is an unusual size, allowing for the illustrations to flow in a landscape orientation with several panels going across each page.

The book concludes with the wrapping up of the date, so the future is hinted at but vague at best. If you're the type of person that likes neatly tied up endings, this book won't be for you. But otherwise, I'd recommend this book for a quick, funny, and ultimately touching read. ( )