THERE IS NO SHRIMP…And Other Lies My Mother Told Me, Kenny Loui’s collection of slightly far-fetched tales that the gullible young author once accepted as fact, is a quick and entertaining read. Formatted as graphic shorts in a manga style, the book is a good humored take on the fallacy of being “older and wiser” wherein his well meaning mother uses “creative truths”, as Loui sometimes refers to them, or simply “lies” as they are marked in the title of the book, as an adult’s way to deflect the awkward questions of a child. So, amongst other things, young Loui was led to believe that he alone was the beneficiary of a particularly munificent tooth-fairy and that babies were made by touch alone.

Readers may well recognize similar scenarios from their own childhood, such as the clearly illogical warnings of danger expressed as imminent threat, as in the story “Don’t Go In There… They’ll Kill You!” Few though, will have been told that the real reason for the cancellation of the Pee-wee Herman Show was because Pee-wee had been coerced into taking drugs by the puppet Randy The Rascal, as recounted in the chapter “Just Say No!” Loui’s mother’s freewheeling facts are frequently highly imaginative and very funny.

THERE IS NO SHRIMP… is a spin-off from author Loui’s “Life Lessons from a UFO Catcher” series (where UFO catcher refers to an arcade claw-crane rather than literal flying saucers) and further reveals the roots of his idiosyncratic outlook on the world. Pop cultural references abound, including television shows (not only the aforementioned Pee-wee Herman), sci-fi movies and games systems. Indeed the moral tale titled “Mom Does What Ninten-Don’t”, concerning his mom giving away his games console, and the single story where she only tells the absolute truth from the beginning, is one of the book’s highlights.

The illustrations by Yamawe are functional if sometimes slightly static. There is little in the way of background or texture though the more graphic based panels, notably those featuring old games systems or the renderings of Pee-wee Herman, are striking and effective. Crucially, her illustrations of the author and his mother adequately convey their characterizations revealed by Loui’s well crafted text. Though told from Loui’s perspective the undoubted star of the show is his mother and no doubt many readers will hope that she will return in later volumes of this ongoing graphic autobiography.

Kenny Loui’s THERE IS NO SHRIMP…And Other Lies My Mother Told Me is an entertaining and warm recollection of the author’s mother and her words of wisdom brought to life with manga style illustrations that capture a well nurtured childhood surrounded by pop culture.

~Kent Lane for IndieReader