When I Was a Kid – Childhood Stories by Boey


By Cheeming Boey (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-785-3

Unless your life’s even more unpredictable than mine, all the preparations and frantic panics should be sorted by now and it’s too late to pick up any meaningful gifts that aren’t actually immaterial and/or downloadable.

So, with that in mind, why not calmly ponder the meaning of it all and lay plans for next time?

As this little lost gem proves, the whole histrionic drama of the season is about making memories for those around you… good and bad. Why not strive to make them ones you and yours can share with friends instead of the police or EMTs?

The ability to go back into our childhoods and relive those bizarre, baffling and brilliantly fierce thoughts and every brand-new-day discoveries is a wondrous mixed blessing, but being able to share those recaptured experiences with jaded world-weary adults is a truly miraculous gift and thus utterly evergreen.

One of the most effective and memorable collections generated by an august crowd of halcyon salad-days wranglers comes from Malaysian animator, illustrator, educator, video game developer and cartoonist Cheeming Boey – who also produces gallery art on Styrofoam coffee cups and created an autobiographical webcomic about his life in America, entitled I Am Boey.

You should really check it out…

As a kind of prequel to his blog – if indeed growing up can be considered an introduction to a main event – Boey collected a huge number of visual memoirs and epigrams about his im-maturing years in Asia, bundling them up in a beguiling tome (and a rapidly released sequel) emphasising both the exoticism of life in Malaysia and the universal similarities and solidarities of being a kid.

Warm, sensitive, intimate, uproarious, disarmingly honest as well as on occasion brutal, shocking and sad, these 103 visual monologues (with heart-warming family photos scattered throughout) are invitations into a world of wonder, rivalry, confusion, punishment, resentment, humiliation, anticipation, frustration, greed, glee and always the security of family.

They all begin with “When I was a kid…” and prove that, apart from the odd surface detail, every happy, loving childhood is identical…

The stand-out incidents include such salutary universal reminiscences as ‘My First Pet’, ‘Baby Powder’, ‘Bedtime Stories’, ‘Bad for your Eyes’, ‘Grandma’s Leg’, ‘Nasal Noodles’, ‘R-Rated’, ‘Stealing Money’, ‘Sunday Cartoons’, ‘Not a Genius’ and of course ‘Failing Math’ but with such a wide catalogue to choose from, every little cartoon episode will resonate with somebody. Especially you. Particularly now…

And just in case I’ve made a convert – this one is available as an eBook if you need it right away…
© 2011, 2013 Cheeming Boey. All rights reserved.