If you’re like me, you don’t consider ice cream to be just a summertime treat. However, I don’t always remember to keep my freezer stocked. So I recently did some snooping around on the Internet, and found a way to make ice cream using stuff I always have in my kitchen!
Alex’s Pick
Most libraries have pretty decent graphic novel sections, and you can usually find something interesting even when you’re not looking for any book in particular. The other day I checked out a book just because I liked the blurbs on the back cover, and I ended up enjoying it so much that I thought I’d share it with the rest of you. The book is a complete collection of the work of comic artist Walt Holcombe, titled Things Just Get Away from You. Holcombe’s output as a comic artist has been less than prolific, but over the course of his decade-plus career he’s produced some very funny and very affecting material. The dominant sensibility in his stories is that of a good-natured, gently resentful outcast, and his stories are populated by the kind of loopily-drawn, anthropomorphic animal characters you’d find in vintage cartoons.
Lots of times, when adult comics mimic old children’s cartoons, it’s in order to explode the innocence that these cartoons represent, or to explore and celebrate a latent subversiveness, an element of deviance, hidden under the cartoon’s surface; the acidly satirical comics of R. Crumb come to mind. But while Holcombe manages to inject a grubby, modern element into the rollicking cartoon world of the roaring twenties, he does so without skewing off into jagged-edge cynicism or mean-spiritedness; he remains tolerant and accepting of his characters even as he frankly portrays their romantic and sexual befuddlement, their unusual longings (a talking camel’s unrequited love for the aging king of Persia, a suicidal snail’s tentative crush on his squirrel best friend), or their humiliations. Surprisingly and uniquely, Holcombe uses old-timey styles as a vessel to convey difficult personal truths. It’s a sometimes uncomfortable journey for the reader, but there’s enough humor and beauty that overall, the book leaves you feeling brightened, cheered, and expanded in spirit.
RAINBOW RUMPUS - The MAGAZINE for KIDS with LGBT parents
