According to the info in the back of Don't Say Yes, Say Know this extremely thin (12 pages) comic was produced at Ian Herrings Comic Workshop at Liverpool Community College between 2001 & 2002, which explains why the selection of strips herein vary so dramatically in style and subject matter. It looks to me like artist/writer Arthur Goodman simply did a bunch of strips, at varying times, about whatever subject he felt like, and then randomly put them together as a comic.
So there is no real cohesiveness here, but I don't think that's the point.
Taking each piece on it's own merits, there's some good stuff here.
Bags: A 'Favourite Crayon' story tackles the age old problem of your flatmate who talks a lot about recycling, but in reality just collects rubbish that fills up your house, and is drawn in a charming, lightweight way that suggests it just fell out of an issue of Girlfrenzy.
The Catmonkeys Don't Understand, with the same set of Favourite Crayon characters rejigs The Life of Brian's "We're all individual" gag to good effect, before My Japanese Girlfriend and Sarariman brings Arthur's manga style to full flower yet with less amusing results.
The mag ends with Frequency, a whimsical, wordless fable about where music comes from; stylistically it resembles Malcy Duff's work, only better.
As I say, the only real problem with this comic is that is doesn't fit together as a comic, but I'd defiantly like to see more of Arthur's work as he obviously has a great deal of talent.
Let's see more!
Pete Doreé