Big Scoop of Ice Cream

by Conxita Herrero, Conxita Herrero Delfa

It's about life in our time, about being a young adult woman in the early twenty first century.Conxita, in her twenties, the latest representative of a whole generation, lost her heart somewhere between Madrid and Barcelona. A ‘real spitfire' according to her mother, she faces everyday events with great courage. A former student of Fine Arts, she draws her every adventure, from her apartment that she shares with a girl who's her mirror image, her household, her computer, her dreams to elsewhere, her escapes to the beach, her telephone conversations with friends, to her more or less happy dates. In this autobiographical tale in seventeen short tableaux, Conxita Herrero shakes up preconceived ideas about the transition to adulthood. In a minimalist and rigorous style, she plays with antagonisms and mixes inertia and movement, silent panels and intimate, mysterious dialogues, bare lines and pure colors. She also uses geometric figures - circles and squares - with bold designs that challenge perspective. Freeing herself from the “concern for truth” specific to the autobiography, the author sheds any sentimentality and provides her sets and her characters with sketchy features a strange and fascinating dimension oscillating between reality and dream.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Short Stories, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Womens

Kindle Edition

Published July 12, 2022

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Or, Great Ball of Ice Cream!

My friend Mia loves this book so much and wanted me to read it so she spent some time translating it for me so I could read it NOW and not have to wait two years to have it translated from the Spanish into English. (I could read some of it with my rudimentary Spanish, and there's not so many words, usually, but it still was great to have the help). It's a collection of short short stories, whimsical, enigmatic, great humor, some surrealism, with great cartooning, great colors, and an obsession with NOSES throughout

Stories, or maybe vignettes or in some places tableaux, about food, cats, ghosts, cleaning a bathroom, reading (some pages feature excerpts from ethereal/lyrical books) and writing/creating;

a solo tennis exercise called "Talk With You;"

a silent date which involves just hanging around;

"The Arrival of Spring," featuring the song "Come Back from San Francisco" by The Magnetic Fields;

"Relating" about the struggles with relationships we see throughout; "The Hiding Place" which is what reading comics and looking at art can be as a retreat from those struggles;

talk happens throughout with little said, just snippets of talk: "What" "I haven't said anything." "You better not."

The title piece reveals the book is mostly about relationships as big balls of ice cream, in different flavors; then you add things (like nuts, sprinkles, mixed flavors, experiences of various kinds) and it gets complicated.

Very thoughtful and subtle with great cartooning throughout. Really fun.

Thanks so much, Mia! :)

[M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arte (composición y colores) muy muy chulo e historias sobre tener 20+ años y ser una intensa. No soy objetiva porque amo Tronco <3

[Diana N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This graphic novel is a series of short vignettes that show many typical daily life interactions of the main character. Some of the meanings when looked at as a whole are pretty subtle about relationships and being an adult. It took me a bit to analyze since parts seemed a little random and disjointed to me.

The art was creative and varied a bunch from part to part. I liked the specific use of background colors and patterns in some parts like the blocks with four colors or part with mostly white background with colored lines. I know it was a stylistic choice to show lack of facial features, but I wanted character facial expressions.

This book is interesting and different from what I normally read, but I definitely enjoyed the variety it brings.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the back of the book Maria El Problema says that Gran Bola de Helado is so good that it will probably be worth a million dollars in the future. I don't doubt it. As I was reading I kept talking to myself, pointing out every great thing about the stories, the comics language, the colors, etc. I want everyone to read this so that we can all talk about how good these stories and art are.

The way that the bodies were drawn reminded me of Tommi Parrish's work. The faceless characters with the ever changing size of their bodies although they both do it for different reasons, it seems. These stories are very light and fun and pleasant, mostly, while I think Parrish's stories dig deeper into intimacy and love and loneliness. I love both for exactly what they're doing, though.

[Óscar Trobo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo bueno de haber descubierto “Gran bola de helado” más de dos años tarde es que no tendré que esperar tanto para el siguiente álbum de Conxita Herrero.

Imprescindible.

[Jara · Rating 5 out of 5]

me gustaría estar dentro de sus viñetas, se ve todo con más claridad

[celia · Rating 4 out of 5]

aunque para nada conecto con todas las historias, algunas me parecen súper inteligente y otras simplemente preciosas (la de la primavera… ay). ¡imagina poder ser tan concisa! el uso que hace del dibujo y del color es chulísimo. me encanta porque me lo regalaron aina y diego y me encanta porque he estado en esa casa y en la capsa y he conocido a la gata, aunque fuese un díita aleatorio de mi vida, y me parece muy fuerte verlo en una obra tan preciosa tan bien hecha.

[Mangrii · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Gran bola de helado’ nos da 20 historias cortas con resultado desigual y de alta carga poética que se encargan de ponernos en un espejo de nuestra realidad. Historias bastante sutiles, reflexivas y con alta contenido caricaturesco obsesionado con las narices, en las que es difícil diferenciar un inicio y un final. Sin embargo, todas nos dejan pensando en algo sobre las relaciones humanas y la comunicación con los demás. Un libro curioso, con un apartado grafico muy particular y que recomiendo dar un vistazo.

[Emma Roulette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection of little stories, especially "Hablar" and "La Llegada de la Primavera". Reading Conxita Herrero puts me in a different mode, one that is more appreciative of the present. I finished Gran bola on the metro last Wednesday and when I looked up I felt like I was in a movie. Not anything dramatic, just a quiet and cinematic attention to everything. It's because Herrero is honest and observant, and reading her you feel like you can be, too.

[Juan Fuentes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Las historias tienen una calidad desigual, las hay bastante anodinas pero otras tienen una gran carga poética. Pero el apartado gráfico es magnífico y muy original.

[Nagozeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

No tengo ni idea de novela gráfica. Soy una ignorante. Me compré esta porque los dibujos y los colores me parecían lo más. Y he acertado. Es diferente, es innovador, es mi generación y las relaciones en un cómic. Y te ríes, y te toca el corazón, y disfrutas mucho con los dibujos y con el humor de Conxi.

[Sarah H · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

¡ Mi primero libro en español! Lo aconsejo a los ostros que aprendan español. Tiene muchos dibujos y menos palabras jaja. El texto está en presente.

En esta novela gráfica, hay 17 relatos cortos con los apectos de realismo mágico. Mi favorito es El Bolsillo, sobre un hombre minúsculo que vive en el bolsillo de la protagonista.

[Topanga · Rating 4 out of 5]

realmente la vida es como una gran bola de helado

[Celia · Rating 4 out of 5]

random snippets of conversations that account for time feeling at a standstill. with beautiful art.

[Café de Tinta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesante, realmente algunas de éstas pequeñas historias son una bofetada de realidad en lo que se refiere a las relaciones y comunicación humanas, otras son simplemente curiosas pero en general, recomendable.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bastante distinta a las novelas gráficas que suelo leer, con una gran carga simbólica y metafórica. Me costó conectar con algunas de las historias porque creo que no entendí el mensaje al cien por cien. Realmente son unas viñetas a las que hay que darles un par de vueltas.
En cuanto al estilo de Conxita, es una auténtica maravilla. Me parece una pasada como dibuja, rezuma personalidad en cada trazo, no sé, me parece puro arte.

Agradezco este descubrimiento a una expo que vi en Barcelona en la que participaba esta señora (junto a otras que espero leer pronto) y que me ha abierto la mente a un nuevo concepto de cómic🫶🏻

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at a young woman's life in a series of vignettes. There are a lot of subtleties in the book. Some chapter titles jump out at you when reading. Many are woven into the background, and I had to look for them. While this may be her story, there were times when I saw my life there with the uncertainty and hesitancy in situations. Her cat was a typical cat. This is a book where the more I look at it or read the quotes, I will see more of what she is saying and how it resembles my life.

[andrea ✿ · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Aaaah! Qué chula, qué concisa, pero sobre todo… qué certera. Una novela gráfica que condensa a la perfeccion lo que para mí —y supongo que para muchas personas— es ser una chica de veintitantos años y experimentar la Vida, hacerse preguntas, pensar mucho a veces y poco o nada otras veces, saber algunas cosas pero tampoco demasiadas. Al fin y al cabo, "la gente es gente y ya bastante suerte tenemos de habernos encontrado", ¿verdad? Preciosísima.

[David Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible. A series of illustrated stories that don't go anywhere or say anything. A few of them are wordless or nearly wordless, which has potential to be neat, but it doesn't deliver. There are also about 6 pages of prose sprinkled in, which are all equally meandering and have nothing to do with the rest of the book. Avoid.

[a ☕︎ · Rating 2 out of 5]

it’s a little too affected, with this put-upon morose millienial writing style that is really tedious to read. even the art feels this way, with the angular rooms—but kitschy noses, the rare rose-gold text boxes—but unending prose pages. it’s both neither spare nor excessive enough to really enjoy.

[Cassidy Gilbride · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book definitely makes you think. It was pretty confusing at parts honestly. I couldn’t tell where one story ended and one began. I kind of wanted to set it down halfway through. The one thing that kept me going was that the art was beautiful.

[el · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is about dating as a young woman in their 20s. I couldnt relate. The illustration was difficult to register, but cool to look at. I feel this couldve rather been wordless or with more dialogue and been more enjoyable.

[Inés Belmonte Amorós · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha interesado especialmente su uso de la metáfora, y con ello la capacidad de condensar algo complejo y denso en dos o tres símbolos o gestos. Y el estilo de dibujo es tan genial. Mis historietas favoritas: las del hombre de bolsillo y la del castillo flotante.

[StrictlySequential · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extravagantly long unpunctuated sentence pages annoyed me tremendously!

This is extremely amateur work- there's so much she cannot even draw anatomically so people look absurd.

I hate when books of shorts are named by one of them instead of a unifying title.

[Júlia Melchor · Rating 3 out of 5]

“y ya bastaste suerte tenemos de habernos encontrado” 🍧

[celia · Rating 2 out of 5]

the vignette style just didn't mesh with what I was looking for

[albertote · Rating 5 out of 5]

usaría cada pagina para decorar mi casa q bonito

[Gabriela · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disconnected vignettes that make no sense and don't say anything.
The colors are the highlight, but there is nothing much there.

[AV · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Qué divertido!

[Stella Dimare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unas cuantas historias cotidianas e ilustrado y contado de una manera que me encanta!