Review: Torudds samlade mästerverk

The fifth review in my December marathon, and today I turn to what is perhaps the most Swedish of all comics, and the very best edition of this classic ever.

Title: Torudds samlade mästerverk 1-5
By: Cecilia Torudd
Language: Swedish
80 pages, colour
Semic Press, 2008-2009











OK, let's face it. No amount of Google Translate is going to help you poor sods who don't understand Swedish on this one. Even if you would be able to translate these books you still probably wouldn't get it, as this is just about as Swedish as it can get.

Cecilia Torudd captured the heart and the soul of Sweden with her comic strip Ensamma mamman (The single mother - a very realistic and yet funny story of a single mother with two teenage kids) in the late 1980s, and that strip has remained popular ever since. It has been reprinted numerous times and seems always to be a best-seller. A true classic in a time when that epithet is constantly being abused in the name of PR and sell out.

So for most Swedes this comics is already familiar and you might think: "Why get yet another collection, when I've already got it in my book shelf?": Well, for starters, these beautiful square hardcover collects not only Ensamma mamman but every other comic Torudd has ever made (they are after all titled Torudds samlade mästerverk - The Collected Masterpieces of Torudd), even showcasing a few that have never been printed before.  As if that wasn't enough, Torudd has coloured each and every one of them, making it a fresh and new read.

All that aside, reading these books, I realize that it's not the anal-retentive reaction of having everything Cecilia Torudd has ever drawn in neat, collected hardcovers, and it's not the splendour of the colours - it is of course as always the very down to earth, humane, reality driven stories that captures your imagination and keeps you reading.

So, Christmas closing in, give these to anyone who's ever been a parent, a son, a daughter... well, you get the picture!