By Wostok & Grabowski, translation edited by Chris Watson (Slab-O-Concrete)
ISBN: -1-899866-10-9
In the last decade of the last century independent, alternative and international cartooning really took off in the UK. It’s not that it suddenly got good, it’s simply that due to the efforts of a few dedicated missionaries the rest of the country finally noticed what Europe had known for years. Graphic narrative is as much about the art and the individual as it is about the money.
A superb case in point is this slim and eccentric tome produced in English by that much-missed Slab-O-Concrete outfit. Daddy is So Far Away… is the surreal and absorbing account of two-year old Poposhak and her faithful dog Flowers. The sad little lass stands at her mother’s grave and wonders where her father is. She sees the tip of his beard sticking out of the front door and rushes towards it despite wise Flowers’ words of caution.
She will not stop, but follows the beard, through rooms, down tunnels, across plains, under oceans and even across the Milky Way itself, finding friends and escaping monsters throughout time and space. Always that long white beard unfurls ahead of them, an enigma and a promise…
An eerie yet comforting blend of fable, bedtime story, shaggy dog tale, and vision-quest, this is a compulsive and brilliantly drawn epic more rollercoaster than narrative and encompassing the very best storytelling techniques of Eastern European animation.
Wostok and Grabowski, from the north Serbian town of VrÅ¡ac have worked together since 1992; both in the incredibly fertile Eastern European market but also internationally, and as is usually the case are criminally unfamiliar to the average comic punter. I hope you can find their work without too much trouble, because it’s well worth the effort.
© 1995-1998 Wostok, Lola & Grabowski. All Rights Reserved.