A silly, whimsical book about dreaming and getting over one's fears by a celebrated American cartoonist and illustrator. Mr. Sillypants is going to learn how to swim tomorrow. He’s excited! It’s about time. But he starts to get nervous. “What if I step on a fish?” He asks his goldfish. “What if all the other people in the class are better than I am?” He says aloud as he makes his favorite bedtime snack, a pickle and peanut butter sandwich. By the time he goes to bed, Mr. Sillypants is not sure swimming lessons are such a good idea after all. When Mr. Sillypants falls asleep, he dreams he’s out for a walk, when he suddenly plummets into a big pond. “I can’t swim!” he yells. Soon though, his worries about swimming are far from his mind: he morphs into a fish, and chases after deep sea sandwiches and flees from an enormous pickle monsters. The next morning, Mr. Sillypants wakes up with a start—maybe his swimming lessons are going to be okay after all. Told with warm humor and illustrated with stunning watercolors, M. K. Brown has crafted a hilarious adventure out of an everyday fear. This silly-looking man can teach us all how to conquer scary things by laughing right at them.

Too late to go leave with the group, Mr. Sillypants starts out to join them for the camping trip.

When Mr. Sillypants gets lost on a camping trip, he has a dream about "The Three Bears."

Oversleeping on the day of a camping trip, Mr. Sillypants tries to catch up with the rest of the group by following their footprints but is quickly lost, and, settling down for a nap, he dreams of a way to find them.

A silly, whimsical book about dreaming and getting over one's fears by a celebrated American cartoonist and illustrator. Mr. Sillypants is going to learn how to swim tomorrow. He’s excited! It’s about time. But he starts to get nervous. “What if I step on a fish?” He asks his goldfish. “What if all the other people in the class are better than I am?” He says aloud as he makes his favorite bedtime snack, a pickle and peanut butter sandwich. By the time he goes to bed, Mr. Sillypants is not sure swimming lessons are such a good idea after all. When Mr. Sillypants falls asleep, he dreams he’s out for a walk, when he suddenly plummets into a big pond. “I can’t swim!” he yells. Soon though, his worries about swimming are far from his mind: he morphs into a fish, and chases after deep sea sandwiches and flees from an enormous pickle monsters. The next morning, Mr. Sillypants wakes up with a start—maybe his swimming lessons are going to be okay after all. Told with warm humor and illustrated with stunning watercolors, M. K. Brown has crafted a hilarious adventure out of an everyday fear. This silly-looking man can teach us all how to conquer scary things by laughing right at them.

An amazing five-year project in which 69 comix artists collaborated to creat a single story.

One of the funniest cartoonists of the last four decades, M.K. Brown has accumulated a body of work long savored by aficionados but never comprehensively collected ― until now. Stranger Than Life is the first retrospective collection of Brown's cartoons and comic strips from the National Lampoon from 1972-1981, as well as such other magazines as Mother Jones, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, andPlayboy; and her comics from underground publications like Arcade, Wimmin's Comics, Young Lust, andTwisted Sisters. In these pages: Read instructions for the use of glue, making a pair of pants, home auto repair, coping with chainsaw massacres, and jackknifing your big rig. Travel the globe to witness the giant bananas of Maui, strange sightings in Guatemala, camel races, and a "Saga of the Frozen North." Learn about love 'round the world, among eccentric suburbanites, and in a "Condensed Gothic" romance. Meet Virginia Spears Ngodátu, who (with a bit of a name change) would go on to star in "Dr. Janice N!Godatu," Brown's series of animated shorts that appeared on The Tracy Ullman Showalongside the first incarnation of The Simpsons. Aliens, old people, pilgrims, mermen, monitor lizards, tiny floating muggers and other weirdos feature in Brown's side-splitting single-panel gag strips. Brown's cartoons combine a penchant for the absurd with the gimlet observational eye of Roz Chast. Brown satirizes suburban anxiety and ennui by turning it upside-down and sideways, and her slightly grotesque yet lovable characters are perfectly captured in her restless pen line and delicate jewel-tone watercolors.