Bitter With Baggage: Sloane Tanen QuickNotes by teNeues

Some years back I fell in love with several snarky, funny storybooks by Sloane Tanen, a self-described 3-D cartoonist who works with chickens (1 inch plastic peeps, really). Bitter With Baggage Seeks Same and Where is Coco Going are among the wackiest coffee table page turners around, following the life and times of small, bright yellow plastic chicks complaining about shopping, calories, boyfriends, yoga classes--everything that gets in the way of a peep enjoying herself. About two years ago the New York subway system included her chicks in an art campaign on the Lexington Avenue line, an enjoyable break from the usual MTA ads.

When MJ from teNeues contacted me and asked if I'd like to review their line of CoolNotes journals and invited me to look over their web site, I was really thrilled to see among their product line the Sloane Tanen QuickNotes cards featuring scenes from Bitter with Baggage. Included in the set are some of Tanen's most memorable lines and scenes, including the all over body wax (not a good idea for a chick, but no one said beauty was painless) and the inadvisability of a chick baking on the beach. When I mentioned the cards to MJ she immediately offered to send me a set, and I am very appreciative.

This is a handsome set of note cards, you can see that teNeues put in a lot of thought in the overall design. There are 20 cards total, 5 each of 4 different scenes from Bitter With Baggage, with crisp, glossy reproductions on thick paper stock--ideal for quick notes and small doodles. In addition to the note cards, this is one of the most attractive and sturdy presentation boxes I've ever seen, worth the purchase all by iteslef if you're a Sloane Tanen fan (or maybe you're a fan of her father, the late Ned Tanen, a movie executive responsible for such films as Jaws, Animal House, American Graffiti, The Breakfast Club, and St. Elmo's Fire).

QuickNotes and other teNeues products (like their amazing art books, e.g. The Porshe Book) are available online at teNeues, as well as at Barnes and Noble, the Musuem of Modern Art gift shop, The Guggenheim, AI Friedman, and Paper Presentation (one of my favorite NYC stationery shops).