Publisher's Weekly Review
Swedish artist Wallander plays with the comics medium in this wry meditation on art and self-expression. Three little girls drawn in loose, squiggly lines wander a shifting landscape populated by eccentric artists working in unlikely mediums. One woman lives in a house-sized replica of her womb; another is an island and swallows visitors for inspiration; others try to transform into horses or gather for a group-cry. The jittery linework suggests Jules Feiffer, with similar accuracy at capturing human gestures in a doodle. So does the self-analytical dialogue, peppered with pithy observations such as "I haven't made a single thing since I got here, but the suffering has been splendid" and "I've preserved my childlike sense of wonder. I've preserved it very hard." The spindly characters move through colorful background collages of smudgy paint, photography, patterns, textures, and even sculpture, making this exploration of the artistic urge appropriately varied to look at. Wallander's gently philosophical ramble is likely to appeal to creative types who periodically get stuck on the question of what creativity is for. (Feb.)
Library Journal Review
DEBUT A group of girls searching for a herd of horses encounter a series of strange artists while wandering a shifting landscape in Swedish cartoonist Wallander's wonderfully experimental first full-length comic. Wallander examines the urge for self-expression and artistic process with a mix of surrealism, philosophical musing, and satire. The girls meet one woman who lives inside a replica of her own womb, another who brags about the intensity with which she's preserved her childlike sense of wonder, and later a group of artists who have formed a collective in order literally to cry a river in which they plan to drown. At one point, the girls are swallowed by a giant; inside her, an interior decorator instructs them how to pose their bodies. When they finally find the horses, some of them are tiny, others are abstract blobs of color. Central characters are mostly depicted in sketchy lines, while the world around them is composed of colorful collages that combine intricate patterns, various textures, different painting techniques, and photography. VERDICT Wallander's ideas about art are provocative, and her illustrations are incredibly striking in this memorable debut.
