By: Jan & Maria Berglin
Language: Swedish
132 pages, black & white
Kartago, 2009
ISBN: 978-91-86003-463
Jan and now also his wife Maria (whose name was not printed on the books at the beginning of their careers) Berglin are among Sweden’s most beloved cartoonists. The style of their work is easily recognizable with the characters' impossibly big noses, enormous eyes and rounded bodies.
The Berglin couple makes cartoons and a rather special form of comics with four panels on a topic, with a joke in each panel. Everything is presented in black and white with shades of gray. Recurring main characters is a traditional Swedish couple and the intimacy of the storytelling makes it likely that these two are very much in tune with the creators.
The humour is satirical and deals with what’s happening in the Swedish society, dishing out stabs at our prejudices, faith in the government, intergenerational conflicts, TV-dependency and so on. This is the fourteenth collection of Berglin’s comics and cartoons. The couple is often very much on the spot when it comes to boiling down what is happening in Sweden and their books can, aside from often being very funny, be read as summaries of what’s going on here.
Oh, and the title, Välkommen till Fjuckby, translated to "Welcome to Fjuckby", where "Fjuckby" is an actual name of a small Swedish village...
