By Max Andersson & Lars Sjunnesson
(Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN-10: 1-56097-740-X
ISBN-13: 978-1-56097-740-7
A startling and powerful excursion into the ‘collective unconsciousness of the Balkans’ results in this surprisingly compelling and funny tale from two of Sweden’s finest comic makers (it originally appeared in Death & Candy #2-4 in a somewhat less effective manner). Ostensibly, this is story of a journey by the creators to Slovenia and an alternative cartoonists convention that spirals into a manic road-movie quest. When they decide to reimburse an old friend for a story they “borrowed†for their comic, an out-of-control ice cream truck begins shooting at them. Amongst the debris they find an engraved grenade shell with the word Sarajevo on it. They take this as a sign that they must do the right thing and embark on a Kafka-esque trip to the troubled Balkans.
Along the way they encounter zombies, mummies, war atrocities and the man who has the corpse of Marshal Tito in a refrigerator in his car. Not to mention that rare breed of hound: The Bosnian Flat Dog…
More treatise than adventure, and savagely underpinned by the appalling realities of the Sarajevo crisis, this thought-provoking psycho-comedy has compelling pictures, dark whimsy and enough fourth wall contravention to supply the reader with much metaphysical and social meat to digest long after they’ve finished reading. As surreal as it seems, though, there is still a distressing amount of truth to be found amid the icons of the fantasy world. This is a damned compelling book if you want a read that will wake you up and not lull you to sleep.
© 2006 Max Andersson & Lars Sjunnesson. All Rights Reserved.
