Translation: I Guess I'm Falling in Love
By: Daniel Novakovic
232 pages, color, hardcover
Optimal Press, 2010
ISBN: 978-91-85951-14-7
This is a unique book, on several accounts. To start with, the comics were originally reproduced in gigantic format on the walls of the Campus building of the University in Norrköping, making them probably one of the largest comics in the world. This is cool in itself, but it’s the content that captures the reader/onlooker. Fortunately for all of us who hasn’t made it to Norrköping, there is now a book out with all the comics; a beautiful little square hard cover book with one panel a page.
The comics are short, fleeting and beautiful stories about young love, always full of references to pop songs. The stories in themselves are like pop songs and the feeling after having read them all is like having listened to a pop album. Some are sad, some a happy and some simply slice-of-life. This might sound predictable or even corny but it’s not. Novakovic manages to tell these stories with a straight face, and gets away with it. Add to this the original and evocative drawings of Novakovic, which are somewhat reminiscent of Al Colombia's pupil-less characters and the sum total is striking.
Another contender for the title Swedish graphic novel most deserving an English translation!
