Translation: If someone screams in the forest
By: Malin Biller
Language: Swedish
200 pages, b&w, hardcover
Optimal Press, 2010
ISBN: 978-91-85951-12-3
I have tried several ways to keep up a steady flow of reviews here on Sekventiellt, but I never seem to be able to squeeze in the time needed in between all the other work I have to do. So my new resolve is to have a new review every Wednesday. But it will be a short mention really, as I will only show you things that have really caught my fancy and tell you that they are worth reading. Call it my recommendations, picked out from the constant flow of comics published. So, from now on, a book reviewed here comes with the highest recommendations from yours truly. And Wednesdays are the days to return for a new fix.
The first book will have to be Malin Biller's Om någon vrålar i skogen, which I have no problem announcing as the best original Swedish graphic novel so far in 2010. Biller is well known for her syndicated humorous strip Biller, but this is a different thing altogether. An autobiographical tale of growing up, being the outsider, watching your family disintegrate and, not least, being sexually abused by your father. This is a powerful story indeed, but not a sulky one, not a pointed finger at the wrongdoers, and, despite the theme, not a depressing read. Biller is a humorist at heart, and as such, she manages to make the read a pleasant one, adding obvious fictitious parts to the story. Still it is revealing, harrowing and quite an experience to make it through the whole story.
This book, if any this year, deserves a more thorough review, but I hope this at least made you interested enough to go out a buy and read it for yourselves. Do get back to me and tell me what you thought, and also what you think of the new system of one review/recommendation a week.
Cheers!
