Jamilti and Other Stories
6 maj 2016 av Fredrik Strömberg BöckerThis is a great collection of early stories by Rutu Modan. I read most of them in the anthologies that her collective Actus Tragicus put out in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but rereading them in one go puts them all together and shows the development of a great comics artists, on her way to creating the intriguing graphic novel Exit Wounds.
The stories are all memorable, and I realized when reading this book that they all had stuck with me from the time of the anthologies. Some are more grotesque, some more realistic, and I must admit to liking the more realistic ones better, even though the most surrealistic of them all is actually set in Sweden … The afterword by Modan aslo tell the story of her growing more and more comfortable with writing and drawing comics that were closer to her own reality in Israel.
The quality of the stories vary, but they are all interesting, and the better ones have that elusive quality that Modan will develop even more in her graphic novels Exit Wounds and The Property, i.e. believable characters that you actually think has a life outside of the story.
Having re-read this I realize that it it really time for another one of these collections, as Modan has done so many great shorter comics since 2007. So, lets hope that is in the pipeline.
