By Dustin Cabeal

This ended up being the second comic about parenting from the male perspective that I’ve read in as many weeks. Fowl Language has some chuckles for sure, but it wasn’t always wildly entertaining.

Creator Brian Gordon illustrates his family as ducks, probably because it’s just damn funny visually, but also because I’m certain that all kids like ducks for at least a week of their life… currently, I’m week 35. The visual of the ducks work extremely well because Gordon is able to add some simple expressions that become more dynamic due to the characters being ducks. To put it another way, the emotions emote better than if it were ultra-realistic or cartoon humans.

The artwork is very professional looking, and I know that seems dumb to say, but I have read plenty of web comics in which you can see the professional style developing. Fowl Language could easily be syndicated it’s that professional looking.

Gordon has an interesting set up for his gags. They are almost all two-page gags, with a lot of them having one joke on the first page and then a tie-in joke on the second page. Often the second joke ended up feeling unnecessary and overkill. Other times it was like coffee after a good dinner and hits the spot, but those meals were far and few in-between.

Perhaps the other problem is that a lot of the gags seemed age-specific for the kids. As in you’d have to have a kid of that age to enjoy the joke to its fullest which was a shame. Great jokes don’t require specific life experience to enjoy them fully, but that’s this reviewer’s opinion.

Overall, it’s a solid collection and one any fan of the series should check out. I would definitely read more and perhaps even re-read this collection when my son has run through the aging process more.

Score: 3/5

Fowl Language: The Struggle Is Real
Creator: Brian Gordon
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing