Best Comics of 2020: An International Perspective Part 1:

Year in Review

My goodness, now that was quite some year last year, wasn’t it?! 2020 will be go down as a year that shook the whole world. And yet somehow, amidst such terrible, tumultuous times, many creators and publishers from around the globe still managed to create and release striking, compelling new comics. So once again, my team of international correspondents, connoisseurs of the 9th Art, have generously shared their reviews of the locally-produced titles that impressed them the most. Time once more for us to take an annual armchair voyage of discovery! Part 1 below, and you can read Part 2 here… and Part 3 here…

DENMARK - MALAYISIA - POLAND - RUSSIA - SERBIA - SINGAPORE - SOUTH KOREA - SWEDEN

Denmark

Selected by Matthias Wivel

Matthias Wivel is Curator of Sixteenth-Century Italian Paintings at the National Gallery, London. He has written about comics widely for twenty years.

Døden (‘Death’)
by Halfdan Pisket
Fahrenheit

Pisket established himself emphatically with his great Dansker trilogy (2014–16), but he also created a tough challenge for himself. It was the vigorous and harrowing story of his Turkish-Armenian immigrant father’s life between countries, cultures and criminal justice systems. A powerful, personal story of the kind that is often hard to match a second time, as we have seen with Pisket’s role models, Art Spiegelman and David B. His new book Døden, however, is a worthy follow-up—a kind of fictional reconfiguration of the same thematic field. It is the portrait of a young man’s inexorable dance with death, as the loyal companion of a dying friend in the cancer ward, as an ex-criminal haunted by his past and as an orphan of immigrants. Similar to the trilogy, it merges social realism with poetic fabulism and terse lyrical prose with inky, expressive drawing. It feels close to life as lived, while reaching for an epic register without feeling forced.

I morgen bliver bedre 2: Dronningen (‘Tomorrow will be brighter 2: The Queen’)
by Karoline Stjernfelt
Cobolt

This is the greatly anticipated second volume of Stjernfelt’s trilogy on the mad Danish king Christian VII (reg. 1766–1808), his English queen Caroline Mathilde, his personal doctor Johan Friedrich Struensee and the so-called and very short-lived Danish Revolution of 1771–72. The first book, published in 2015, set the scene by bringing together the three central characters in pre-revolutionary Copenhagen. It was an enormously confident debut for Stjernfelt, and even something of a commercial success. This second volume ups the ante in every way, concentrating on the the famous romantic relationship between Caroline Mathilde and Struensee and how it empowered the young queen personally to assert herself at a court that regarded her as nothing but a means to an end. Stjernfelt’s interpretation of this historical episode is both eloquent and elegant, an affecting study of youthful love and rebellion set against the backdrop of Enlightenment idealism. It culminates in the radical reforms—notably the most wide-ranging freedom of expression laws in history—that Struensee instates once he has gained the trust of the king through a combination of guile and genuine sympathy. This is a big project and the third and final volume, which will detail the political fallout and its tragic personal consequences, will not see the light of day for another few years, but considering where we are, it is hard to see how it would not be worth the wait.

#linejensenillu
by Line Jensen
Instagram

Line Jensen has had a great year. When the pandemic hit in March, she was primed for it: Having chronicled for several years her daily life with two kids and a touring musician husband on Instagram, she was perfectly positioned to describe the unsettlement and anxiety brought on by the pandemic. She described lockdown with humour, warmth and precision, reminding her tens of thousands of followers that we were all in similar boats. She tends in her work to gloss over the darker or more troubling aspects of life, but her sense of everyday family dynamics is spot on and her bendy, cheeky drawings often laugh-out-loud funny. She supplemented this effort with a children’s book on Danish author Tove Ditlevsen, a national treasure, and opened an honest-to-god bricks-and-mortar shop selling her artwork and merchandise in defiance of the economic slowdown. At the end of the year, however, it is her account of a widely-shared ordinary life under extraordinary circumstances that remains with us.

Noget frygteligt er altid lige ved at ske (“Something awful is always just about to happen”)
by Lars Kramhøft
Fahrenheit

Lars Kramhøft is among the most ambitious younger Danish cartoonists working today. While he already has several books under his belt, this one felt like a bona fide arrival. The book is a semi-autobiographical account of a young man’s first year in the cartooning programme of the Viborg Animation Workshop, negotiating his artistic dreams with sometimes crippling social anxiety. It is also a thoughtful dissection of masculine identity in a society with rapidly shifting attitudes to gender. The protagonist’s flirtation with incel culture is ultimately too superficial truly to become interesting, but it ties in very smoothly with Kramhøft’s more organic treatment of his character’s suicidal tendencies, explored in recognition of the rising suicide rate among young men in Westen countries today. Kramhøft exhibits a terse grasp on structure and a works in clear rendering style that may owe a lot to Kevin Huizenga but works seamlessly. Noget frygteligt er altid lige ved at ske was awarded the Ping Award for Best Danish Comic of the year.

Honorable Mention:

Grøde (“Fecundity”)
by Signe Parkins
Uro

Much to my shame, I missed this milestone work by one of Denmark’s most distinctive and fascinating cartoonists when I wrote last year’s roundup. It came out late in the year however, so I don’t feel too bad about including it here. Grøde is a chunky book of loosely connected drawings—and no words, so do try and get hold of it—that add up to a vague if unmistakeable narrative of inner conflict and despair. The same character, a woman with long, bendy limbs and sagging breasts—Parkins’ signature alter ego—populates the pages in multiples, forming constellations of organic shapes and architectural structures. Themes of sex and motherhood are central in this tour de force of sequential drawing—a difficult, depressed book, but also one of unflinching resolve.

Poland

Selected by Michał Chudoliński

Michał Chudoliński is a comics and film critic. He is a lecturer on American popular culture, with an emphasis on comic books (“Batman’s mythology and criminology”; “Comic book Canon”; “Comics Journalism”), at the Collegium Civitas. He is the founder and an editor of the Gotham in Rain blog. He writes for magazines like Polityka, Nowa Fantastyka, Charaktery and International Journal of Comic Art (IJOCA) and is a guest speaker on the Polish Radio. Currently he is working at AKFiS TVP and is the Polish correspondent of “The Comics Journal”. Co-founder of the Polish Science Fiction Foundation.

Andzia (‘Angie’)
by Piotr Mańkowski & Przemysław „Trust” Truściński
Timof Comics

A real treat for fans of both Lewis Caroll’s works as well as of “Trust” (alias Przemysław Truściński), one of the key creators in the Polish comic book scene. Andzia is not a comic book in a strict sense, as it is closer to a picture book, or at times to a poetry comic. However, Truściński repeatedly uses comic book language throughout the publication. The surrealistic illustrations, filled with the grotesque and absurd, perfectly reflect the poetry of Bishop Piotr Mańkowski (1866-1933) from a hundred years ago. The album is brimming with humour, imagination and a unique sense of aesthetics.

Koniec lipca (‘The End of July’)
by Maria Rostocka
Kultura Gniewu

An extraordinary and unique approach to the theme of coming of age and the loss of innocence in the middle of summer holidays. It is almost an example of the so-called ‘Slow’ comic book, where the atmosphere manifests itself in a lethargic, slow rhythm, while having a serene meditative atmosphere. Amidst the calm, holiday moments we observe the not-yet-fully mature adults, who cannot help their children cope with the dilemmas dictated by the rapidly approaching adulthood. A wonderful reflection of the climate of the Polish countryside.

melon. Pretensje (‘melon. Grievances’)
by melon
W.A.B.

One of the most widely read and commented satirical comics, published on the Polish side of the Internet. In these bizarre, humorous comics which brutally expose reality, one can find a witty reflection of modern-day Poland. The comic excellently captures the current interpersonal relations and cultural nuances shaped by pop culture and turbulent political events. For fans of uncompromising humour, which points out the hypocrisies and double standards present in the modern social fabric.

Bradl #5 (‘Bradl vol. 5’)
by Tobiasz Piątkowski & Marek Oleksicki
Egmont / The Warsaw Rising Museum

An excellent example of combining fast action and espionage with the promotion of Polish World War II historical discourse. The comic forms a closure to the first book of adventures of the legendary spy and Warsaw insurgent, forced to act in the difficult times of the German occupation. The body count runs high and often you cannot trust your comrades-in-arms. The success of the series in Poland has resulted in the expansion of the comic book series and, as a result, there is a promise of another entertainment super-industry, which may impact pop-culture to the same extent as The Witcher did in games and the Netflix series.

Będzie dobrze (‘It’ll be all right’)
by Paweł Rzodkiewicz & Tomasz Woroniak
Timof Comics

This comic refers to the 2014 World Cup in a rather unusual way. These Polish authors wonder what would have happened if the Brazilians, the hosts of the 2014 championships, had already lost in the first meeting of the global event. We observe the strife of the coach, who with all her strength wants to fight with her team for the highest football awards, but inevitably collides with a wall of prejudices and already established arrangements. A light, humorous and grotesque comic about the impossibility of jumping over an overwhelmingly tough reality.

Bonus List:
Wydział 7 #6: Letnicy (‘Department 7 #6: Vacationers’) by Marek Turek, Tomasz Kontny, Krzysztof Owedyk & Robert Adler (Ongrys);
Archiwum ekspansji (‘Expansion Archive’) by Marek Turek (Celuloza);
Poczwarki (‘Chrysalises’) by Gosia Kulik (Kultura Gniewu);
Rotmistrz Polonia (‘Captain Polonia’) by Łukasz Kowalczuk, Łukasz Godlewski & Tomasz Grządziela (23);
Czerwony Pingwin musi umrzeć 2 (‘The Red Penguin Must Die 2’) by Michał „Śledziu” Śledziński (Kultura Gniewu)
Stworzenie (‘Creation’) by Beata Sosnowska (Granda)

Honorable Reprints:
Dymki z TinTina, jak dymek z komina (‘TinTin balloons, like chimney fumes’) by Tadeusz Baranowski (Kultura Gniewu);
Bogowie z gwiazdozbioru Aquariusa” (‘Gods from the Aquarius constellation’) by Zbigniew Kasprzak, Wiesława Wierzchowska, Tadeusz Markowski & Andrzej Krzepkowski (Egmont).

Russia

Selected by Denis Denisov & Konstantin Bolshakov

Denis Denisov is a journalist living in the centre of Russia, in a Siberian city called Krasnoyarsk. For many years he has been collecting, studying and writing about comics published in Russia. He is a big fan of self-publishing and non-fiction. Denis is one of the founders and editors of a comics compilation of Siberian authors, Kras Comics Zine. Konstantin Bolshakov has been working for about 10 years in a design office in one of the Urals cities and in his spare time writes about comics published in Russia. Denisov and Bolshakov are authors of articles and reviews for ComicsBoom! – a big news portal dedicated completely to comics in Russia. The portal specialises in news and reviews of comics, collaborating with publishers throughout the country. ComicsBoom! was founded in 2012, and after three years it started its own ‘ComicsBoom Award’, an annual prize, the most prestigious one in the Russian comics industry.

Yellow Angel
by Dmitriy Eletsky, Askold Akishin, Arseniy Kadilov & Sergey Nazarov
White Unicorn / Beliy Edinorog / Белый Единорог

From the point of view of world culture, the most significant period in Russian art was the beginning of the 20th century. Malevich, Kandinsky, Burliuk and countless other artists formed the “Russian Avant-garde”. It was radical, uncompromising and versatile. For a variety of reasons, this period is rarely reproduced in popular culture – there is too much political context – but the authors of Yellow Angel manage to do it in the best possible way. Formally, this is a typical noir pulp fiction about a depressed detective investigating the murder of prostitutes. However, the action takes place in St. Petersburg on the eve of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the plot cannot do without the artists, poets and theatre directors who have already made a revolution in art. On the pages of the comic, you can find many references and homages to the paintings of the Suprematists and the poetry of the Futurists. This unique, insane and one-of-a kind historical era has long-needed such a visualisation.

Supernatural Entities
by Artyom Bizyaev
BUBBLE

If you have ever looked at a map of the world, you will have noticed what a huge space is occupied by modern Russia. But almost all the cultural diversity that lies outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg is usually condescendingly called the “provinces” or “regions”. Fortunately, in recent years, there has been a trend in pop culture to comprehend and raise interest in the unique places of our vast homeland. Among comics artists, Artyom Bizyaev does an excellent job at this. In Russian, the phrase for “unclean power” (supernatural entities) names everything that is associated with dark superstitions, demons, evil spirits or creatures from the non-Christian ‘other’ world. It so happens that many representatives of these spirits are living in the northern city of Murmansk and feeding on the life-energy of its unsuspecting inhabitants. But not all of them are evil. Several creatures from Slavic and Sámi mythology have formed a rock band and prefer to take a little bit of energy from the fans at their concerts. A deaf and dumb school graduate Kostya has no idea what he is getting into when he runs away from home to become their guitarist. This mini-series is a bit creepy, yet very kind and exciting. It is full of charming details and immediately makes you fall in love with charismatic characters.

50 Years of Love
by Vitaliy Terletsky, Aleksey Khromogin & Olga Lavrentyeva
Terletski Comics

Officially, there is no censorship in Russia and it is prohibited by law. But in reality, we have very big problems with freedom of speech. The state is especially sensitive to everything concerning World War II. A large-scale mythology has been built around the victory of the USSR over the Nazis. Even before reassessment of the results of the War was banned at a constitutional level, many quasi-patriotic paradoxes had happened with the approval of the official ideology. Maus was removed from the shelves for a while because of the swastika depicted on the cover. Users of the social networks were prosecuted for reposting archive photos with Nazi symbols. And therefore, 50 Years of Love has become the focus of attention from the Russian comicsk community, not so much because of its artistic merit, but because of the challenge to the system that its authors have thrown. They drew a comic inducing sympathy for Hitler! The comic 50 Years of Love tells two parallel stories. In the first one, Adolf Hitler falls in love with the daughter of the Japanese emperor, lives through May of 1945 and goes into hiding to a ripe old age, carrying a feeling of subtle and pure love through the years. In the second storyline, the main characters are the authors themselves. After the ban on showing the film JoJo Rabbit in Russian cinemas, under the pretext of a positive image of the Führer, Aleksey comes up with an idea of drawing a comic book about Hitler. Together with the publishers, he is looking for a way to do it without risking prosecution.

Patchworkers
by Ivan Eshukov
Snail\Ulitka\Улитка

Patchworkers are a special squad that eliminates the unwanted consequences of secret experiments. These consequences are inevitable if a person challenges the foundations of the universe and decides to play God. There are many stories of how the cultivation of a new life form in a test tube and strange experiments on alien organisms end up badly. But Ivan Eshukov manages to combine two different genres in his comic. After landscapes of a futuristic laboratory, he sends the reader to a forgotten Russian outback, where strange-looking peasants perform their usual rituals related to the harvest. Science fiction turns into horror, and reality begins to wriggle, showing the reader mystical biological forms. The story that Ivan tells would be enough for a whole series. The collision of technogenic and biological origins has great potential. But the author, for now, has limited himself to a short comic (64 pages), which he tried to fill with the maximum number of urgent problems. Here there are reflections about the creator and his creation, possible options for the development of mankind with their pros and cons are shown, and sadness for a dying village is conveyed, the harmful influence of man on nature is emphasised. At the same time, Patchworkers resemble a light version of the book Snail on the Slope by the Strugatsky brothers.

Signs of the Flow
by Yuliya Nikitina
BOOMkniga / Бумкнига

The collection Signs of the Flow consists of four stories, three of which (‘The Book of the Body’, ‘Separation’ and ‘Quiet Voices’) have already appeared in print. But the circulation of these comics was small, and it is impossible to get them today. The stories collected under one cover form a kind of polyptych, the lyrical hero of which is a simple woman. She grows up, learns about herself and the world around her, tries to fit into the noisy turmoil of everyday life, searches for her place in life, fights pain, experiences bodily metamorphoses – all in order to eventually understand her purpose and, having comprehended the roots, find harmony with herself… In this sense, the ‘signs of the flow’ are a kind of personal beacons that define control points on a timeline along which the heroine of Nikitina is making her journey. Yulia Nikitina focuses on the graphic part of the comic. The words here are minimal - it is a stream of thoughts trying to convey the state of the author, but words lack the sensuality that only images can give. Real emotions are reflected in lines and shapes. For example, “The Book of the Body” is completely devoid of words – it is a parable told in the language of an image. It may seem that Signs of the Flow is targeted only at a female audience. Yulia Nikitina talks about experiences that will be understood primarily by women. But it is not so. There is too much intertwined in the book to belong to anyone, it is devoid of gender specificity. These are the emotions and feelings that feel too much for the body, and they turn into a drawing that is personal for each reader. This is a secret and a revelation, something intimate, which is shared only with a very close person.

Saving Tsarevich Alexey
by Alexey Durnovo & Aleksey Nikonorov
Dilettante

Saving Tsarevich Alexey caused heated controversy even before it was published. For many, the shooting of the Royal family is a difficult and painful topic. The authors decided to tell it in the form of a comic, and in Russia comics are still perceived as children’s entertainment for those who read poorly. But if Saving Tsarevich is entertainment, it is not childish. This is an adventure novel set in a real historical setting. Moreover, the authors carefully approach historical realities, allowing themselves a minimum of liberties. This is not the kitsch that can be seen in Anastasia. The comic carefully leads the reader by the hand, showing not only the events in the Empire, but also in the world, thereby emphasising that history is not built in isolation from other countries. The comic Saving Tsarevich Alexey is emphatically apolitical. The world is not divided into two colours, there are no right and wrong, but there is a Royal family, devoid of regalia and living out their last days. The appearance of Ivan Aleksandrovich Sukhovodov does not greatly change the balance of power in the political arena. Once, he managed to escape the wreck of the Titanic and pull a novice artist from a gallery in Munich out of the fire. He alone is worth a whole army. But in this comic, he is destined for the role of an outside observer, who only has to wring his hands in powerlessness along with the readers. History can be written by one person, but so far no one has been able to rewrite it.

Thief of Shadows
by Aleksey Volkov, Kirill Kutuzov & Aleksey Gorbut
Bubble

Written by the dynamic duo of two prolific authors and comic-book historians Volkov and Kutuzov and drawn by talented artist Gorbut, Thief of Shadows became an instant hit in Russia. The main character is a Moscow citizen Pyotr Tairov who once joined a mystical gang of thieves operating in the world of the supernatural and adopted the name Numerodos. The story begins as Tairov tries to start a new life and leave his criminal habits behind, but that won’t prove so easy to do. Readers join a breathtaking ride through the seamy side of modern day Russia and come across tons of smart cultural references left by the authors. In 2020 the first five separate issues were collected under one cover by Bubble Comics.

Serbia

Selected by Žika Tamburić

Žika Tamburić is a long-time comics collector, historian and critic from Belgrade and London. He is also an editor of graphic novels published under Modesty Comics (in English, comics from the authors from the Balkans) and Modesty stripovi (in Serbian).

The comics scene and publishing in Serbia continued their strong ride in 2020, despite obvious difficulties due to the pandemic. Around 200 titles were published from around 20 publishers. This extensive trend is in contradiction to the small market size and small print runs. It is uncertain how long this enthusiasm will continue, but in the meantime comics fans are enjoying a lot of great titles. The following is my selection of the most interesting titles by domestic authors.

More je bilo mirno (‘The Sea was Calm’)
by Tanja Stupar Trifunović & Tatjana Vidojević
Besna kobila

This is a lamenting and touching story about memories, sensitivities, suffering and remorse, told through a female gaze. A lot is happening in these peaceful, contemplative drawings about the delicate, female protagonist. It tells her sad love story, but also deals with her father and the past and present. It is also an impressive symbiotic work between two women, Tanja Trifunović on the script and Tatjana Vidojević on art.

Medjugroblje (‘Between the Graves’)
by Zoran Penevski & Zvonimir Vidić
Modesty stripovi

Zoran Penevski, an experienced and multiple award-winning scriptwriter and writer, and Zvonimir Vidic, a sculptor for whom this book is his first graphic, are brave and original. We are immersed into the complex being of a young sculptor and his dilemmas about art, women and life itself. Oil colours paint every panel and the feeling is that the authors have opened, without reservations, their souls to us.

Prokleto igraliste (‘The Damned Playground’)
by Aleksandar Petrikanović
Besna kobila

This comics follows in the footsteps of Frank by Jim Woodring and Zippy the Pinhead by Bill Griffith, from an artist who shows in his first graphic novel an already well-established drawing style and determined narrative. It is about The Wizard, a mystical being, who lives in a fantastical environment, where human beings are attached with strings to the invisible sky above them. The activities are surreal but with references to our world and human conditions.

Orudje delanja (‘Instrument of Activity’)
by Biljana Djurdjević
Besna kobila

This landscape-format book is beautifully painted by an established Serbian painter Biljana Djurdjević. Even the Serbian Ministry of Culture, which does not support comics, could not resist and granted some financial support for this book. In this visually stunning book, Djurdjević analyses a position of human beings in modern society, indoctrinated by media and limited by consumerism. This a cry for individualism against collectivism, and human values against production and consumption.

Technotise: Edit i ja (‘Technotise: Edit and Me’)
by Aleksa Gajić
System Comics

A renowned Serbian comics artist and illustrator, Aleksa Gajić started with comics such as Technotise, written by Darko Grkinić, and Scourge of the Gods, written by Valérie Mangin. Gajic continued with ‘therapeutic illustrations’, drawings from his imagination for self-help and preservation of his sanity. In 2009, he directed and animated the first feature-animated movie in Serbia - ‘Technotise: Edit and Me’. Ten years later, Gajic and his team decided to prepare a graphic novel making the panels from the film. This was successfully achieved and this book is about Edit and her friends in a near-future Belgrade. There are a lot of feelings and situations we can sympathise with as meaningful to us now, but there are also social analyses of the increasingly relevant problems with Artificial Intelligence.

Zelenbaba (‘Green Nanny’)
by Vladimir Pajić
Makondo

Talking about therapeutic books, this is exactly what we need in these difficult times. These two stories, by talented Pajić, a concept artist, illustrator and now a storyteller, consist of stylish art, healthy humour, narrative in rhymes (one story), folk mysteries, extraordinary characters and, above all, a positive attitude towards life, God and the Devil.

Gorski vijenac (‘The Mountain Wreath’)
by Geza Šetet & Miodrag & Mikica Ivanović, poem by P P Njegoš
Forma B

A successful adaptation, into the form of comics art, of the poem by Prince-Bishop and poet Petar II Petrović-Njegoš from Montenegro. The book was originally published in 1847 completely in verses of a decasyllabilic metre. The story is based on an allegedly historical event from the early 18th century, the mass execution of Montenegrins who had converted to Islam. But the poem is much more than that. It is a political and ideological discourse, but it is alsoserbian about the struggle for freedom, justice and dignity. The poem is no longer a part of Serbian schools’ compulsory reading curriculum, partly for its archaic language and partly for political reasons. This graphic novel is a monumental effort by the whole “Forma B” team. It is a rare opportunity for new generations to read this poem, at least in a ‘visual narrative’ form, and learn about history, traditional moral values and beautiful folk wisdoms and proverbs.

Reprints of Serbian Comics Heritage:

Lijanko by Mijatović & Vukojev (Forma B), a popular Serbian version of a humorous Tarzan, from 1982 to 1988;
Legija nepromočivih by Pahek, (Forma B), an unusual humorous Sci-Fi by the famous Pahek, the complete works
Švindleri by Milosavljević & Milutinović, (System Comics), collects their comics from 1992-94, which confirmed the vitality of the Serbian comics scene even during the war in Yugoslavia.

Ongoing Serbian Series:

Vekovnici Integral 1 by Stojanović at al., (Marko Stojanović), the first, redesigned integral edition of a saga of the Undead;
Linije fronta 9 by several authors, (System Comics), presents more graphic short stories from The Great War.

Singapore

Selected by Lim Cheng Tju

Lim Cheng Tju writes about history and popular culture in Singapore. He co-authored The University Socialist Club and the Contest for Malaya: Tangled Strands of Modernity (Amsterdam University Press/NUS Press) and co-edited Liquid City Vol 2 (Image Comics), an anthology of Southeast Asian comics. He is the country editor (Singapore) for the International Journal of Comic Art and his articles have appeared in the Journal of Popular Culture and Print Quarterly. He was an advisor for the Barbican touring exhibition Mangasia. He writes comics sometimes too.

2020 has been a bad year. We were depressed but we didn’t realise it. Our mental health took a toll and we are still stuck in a rut. We should read more comics, connect with people online, when we could not leave our homes - virtual events, webinars, etc. But we were still working from home and there are no boundaries. The days bleed into the night. It was not good for our own well-being. We are all zoomed out. Slowly we were able to step out of the house. Life goes on. Singapore Comics 2020 were largely online. Veterans like Sonny Liew did e-comics about Covid and the general elections, while Troy Chin went completely digital a few years ago. In one of the last few public arts events that took place physically in March before it all shut down, Troy had a digital installation of his comics. For the same event, I curated an exhibition of Cheah Sin Ann’s cartoons. Even Koh Hong Teng’s new comics The Assassins are all digital. There is nothing to buy, although publishers like Epigram, Difference Engine and Asiapac still put out physical comic books. So slim pickings but these are the three Singapore comics that stood out for me in 2020. As a bonus, I am also recommending two comics from Malaysia.

Sweet Time
by Weng Pixin
Drawn & Quarterly

Wendy Pixin is the first Singapore comic artist to be published by Drawn & Quarterly, so that is a big deal. Xin has been making her heartbreak comics for more than a decade, which, to me, are an example of what Hillary Chute has termed as ‘reimagining trauma’, whereby artists return literally to events to re-view them and to make sense of them. Xin has grown over the years. She still pours her heart out, but it is more controlled with a stronger sense of narrative and the use of colours to widen the palette of emotions of this cruel thing called love (before her zines were in black-and-white). The stories in Sweet Time can also be classified under travelogues, as they are vignettes of leaving things behind and sorting out your emotions in a foreign land. I asked Xin if travelling is a way of leaving your problems behind. She replied, you can’t, you carry them with you wherever you go. Xin also did Covid comics on Instagram in 2020, which she printed up as a zine for sale. Her next book for D&Q is about her matrilineal line - her mother, grandmother and unborn daughter.

One Date Wonder
by Anngee Neo
Self-published & Instagram #illobyanngee

In 2020, Anngee Neo continues to disturb us on Instagram with her social conscious comics which take a stab at gendering, the dating scene, relationships and toxic masculinity (is there such a thing as toxic femininity?). It’s quite a fun roam, but I also like the other comics Anngee puts up, like her issues with depression, mental health and recovery. Humour and pathos. Mental wellbeing is one of the most pressing issues in 2020.

Chronicles of a Circuit Breaker
by Joseph Chiang
Online

Declaration: I help to edit this comic. Joseph Chiang has been drawing comics in Singapore since the late 1990s, although he stopped for many years to go into printmaking and script-writing. He returned to comics recently, inspired by old Peanuts strips, Chris Ware, Joe Matt, Adrian Tomine and Seth. Chronicles of a Circuit Breaker, his latest effort, brings some of these influences together to document the trying months when Singapore was in a lock down last year. I don’t know how some of us survived but we did. Joseph’s comics remind us to just take one day at a time and try to laugh in the face of adversity. That’s all we can do sometimes.

Malaysia

Selected by Lim Cheng Tju

The days
by Chin Yew
Patreon

Chin Yew is an old friend. I featured him in Liquid City Volume 2 (Image Comics, 2010), an anthology of Southeast Asian comics I co-edited a long time ago. Some have given up comics since; Chin Yew is not one of them. He is persistent. Just like he persists in believing in love time and again after getting his heart broken. Maybe Chin Yew reads too much Joe Matt and Chester Brown and is laying it out there. Some may find it too much, some may find it too sappy, not everyone’s cup of tea. But whatever it is, it is brutally honest. At the time of writing, Chin Yew is at Day 1190 and currently stuck in a locked-down state in Malaysia. He and his crew (he freelances for a TV production crew ) need to get out of the state or else they will be stuck there for weeks. Exciting times ahead. And all the while, Chin Yew pines for love. Please support his patreon.

Fried Rice
by Erica Eng
by Erica Eng
Online & Instagram @paprikapeprica

22 years-old and winner of the Eisner award for Best Webcomic, Erica Eng’s Fried Rice is the breakout hit of 2020. Not that it is going to make her rich; she is still studying remotely in Malaysia for her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts at San Francisco’s Academy of Art University. Fried Rice is an autobiographical fiction of a young girl deciding where to go for her undergrad studies overseas. Leisurely paced, it suits the online format of reading it weekly. Every page of Fried Rice is hand-drawn on paper with pencils and then coloured in using ink wash. The drawings are then scanned and edited digitally in Photoshop. When I spoke to Erica, she said she doesn’t want to monetise her art yet. For now, she is just taking it easy and not letting early success go to her head. A talent worth watching.

South Korea

Selected by Kim Nakho

Nakho Kim is a Korean comics researcher. He writes reviews and columns for book journals and other periodicals, has worked as the editor-in-chief for the comics critic webzine Dugoboza, and curated the special exhibition on manhwa or Korean comics at the Angoulême Festival in 2003. He was an Advisor for the Barbican touring exhibition Mangasia: Wonderlands of Asian Comics.

The Hellbound [지옥 Jee-ok]
by YEON Sangho & CHOI Kyuseok
Munhakdongne Publishing

Writer Yeon of Train to Busan fame and artist Choi of The Awl join forces to tell a haunting reflection of our social anxieties. What would happen if a mysterious being suddenly appeared in front of some people, announce a date, and once that date comes, that person will suffer a horrifying death? Yeon and Choi’s story argue that people will find, no, invent a holy meaning behind that phenomenon. Themes of social trust, religious beliefs and basic human decency are touched upon in gory action and subdued grey visuals.

Vacantly [우두커니 Oodookoni]
by SHIM Woodo
Shimwoo Books

This book is a detailed and heartfelt account of the experience of caring for a family member who suddenly got struck with dementia, until he passed on a year later. A young married couple living with the wife’s elderly father have to cope with the realities of those changed circumstances, learning new things along the way. There are no fantastic imaginary journeys nor dramatic excursions; just earnest reflections on how to care for a loved one who changes into someone else, and remembering the personal connections. The highly cartoonised art style is not to make light of the situation, but to highlight a deeper layer of realism in contrast.

Star Point [화점 Hwa-jum]M
by OH Minhyuk
Gobooki Books

An anthology of short stories dealing with existential reflections, combining Zen-like exploration and Oscar Wilde-worthy dramatic ironies with highly effective formalistic experiments sprinkled inbetween. From a professional Go player discovering what lies behind competitiveness to a couple in a future world having doubts about whether the spouse is a robot, the topics range widely but ultimately circle back to the question of what makes life worth living.

Hi Community [안녕 커뮤니티 Annyongcommunity]
by Dadureki
Changbi Publishing

In the down-trodden neighborhood of Munandong where mostly the impoverished elderly live, dying alone and being discovered much later is the latest fear. Hence, the rag-tag residents start a new chain communication network: people texting’Hi’ to one another everyday. Though elderly poverty and loneliness is upfront, this comedy tackles many other issues of discrimination through the rich details of the characters’ life histories. The everyday lives of this community unfold in ways that are never optimistic, but always filled with human warmth.

Sweden

Selected by Fredrik Strömberg

Fredrik Strömberg is a journalist, author, curator and historian. He is one of the editors of Bild & Bubbla, Scandinavia’s largest as well as the world’s second oldest magazine about comics, and former President of the Swedish Comics Association. He heads the Comic Art School of Sweden, is the editor of Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art and writes regularly on fredrikstromberg.com/. Among the books he has written are the English language Swedish Comics History, Black Images in the Comics, The Comics Go to Hell and Comic Art Propaganda and Jewish Images in the Comics.

It’s become quite a tradition for me to write these yearly lists, and apart from the fact that it’s exciting to see what my international colleagues have chosen to focus on, it’s also interesting to look back on the past year and think about what made me as a reader sit up and pay attention. This year, I will showcase five graphic novels that are very different, but at the same time very Swedish.

Gå med mig till hörnet (‘Walk Me to the Corner’)
by Anneli Furmark
Galago

A new graphic novel by Anneli Furmark is always cause for celebration in Sweden, and Gå med mig till hörnet (‘Walk Me to the Corner’) is no exception. Since her debut at the turn of the millennium, Furmark has consistently told stories with a sophisticated feel for people. Their life stories touch you in a way that is – or at least was – unusual in the comics format. Furmark’s dialogue feels real and her characters give the impression of having a life far beyond the narrow frames of the panels. What’s been added over the years is an increasingly more loose, artistic relationship with the images. Furmark’s panels were initially strictly black and white, but today they feel freer and more made from the perspective of feelings rather than of mimetic ambitions – an influence I assume from the fact that Furmark is also a painter of fine arts. Gå med mig till hörnet is the story of, as the characters themselves call it, “Brokeback Mountain for old ladies”. In her 50s, married since 20 plus years and with children who have grown up and moved out, the main character suddenly falls head over heels for a woman of the same age with whom she starts a relationship. However, nothing is ever quite that simple in Furmark’s fictitious worlds, and complications follow when the husband falls in love with a younger woman and they divorce, at the same time as the main character’s lover does not want to divorce her family. It’s sad and beautiful at the same time, and dialogues are often replaced by inner monologues that provide insights into the main character’s mental process. In a way, this story is similar to the one in Red Winter, Furmark’s acclaimed graphic novel from 2015, but it feels more heartfelt and emotionally intricate. This book will most certainly be available in a number of languages in the coming years.

Alltid hejdå (‘Always Goodbye’)
by Alma Thörn
Galago

One would think that Furmark’s undisputed position within Swedish comics culture would have led to several generations of Swedish comics creators emerging who in different ways make comics in her tradition. However, this has not really been the case, probably because the combination of literary and artistic qualities that Furmark represents is not easy to replicate. But Alma Thörn’s Alltid hejdå (Always Goodbye) is clearly inspired by Furmark’s comics, both visually and narratively, while at the same time standing on its own two feet. Alltid hejdå is told on two separate levels of time, the main character’s experiences during the Noughties when her parents divorced, and in the 1970s when her mother Johanna went through the same thing. The story is thus a combination of autobiography and biography, with the theme of being a child torn between two parents and two different worlds. Visually, the chapters differ in that Alma’s story is reproduced in black and white lines and ink wash, and Johanna’s in sepia, which means that you never get lost in the plot despite the fact that the eras change back and forth all the time in this extensive (over 300 pages) and impressive graphic novel debut.

Klas Katt får ett uppdrag (‘Klas the Cat On a Mission’)
by Gunnar Lundkvist
Kartago

Yet another veteran has released a new book: Gunnar Lundkvist, who has made comics about his dystopian character Klas Katt (Klas the Cat) since the 1970s. Can anything new be wrung out of this old cloth, then? The answer is yes, without a doubt! Despite having released a large number of books, this is the first time Lundkvist has set out to create a graphic novel, i.e. a book with a single longer story. All previous Klas Katt books have been collections of shorter comics. So was Lundkvist’s previous book, Klas Katt blir deprimerad (Klas the Cat Gets Depressed), which this book is a sequel to of sorts, as some narratives concerning the main characters Klas Katt and Olle Ångest (Olle Anxiety) are continued here. In this story, Klas Katt has for some reason started a combined detective and pest control agency – which, when I think about it, feels completely natural in Lundkvist’s dystopian anthropomorphic world. The first assignment for Klas Katt is to sort out the disappearance of Olle Ångest’s parents, and what follows is a strange and wonderful combination of genre pastiche, silly wordplay, laconically delivered lines, disturbingly immobile faces and a ubiquitous darkness ... As is so often the case with genre literature, the genre is just a varnish, a surface used to discuss something else, in this case: loneliness, anxiety and dysfunctional families. If you have followed Klas Katt over the years (which for some reason is easier in French than in English). Klas Katt får ett uppdrag is an interesting development of Lundkvist’s seemingly lifelong project. While the style is basically unchanged since the 1980s, the narrative and the characters develop, at least to some extent. The comics about Klas Katt are a bit like visual poetry, a constant reassembling of expressions within a very limited form.

Nästan i mål: En komisk transition (‘Almost There: A Comical Transition’)
by Olivia Skoglund
Ordfront

One more debutant on this list – and yet another autobiographical story, but from a completely different perspective. Olivia Skoglund is a trans woman who discusses her experiences of being constantly questioned, of constantly doubting where she belongs and not least of all, constantly having to answer for her choices – to loved ones, but also to psychologists and deeply provoked cis men. If the above sounds like a traditional, anxiety-ridden Swedish autobiographical graphic novel, that is completely wrong. Skoglund’s stories are incredibly funny, something she herself makes fun of by creating a framing story where she’s lying on the psychologist’s couch for evaluation and telling anecdotes to an increasingly distrustful psychologist who wonders why she constantly imagines herself in stories with funny punchlines… Extremely meta and with a timing and delivery that belies Skoglund’s status as a newcomer to comics. This book provides an insight into a world many people may not know very much about – similar to how I felt when I for example read Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, but at the same time it’s side-splittingly funny.

Mitt liv i Japan – en svensk mangatecknares bekännelser (‘My Life in Japan – Confessions of a Swedish Manga Artist’)
by Åsa Ekström
Kartago

It has often been stated that it’s almost impossible for a comics artist to become, in the words of Alphaville ‘Big in Japan’, unless you’re born and raised there. One who decided to disprove this was the Swedish artist Åsa Ekström who, after building a successful career in Sweden as an illustrator and comics artist in an Asian-inspired style, resolutely left for Japan determined to enter this often closed culture – and succeed. When she launched a web diary in comics format about all the problems of being a “gaijin”, a foreigner in Japan, it became incredibly popular, which soon resulted in a book deal with a major manga publisher.
Now, several years later, about ten books by Ekström have been published in Japan and it was really time for a Swedish edition (her books have already been published in China…). The book contains Japanese comic strips, which means a standard format of four equally big panels, published one strip per page, read from top to bottom and of course right to left. These are supplemented with stand-alone illustrations next to them with texts that build on the themes, and a speech bubble at the bottom with a personal comment on the phenomenon discussed. Topics in the book range from embarrassing social mistakes and reflections on cultural differences to pure autobiographical stories about friends visiting from Europe and how they react to Japanese culture. Taken together, these “confessions” give a good insight into what it’s like to be from another culture and try to get by in Japan (even for me who has been there a number of times) – and they are also extremely entertaining.

Phew, have to stop there… So many that could have made the list: Mörkt album (‘Dark Album’) by Coco Moodysson; Återvinningscentralen (‘The Recycling Centre’) by Ulrika Linder; En klump i magen (‘A Bun in the Oven’) by Malin Granroth; Polly: Tar ingen skit (‘Polly: Takes No Shit’) by Mats Källblad; Nikki by Malin Skogberg Nord: Kim W. Andersson’s graphic novels about ZombieLars… Swedish comics are in a good phase right now, showcasing a breadth that would not have been unimaginable just a few decades ago.

Posted: February 8, 2021