The back cover of Trondheim's newest laid-back spectacle of thought-bubble oddities and notebook jottings features a particularly spot-on line of descriptive sell copy: “A book with a whole lotta not much.” Inside these amiable pages, where little of consequence is said and even less happens, Trondheim (The Prisoner Syndrome
)—a cornerstone of the Gallic comics scene who has yet to break out in a big way to the American scene—presents more episodes from his low-key, jealousy-inducing life. Drawn as a schlubby kind of person-sized bird (most of his friends and family are birds, too, except for that one friend conceived as a bipedal panda bear), Trondheim trundles about the house and neighborhood, thinking his little thoughts and having small misadventures. He also spends an inordinate amount of time jetting off to beautiful places (Fiji, Barcelona, just for a couple of examples), where he wanders around, drinking in the landscape and generally enjoying himself. A slim but packed volume of curious wonders, this is the sort of book one presses on friends, even if it's quite impossible to say exactly why. (Mar.)
