Things Just Get Away From You

by Walt Holcombe

by Walt Holcombe
Blessed with a lovely bouncy, rubbery SpongeBob SquarePants-y style, cartoonist and animator Walt Holcombe tells wildly imaginative stories of love gained and (often) lost. Things Just Get Away From You collects all of Holcombe's late-1990s comics work, with a bonus new story, "Hails at Sea," thrown in for good measure. It leads off with "King of Persia," a 1001 Nights/Yiddish vaudeville-inspired graphic novella in which king Faisal Al-Ghazali must win the affection of the woman he loves by traveling to an enchanted land in search of a giant emerald, while accompanied by his faithful companion, the talking camel, Jamila.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

216 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2007

Reviews

[H. Givens · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art has a great energy, and I like that it contains so many wordless sequences when visuals are sufficient. I get the same feeling from a lot of indie comics though -- a sense that I'm fundamentally missing the point, or that there isn't one. At the ens of each story I was left asking "Wha...?" and there was no answer.

[Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started this years ago and couldn't get through it. Now I loved it. Wonderful. Wish there was more. Amazed by the dialogue in King of Persia. It's like I can hear the cartoon voices in my head.

[Matthew Brady · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, I did not get this book. Sure, the art is lovely, but I had no idea what to make of the actual stories (other than a few semi-interesting dream comics). I think the idea might have been to try to imbue cartoony characters and situations with realistic emotions and relationships, but the end result did not work for me at all. There's a fantastical Arabian Nights style story about a guy who just isn't satisfied with the woman he sets out to woo, and another Pogo-ish thing about a the tangled relationships between a bug, a snail, a fairy, and an owl, but I ended up just bored and irritated with everything. Disappointing.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully drawn and well written. It's a shame more people aren't familiar with Walt Holcomb's work.

[Camille Alexa]

Sad and intriguing. Glad to see Walt's stuff out there thriving in the world.

[Kendrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art was beautiful in this book.