Customer Reviews

Anywhere But Here

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a collection of one-page stories without text and unrelated to each other. The drawings are deceptively cute and more or less traditional. But the scripts are completely refreshing and read like something written in another planet. I don't know how to compare it to anything else, it is THAT original. The closest parallel I can find is to very old stuff like the Rarebit Fiend series by Winsor McKay or his Little Nemo, surreal and dream-like. But here there are no words, ever.

Some of the stories are laugh out loud funny. Some are surreal. Some are just very cute. A few I just don't get and read to me more like a zen mantra. This is no Garfield, it is unlike any other type of humor you've ever encountered.

Entertainment Weekly chose it #1 on their "Must List" in their April 8, 2005 issue and had this to say:
"Sublime and silly: Nothing's lost in translation in these wordless Japanese strips and their bone-dry Zen humor."

Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review in their May 9th issue:
"The strips always begin with a simple premise: the man walking, fishing, talking or looking, and then, around panel six or seven, a surreal twist takes shape, revealing itself in the very last panel for maximum effect. Each development is wonderfully hallucinatory and inventive--­never monotonous or predictable."

Volume 2 is already in production and readers can expect more of the same twisted humor. Give it a try!