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I'm Never Coming Back
I'm Never Coming Back
Oct 10, 2024 7:30 PM

Author:Julian Hanshaw

I'm Never Coming Back

I'm Never Coming Back is a collection of surreal, comic and mournful interweaving tales travelling across three continents. In each destination we zoom in on unusual lives and remarkable situations, each tale unknowingly impacting on the next.

In Rye train station a woman impulsively buys the same ticket as the man in front of her. The accidental journey leads her to Berlin. A novel way to run away from home.

At Heathrow Airport, a building perpetually busy with people coming and going, a traveller is visited by a memory that refuses to leave.

A tray of Singapore rice noodles cooked up in Christchurch takes on a life of its own.

Winchelsea. A lone letterbox in Britain's only desert is central to a friendship between a travelling chef and a deep-sea diver.

An old man realises that time is running out in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Elsewhere an out-of-towner meets a crab at a taco stand who seems to know more than any crab has a right to know.

The 'sound mirrors of Denge' reflect more than noise for one day-tripper.

And on Johnston Island a man struggles to hold onto his fading memories as his house slowly fills with pollen. Test Match Special seems to be the only foothold in reality.

The Art of Pho is now available as a live motion comic: http://artofpho.submarinechannel.com/

Reviews

At first I was drawn in by the delicate line and colours. Then I was captured by the subtle humour and the imaginative way Julian Hanshaw tells his stories. This was followed by a deep longing for home, which we share

—— Rutu Modan, author of 'Exit Wounds'

A beautiful example of the possibilities in this medium

—— Ryan Rushton , The Skinny

The visuals, reminiscent of the 1990s US animation series Beavis and Butthead, accompany narrative that contains both humour and poignancy

—— Sussex Life

A brilliant exploration of the imagination... A brilliant, beautiful collection of lost thoughts

—— Bookmunch

I cannot praise enough Marjane Satrapi's moving account of growing up as a spirited young girl in revolutionary and war-time Iran. Persepolis is disarming and often humorous but ultimately it is shattering

—— Joe Sacco

A tour de force to rival Maus

—— The Times

An adult and difficult story but [accompanied by] very simple black and white illustrations, comic book style, and it is exceptionally powerful...show the amazing power and depth that can come from a literary story shown through words and images

—— Ink Pellet

The magic of Marjane Satrapi's work is that it can condense a whole country's tragedy into one poignant, funny scene after another.

—— Natasha Walter , Independent on Sunday

Persepolis is a stylish, clever and moving weapon of mass destruction.

—— David Jenkins , Sunday Telegraph

Marjane Satrapi's books are a revelation. They're funny, they're sad, they're hugely readable. Most importantly, they remind you that the media sometimes tell you the facts but rarely tell you the truth. In one afternoon Persepolis will teach you more about Iran, about being an outsider, about being human, than you could learn from a thousand hours of television documentaries and newspaper articles. And you will remember it for a very long time.

—— Mark Haddon

I cannot praise enough Marjane Satrapi's moving account of growing up as a spirited young girl in revolutionary and war-time Iran. Persepolis is disarming and often humorous but ultimately it is shattering.

—— Joe Sacco

Throughout, there are magnificent feats of connectivity, startlingly complex internal monologues that unfold with perfect simplicity… I haven’t encountered a book about being an artist, or about the punishing entanglements of mothers and daughters, as engaging, profound or original as this one in a long time.

—— Rev’d Katie Roiphe , Scotsman

Lively, fresh and expressive…humane, complex and beautiful.

—— Anna Carey , Irish Times

Don’t let the cartoons fool you, this is an exciting and intelligent book and, at many points, highly moving. It doesn’t just tell Alison’s story, Are You My Mother? allows to you to think about your own.

—— Emerald Street

Find everything this author has written. Every jot she makes on the paper enriches the baroque, painful, exhilarating story she has to tell.

—— Candia McWilliam , Scotsman

It’s first and foremost funny, using graphical and verbal tricks to express the psychological dramas of an American household.

—— MacUser

[Sacco’s] ability to cram in detail is extraordinary. And it is the details that linger.

—— The Economist

When stretched to its 24ft length in the Saga Magazine office, we pored over it for ages. We predict you will want to do the same.

—— Saga Magazine

About Joe Sacco’s The Great War, one can write only essays or short, ecstatic sentences... A beautiful accordion-book, it unfolds on the Western Front, with all its monotony and misery: simple, but intricate; wordless, but vocal; brutal, but beautiful. A masterpiece of quietly affecting numbers, the thousands of lines, dots, and crosses that demarcate the thousands of lives, deaths, and crises.

—— Reggie Chamberlain-King , Quietus

The detail in this work is phenomenal, capturing the aloof generals, death in the trenches, and the wounded... [Sacco] makes visceral one of the bloodiest days in history.

—— Socialist Review

Wordless and brilliant.

—— Donal O'Donoghue , RTE Guide

Sometimes words and photographs are not enough… [An] astounding book.

—— Michael Hodges , Mail on Sunday

A unique and unforgettable experience.

—— Matthew Turner , Ask Men

A meticulous visual depiction.

—— Observer
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