Proving once again that the innovative spirit moves quickly on-line, what I thought would be the first comic book cookbook looks to be imminently trumped by Web Comics: What’s Cooking? from TGT Media. This is a 96-page book with over 60 webcomics creators contributing recipes and comics. Best of all, proceeds go to American and Canadian National Food Banks. To help pay for printing costs, so that more money can end up going to these charities, they have set up a Kickstarter page with a deadline of Friday, December 17, 8:54 AM EST. That page also has a video trailer that unfortunately won’t embed on WordPress. You can pre-order the book for $25 $20.

Now having done two blog posts on the topic of cookbooks in graphic novel or comic book form, I should probably point out that I can’t cook. I mean, really. A good day is successfully toasting my English muffins in the morning. I don’t so much make my lunch as I assemble it from pre-packaged food-stuffs. And correctly heating a microwavable meal for dinner (or as I still like to call them, TV dinners) takes more concentration and focus than I care to admit. So that’s the extent of my cooking prowess. But I can think of a few people who might like this.

And again, as with The Dirt Candy Cookbook, I think it’s a fantastic idea – using the power of sequential art to show how a recipe is done. Comics may just seem like ways to tell superhero or funny animal stories, but they have an efficiency and clarity as a communicational tool that is difficult to match. Smart companies have been using them in instruction manuals for years. I know nothing about guns but I feel like if I ever had to shoot World War 2 zombies with this gun, I could now figure it out. Heck, comics can even be used to teach you how to make your own mini-comic. So of course they can be used to show us how to cook food.

I said it last time, and I’m going to say it again: comics can be anything.

(via Robot 6)