6 minute read
Lene AskNext Time Everything Will Be All Right Dromedaries _ Marta Frej _ p. 39
by Centrala
Next Time Everything Will Be All Right
Lene Ask
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With her previous books (including published in English ”Dear Rikard”), Lene Ask got a lot of attention, especially for her personal and humorous descriptions of her own life. ”Next time everything will be all right” is Ask’s first cartoon that is not about herself. The artist handles the transition to the new format excellently. She tells the story about the village girl Marte who has moved to Oslo to study and work at a library. When her father dies, Marte has to go home again, and among other things try to find out her relationship with the strictly religious mother. With persistent idealism, she strives to make the right choices, but throughout history gets new insights into what is important in life.
Lene Ask again shows her ability to describe people with great empathy and credibility. She glides freely between the big existential themes and the small everyday events. Her clear drawings and effective use of colour drive the story forward and support the characters’ characteristics.
Lene Ask (b. 1974) is a Norwegian comics and children’s book writer. Though initially a photographer, since the debut of her graphic novel “Hitler, Jesus og farfar” in 2006, Ask has worked extensively in the field of comics, books and illustrations.
She graduated from the Norwegian Institute for Children’s Books, studied photography at Bergen Art Academy for three years, and was an exchange student as photographer at FAMU, Prague. In addition she studied art history at the University of Bergen, and art at Rogaland College of Art, Stavanger (NO).
Ask works with both documentary and fiction and has published over 25 books, as author and/or illustrator, several of them translated to other languages. She has also published a number of articles and short stories in several anthologies. Ask is a much sought lecturer and has exhibited her works at a wide range of venues.
Ask sees herself as a visual storyteller, both when she draws pictures and writes novels. In her graphic novels she works with the tension between words and images.
Dromedaries
Marta Frej
An important role was played in the armed struggle against the Russian authorities by women who were active within the Polish Socialist Party’s paramilitary units. In underground jargon they were known as Dromaderki, the feminine form of the Polish word for dromedaries—the one-humped Arabian camels used to transport people and goods—because they carried weapons, ammunition and explosive materials.
In the Częstochowa district alone there were several dozen of them. Unfortunately, most of them have remained anonymous; the names or aliases of only a few of them have survived to the present day. In “civilian” life they were students, teachers, doctors, housewives or factory workers. Active involvement in the fight for independence meant the risk of imprisonment, lengthy sentences to hard labour, or exile to Siberia.
From the afterword by Juliusz Sętowski
Marta Frej is on top form in this book, where with humour and dedication she depicts the unsung heroines who’ve been ignored by the standard textbooks.
Sylwia Chutnik
Marta Frej is a painter, illustrator, and, through her role as chair of the „Kulturoholizm” foundation, an organizer of cultural events. She is well known for her feminist online memes, which combine sparkling, pointed wit and finely crafted graphics.
Marta Frej was born in Częstochowa in 1973. She is a graduate of the Łódź Academy of Fine Arts. Her creative work dedicated to the defence of gender equality and women’s rights won her the 2015 Okulary Równości („Spectacles of Equality”) prize, awarded by the Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka Foundation. She also won the 2017 O!Lśnienia roku („Revelation of the Year”) award in the art category. Her most popular works are her captioned pictures illustrating modern women’s life in Poland, which have been exhibited in various galleries throughout the country. Dromedaries is her first solo publication in book form.
The Sisters Dietl
Vojtěch Mašek
A horror detective story about two sisters, whose world is created from the surreal visions of Vojtěch Mašek, one of the most acclaimed Czech comics authors.
When one of the Dietl sisters ends up in hospital after what appears to be a brutal attack, leaving her with a mutilated face and unable to move, Mašek leads the reader on a detective story exploring change of identity, doppelgängers, deformation, hallucination and altered states of mind in contrast with idyllic family life. This comics takes place in a fictional world woven from dreams, hazy and distorted memories of childhood fears, fear of the unknown and the desire for a safe hiding place. Reality constantly disrupted by doubts, changing points of view, the neurotic need to find objective truth. All this is contained in the story about the Dietl sisters – many theories, many possibilities but seemingly with only one solution. Mašek employs a unique multilayered art style, combining backgrounds created from various texts, newspaper cuttings and patterns with the main plot taking place in the foreground.
A multi-layered story uncovering a kind of mysterious evil hovering above two ageing sisters. Its mood is reminiscent of Charles Burns’s Black Hole, but more in a…Czech way.
Reflex
With slight exaggeration it could be said that whatever discipline Vojtěch Mašek (* 1977) turns his hand to, his work always meets with incredible success: he was one of the screenwriters on the film Křižáček (The Little Crusader, 2017), which won best film at the festival in Karlovy Vary, while the children’s book Panáček, pecka, švestka, poleno a zase panáček (Puppet, Plum Pit, Plum, Plank and Back to Puppet, 2018), story by Mašek and art by Chrudoš Valoušek, won the prestigious Bologna Ragazzi Award. However, he is most at home in the world of comics, which he creates either on his own or in partnership with other artists and writers. Since 2002, he and Džian Baban have been developing the surreally farcical world of Monstrkabaret Freda Brunolda (Fred Brunold’s Monster Cabaret), which has appeared in five comic books, more than a dozen stage adaptations and in short films. They have also written two award-winning graphic novels with art by Jiří Grus. He also recently worked with the writer Marek Šindelka on the contemporary graphic novel Svatá Barbora (Saint Barbara, art by Marek Pokorný, 2018), and his list of projects continues to grow.
© Madla Rutová
