It was fun seeing Vimes and Sybil and the other Discworld characters, and getting another peek into Vimes’ family time was lovely, but I feel like non-Discworld fans would get less enjoyment out of it because the emotional connection with the characters isn’t there. This was a very charming story and a nice bit of metafiction, though I was expecting it to be the story read in Thud! and nothing more. But I’ve counted the other “first time on Mark Reads” books so in full honesty…. After all, it’s a picture book and one I basically “read” on the Mark Reads Youtube channel, so I didn’t even get the full benefit of the illustrations. And not the mirthless, or dangerous, kind he's been known to give just before he cuffs someone, but an actual big goofy, and happy smile.There’s a large part of me that feels like I shouldn’t be reviewing this or counting it towards my “read in 2018″ total.

When He Smiles: This is also the first, and probably only, Discworld illustration where Vimes is actually smiling.Young Sam's hair is no beautician's masterpiece, either. Please Keep Your Hat On: In possibly the first ever illustration of him sans Watch helmet, Samuel Vimes is revealed to have greasy helmet hair.Inherently Funny Words: Both 'hippopotamus' and the sound that it's given to make.Depending on the Artist: Most characters that were illustrated here were also drawn by Paul Kidby in The Art of Discworld and look rather different in the two books.Creator Cameo: There's a portrait of Terry Pratchett in Young Sam's room.Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Vimes looks like Pete Postlethwaite in this book, reflecting what was said to be Pratchett's personal Hypothetical Casting.Catchphrase: Most of the things Vimes has the Ankh-Morpork characters say are their catchphrases, like Foul Ole Ron's ' Buggrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!' or Lord Vetinari's 'Don't let me detain you.'.Where's My Cow? provides examples of the following tropes: As young Sam gets more and more worked up the art styles blend together. The third is a cartoony style that anthropomorphises the toys and paintings, a visual description of young Sam's imagination. The second, highly simplistic, is for the Where's My Cow? book itself. The first, most realistic, art style is the real world events.

It tells the story of the time (mentioned in Thud!) when Vimes changed the story to a more 'city-appropriate' version, removing the animals and putting in city people. Not exactly the book mentioned in the Discworld book Thud!, Where's My Cow? uses three distinct art styles.

Where's My Cow? by Terry Pratchett