Why Grizzly Bears Should Wear Underpants

Divided between saucy, graphically gripping panels that subtly distill the profoundly silly aspects of daily life (e.g., time spent using Tupperware) and highly constructed, visually arresting narratives that focus on hot-button themes like relationships, high school, and dreams, this collection is a rewarding gem of politically incorrect edginess. Cartoonist Matt Inman, aka “the Oatmeal,” uses the deliberately crude MS Paint–inspired style of webcomics and pairs it with razor-wire insights about Apple, airline travel, cooking at home, and other facets of modern life. Inman brings a polished, witty and deeply pessimistic outlook to his comics. Whether he’s is a terminally wounded humanist or a hardcore nihilist, we may never know, but the utter relevance and poignancy of these often deceptively anecdotal funnies makes Inman a Gary Larsen for the iPad generation. (Oct.)