on the contrary / au contraire / yvan alagbé;

the french west africa, the sahara, all the colors, of sierraleone, burkinafaso, guineabissau, and são tomé-and-príncipe, sao[1] western slavonia, northern dalmatia, southern serbian sao, sao of eastern bosnia-semberia and somalia, sao of doubting thomases, of god’s envoys, sao of sao, sao of independent state of croatia, and serbia, pre and post kosovo, non-fat and opulent, sujuk and halal, sao the whole of europe and montenegro, a united kingdom without a name, united states, sao chicago, sao srem, bačka, sao banat, sierra semberia, tijuana and mrčajevci, to all the rest of us, may we have a happy bulgarian, white army, tatarian new year’s eve, a chinese serbia and skopska crna gora, czernya, bacska czernya, sao, all those saos, holy sao, anyway, such are these relations, between african americans from france and a general line of anglo-american afro-asian caliphates, having that distinct western european note and a discreet scent coming out from under the mantles of the roman catholic clergy, as well as the byzantine and the rest of the autonomous churches of macedonia and ukraine. enough of geography, let’s turn to biology. more affluent europeans are already boasting their grafted blood, genetic pie-charts and tables of interracial multiplication, it is chic to be a spic, a spook or a ghost, to boast with it in your official family records, what was once considered shameful is now all the rage! the kardashian sisters have a special stable for such needs, their mother too, who, after she was criticized for letting her daughter marry a jungle bunny, burned her own pussy, her ex-husband, the friend of negroes who like and who are liked by the white folk, robert, and later, a friend and intimate acquaintance, who, after the initial shock of this racial transgression, had to change his sex. she sure had a hard time. i am purposefully obtruding with this subject, the reality show universe, just after i finished reading a story of a yellow negro, which i wholeheartedly recommend to you, because i want to divert your attention to this piece of everyday life, a sort of ephemeral dialogue, a monologue to be more precise, or two, where neither can understand the other, she can’t understand him, he can’t understand her, but they insist on the dialogue, the freshness of small talk, which has, if you listen to it more closely, and recognizes it has a rhythm, rhymes are being thrown, the talk becomes a song, the rhythm is changing, but persistent. it is good for the story, of this caliber, it makes it more accessible, more easily referential, a series, a system of associations which often gets lost in these dialogues, but the rhythm of the story, images devoid of unnecessary baroque, awkward ornaments, with a pre-determined shelf-life, made by unreliable artists, and even though they’re all attached to each other hypnotically, stuck within a comic book narration, moving forward in half-trance, unconsciously returning, for a shot, or two, in the same way one reads comic books, at least that’s how i remember reading them, the value of the medium, which sets it apart from the others, a unique dynamic which can be adjusted according to each user’s sensibility, or speed, again, unconsciously choosing whether to run through the whole story, all heated up from the fiery momentum, the solidness of their aggregate state becoming burnt and charred as they go, finally disintegrating into dust, the same state but a different form, or, to take it slowly, to enjoy it hedonistically, like one enjoys opium, chinese merchandize, the red flowers of afghanistan, poppy flowers and its derivatives, some such opioid families and branches, of reason and science, against the unconsciousness of being, the essence and magic simmering inside the weightlessness that surrounds us.

[1] t/n: SAO (Srpska Autonomna Oblast), Serbian Autonomous Region, Serb-inhabited regions of former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, created during the breakup of Yugoslavia and later united to form the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia and Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

hand-woven woolen rugs, women make them, supervised by their husbands, from animals that serve no other purpose; they don’t give milk, or something for the children to play with, to kick it and hurt it, it’s all they are good for, to hit, to test their strength, to affirm, to learn how to inflict pain… /end quote

this novel is a trap, a vicious circle of tragedy, many smaller tragedies, and a big one, catch phrases that last much shorter than their impressions, awkward words, i suppose in all languages, hard letters, which give the rhythm, rhyming without rhymes, the pleasure of composition, there is, and i repeat this again, no room for photorealism, hand-drawn onanisms, everything is reduced to symbols, interesting, photorealistic. absolute trust in the storyteller is an important thing, an item that is defined by format, caliber, quality, consistency of the meandering style, abstract even, a light which flies like a bat in the afternoon, shadows which have to be guessed, they aren’t there, there is no room for them, people, shadows and blotches, mirages in the mercilessly scorching sun, in this case, it is a visual structure, a binding tissue which connects these images, heads, masks, machines even, and brings them onto the same field, steadily rolling the sequence of events, the story glides if you let go, if you put your heart into it, those who stop and turn to see what happened, or worse, what is yet to come, they stumble and fall, the story needs to suck you in, you believe it, you are letting go, and you dread finishing it. this is not a pretty story, it is very dark. well written, but i have no idea what impression it will have on me upon second reading, now that i am analyzing it, or dissecting it, if that’s the right word. first time was like any other first time. plus, yvan knows the story, it is his, he knows how dark it is, which is why he doesn’t insist on the details, excess of words, brush or pen strokes, his lines are swift and unexpected, his lettering impeccable, everything should be running smoothly, and it is, but… deep sighs and shock in front of the already known, and experienced, and i don’t believe i’m alone on this, i have a feeling i belong to the story, but my story, and i’m guessing other people’s stories as well, may be a bit different. a lot of things in this process are implied, sympathized with, deeply understood, and felt, i repeat. there is no ironic distance, but for some cynicism or rage, the forefather of sorrow, the progenitor of fear. anybody can understand this. when will you decide to return, to turn my sadness to love, when, oh when, my dream, my lord, yvan asks himself while quoting fernando pessoa. and, as always, conscious or unconscious, quotes or homages, bridges made of words, between the weight of the african poetry, subconscious excerpts from a scattered body of everyone’s, local and, well, world literature, in lack of a better word, emerge, though discreetly, in a composition, a harmony of words, quotes and citations, graphic symbols and images, the melody which arises in the echoes, the reverb and delay of the rhythm, the distant drums, the war march, samples of police sirens, crying and wailing, without looking down on any of the details, set straight, an articulated charge of energy, again, in lack of a better word, of expressions, the empty river beds, concrete channels, with the grass growing in between the blocks, to the struggling wilderness, which this dirge is sailing toward, sadness intersected with everyday ruthless scenery, rarely happy, but corporeal, a warm body and an even warmer meal, here you can feel it, in the rain of bullets falling from the sky, in the chaos of the air, one ordinary, little need, the death of peace. i can see it, even though it’s not there, the plate, the soup or stew, coffee, or, instead of that, anything warm, to give warmth to what was frozen, to burst if necessary before the onslaught of change, there are no such delineations here, you can feel a desire, a life that’s passing away, in damp corners, stiff beds, cold and scented rooms, i almost wrote stinking, bodies, exotic odors, coming from afar but not having a sense of distance, maybe it’s a rip-off, distant scents living in your memory, it can happen, those who know these things know, looks can deceive the nose, one can swallow empty air and feel some old forgotten flavor, which may never have existed. this is an elegy, difficult yet pleasantly depressing, an afternoon depression after a short nap, a body woken up for the second time, a new mind emerging in the dusk, twilight and neon, or whatever; the unbearably slow autumn sun, red, and warmer than it appears, you turn your body around in order to keep warm.

yvan is a bastard of classical visual narration, an endlessly spinning yarn, a looping tape, an image on the tape, of bandes dessinées[1], as well as the new aristocracy of contemporary comic books, the new classical visual and narrative expression, cleverly concealed within subgenres, genres, a b movie, the cde’s and f’s of our diagnoses /a big hello to all the f’s in dreiser street[2]/, mixed media, a younger brother, partially developed and mentally challenged, and his older sisters, the film, the picture book, literature and other graphic disciplines ranging from abstract painting, anti-pop art, para-art, underground esthetics, which is not an esthetic but has become one after successful negotiations between all the warring parties.

a bastard is a word that signifies a child. up until recently, it was a child without a father, lately, both parents are unknown. up until now, until the new age, the word held an exclusively negative connotation. after the epic fall of patriarchy, which we are witnessing historically, the accomplices, the judges and the accused, guilty without the sense of guilt, nominally convinced of the legitimacy of their actions’ outcomes, an unwanted child without a father, recently without a mother too, is a labor of love, a relationship between the nature and science, god and man, like jesus, also a bastard, a fictional character from the old and new testaments, is one of the first superheroes of post classical civilization as such, the judeo-christian-muslim-zarathustrian-monotheistic bastard, a labor of love and violence, of a stronger – god, over the weaker, her, the mother, a system so deeply intertwined and encoded by artificial methods of the scientific and theistic principles, access to data processing, in terms of belief, belief in immortality, the basis of most religions and religious movements, sects, groups and subgroups, scrolls and interpretations, even the judean and lutheran ones, religions supposedly uncomfortable with the subject of immortality, the belief in the afterlife, the primary motive of all human beings, or to be more precise, superstitions, oversaturated with colorful stories and myths, superfluous and overly ostentatious style, facts, reasons and dogmas, the greco-catholic and other schisms, 10 of them being particularly interesting.

the new, and i stress this new, and not the old, aristocracy, in other words, a tendency of a smaller, unprivileged, on the contrary, a strong current within the main, general class, of, as it were, heretics, rebels fighting themselves, fighting against their own delusions and prejudice, the rule of a common taste, whatever that is, disconnected, groups of people, unqualified, and, again, to the contrary, to oppose the system, the will and wish to power, to manage, to dominate, again, on the contrary, again and again, contrary to the notion of rule, of the best sons, the inherited title, the wealth undeserved, paid in blood, from the root of the words aristo and kratia, words that appear, and sound, and look like names, logos of a modern and monstrous, cannibalistic, humanocidal, material system, in the form of modern capitalism, the rule of the able-bodied, the unhealthy over ambition, of sad, domineering, stupid and vain, rulers without names and pseudonyms, without meaning, character, a suicidal system, an unconscious autodestructive actor in a global tragedy, thus, we could say that here, in this text, and only in this text, the incongruity with the ancient greek notion of aristocracy is implied, again, clumsily, ineligibly, with cleverly hidden accusations, which are funny, yet sad in their essence, potentially very dangerous, to the system of rule, of those that are the best, morally and intellectually more superior, in other words, those who are subjectively, nonqualitatively defined. here, we are talking about aristocracy of the noble ones; anarchy, glory and material possessions, as much acquired through work, prosperity, and success over oneself, as through nobility, embodied in the contribution to the whole, general prosperity, the success of the human kind, the authority gained by courage, solidarity, a strong sense of beauty, in an ugly, selfish, material world, around us, our scions and progenies.

sounds pompous, but this is a story about one man, you would think, no. here we have this man, who was telling another man, a myth, a story, an illustrated depiction, of one of the most unusual authors of france, of europe. and consequently the world. but, mostly asia, the mystical far east, the zen masters, witch doctors and mages… this is what yvan looks like, a man without a race, a mongrel, a white-bearded negro.

a witch doctor is a shaman, an outcast, in touch with the higher frequencies, the chaos of the cosmos, a relay station aimed at infinity, a mage is something else. discipline, in a wider sense of the word, is what sets them apart. the shaman is a local mage, the mage is a mathematical equation of the shaman.

endlessly grandiose, yet extremely minimalized, a distilled style, of infinite splendor, framed by squares, a story, a story of and around the narrative discipline.

my personal impression is not a judgment, it’s just perception, of the atmosphere of the comic book, the story, the visual stimuli, which linger in the air, around my head, long after consummation, like a good drug, a natural substance, a medicine and a remedy, a biochemical pathway toward the stars, the feeling of happiness, fulfillment, but also the emptiness after the finished act, a void that needs to be filled, forever, only the greatest interpreters of the collective unconscious know this, in the world of a profane, and most inconsequential medium, inside a constrained genre, muted explosions, silent implosions, a contact, an intimate system of communication between the creator and the created, an empty space, invisible, the space between the atoms, electrons, neutrons, non-space, the space of distorted eightfold time, a hindered infinity, and infinitely clear beauty. deep eroticism, subtlety, pleasure in pain, non-masochism, lines that are so raw, brut even. a bare minimum of strokes, devoid of any excess of embellishments, an ambivalence in front of moral ideas, a sweaty, painful, ecstatic space, where time, spent between eroticism and pain, is defined by a silent agreement and is a consequence of a particular kind of tension between these two opposites, they are mutually conditioned, necessary and natural.

intimate moments, labors of erotic charge, in completely unexpected places, rare but powerful interruptions of reality, like diving into a dreamlike state, a darkness, an obscure kind of mystery, non-aligned; the movements of the camera, seemingly small and sudden, with angles that are alike or similarly styled, yet each of them completely different, the lighting, the atmosphere, especially in the yellow negroes collection, which this text is predominately dedicated to, injections of almost completely unconscious storytelling within the framework of a seemingly clear, clean, classic story…

descriptions of everyday, mundane human stupidity, barely visible traces, the complexity as much as the banality of eternal, and particularly visible today, racial intolerance, and endless weighty racisms, of europe, who had sinned first, dead set on keeping its current course and never looking back, the past of the white man, the past it does not want to remember, but also one it does not deny, the minimalization of problems, similar to cases of mental disorders and restless souls. i can see the story holds the same value for us too, due to our relationship with our invisible brethren, the roma people, the gypsies. this, our greatest of shames, we shall not speak about, and then we actually don’t. this is not a story about us, but it also is. this is probably why it appealed to me so much. the french algiers and the serbian kosovo, the serbian krajina, the northern dalmatia, the independent state of croatian ustashe[3], germans and other germanic peoples, italian partisans, the army of homeland protection, a nice, juicy, gypsy curse to all of them!

the banality of life, in all its complexity; profane, common things, everyday life, people, love, sex, sex and violence, violence and people, plus and minus in an infinite loop of the hamster wheel, on the road to infinity, in a circle, and then a spiral fall, a return to the rotten roots. mundane problems placed in the same composition with myths, old and, apparently, never-ending stories, in black and white, and yellow.

the problem of racism, in europe, unlike america, i feel, as i contemplate this book, is much deeper… absolutely materialized and bare – a banknote, the almighty red american dollar, seems so innocent, or more innocent, in light of and in relation to the surface, the black and white, the american technicolor dream, compared to europe, an old whore, the prehistoric whore, the essence, the cause and the fruit of the crime, the law of the mightier, drunken white monkeys sailing on their boats, with white sails and red crosses, searching for the end of the world around the horizon. but let me get back to the issue at hand, the complexity of european racism, each layer, shade and subgroup, the greatest of them being unconscious racism, the evil that is taken for granted, and easily forgotten, and then there are these leftists, a bunch of petty bourgeois baboons with voracious appetites, egotistical scum, they’ll oppose anything as long as they get paid… they will always search for problems in the material world, while the church undergoes a brutal, esoteric, undefined shift from its own beliefs, people are people, people hate, people are white, other races are far too young to compete, the church is slow, but righteous, it will not allow the blood to become stained. perhaps one day. but only if they need to. but on one condition, the place must be first determined, possessions ascertained, whose place, in the corner, at the back, underneath, behind, the desk, behind the wall, in the other room maybe? no, but moving on… on the ground floor, on the flatness of the earth’s surface, no, even further, deeper, in the basement, in chains, in the ground, in the grave of a disobedient man, in the magma chamber, the red fires of hell, the voodoo curse, because the word of jesus did not yet get there, because this isn’t geography, geology, geomantics and geopolitics, it is biology, one cannot go against nature, the clergy is slow, the clergy is always right, the empire never ended /valis; philip k. dick/. this empire is the system we live in, or at least one circle in this hell, worse may be out there, it can always be worse, but also better, according to the church, the old aristocracy, and according to politics, religion is the opium, for the chosen ones, god only knows the extent of the curse of jesus…

too much of this story is left unsaid, too much overthinking, i can’t remember anything similar, it is not a movie, with subtitles instead of lettering, or motion instead of invisible movements between the frames, and just like the narrative, the image is sometimes stark, human faces acting as the smallest common denominator, faces, souls, masks, croquis figures, the force of movement, the static camera, long takes, black and white color, with lettering instead of subtitles, that is europe. it is the white face of a mulatto, the grey europe, a dirty bank of pink white people and brown and yellow black people, auburn african asians, mexican filipinos, the variations are endless, and you can hear a voice from the crowd, it has TO STOP.

WHAT IS THIS RANT AGAINST RACISM, THE GUILT OF THE WHITE MAN, BECAUSE WE ARE ALL THE SAME, YET DIFFERENT, WE ARE ALL AFRICAN, AS LONG AS SHE DOESN’T MARRY A NIGGER, OR A GYPSY.

ALL THE TIME THIS ANXIETY, FEAR OF THE PREDATOR, THE POLICE, BUREAUCRACY, THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE IN THE STREETS OF PARIS, MARSEILLE, FRENCH PARIS, NIGER, WHERE THEY LEFT ONLY THE SCORCHED EARTH BEHIND, BRIDGES TORN DOWN, NO CITIES, NO CURRENCY, WHY DON’T YOU PLAY MONOPOLY, WE’LL SEND YOU THE INSTRUCTIONS…

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, THE RELATIVES, ON YOUR OWN FUNERAL, A FEAST, A TREE IN A DESERT, A WOMAN SNAKING OUT FROM UNDER A MAN LIKE PREY FROM A PREDATOR, WITH CATLIKE MOVEMENTS, SKIDDING BENEATH A DOG, THIS VIOLENCE AND THESE PLEASURES, THE LOVE AND ESSENCE, ONES BEING SPLIT IN HALF, MULTIPLYING LIKE AMEBAS, UNTIL FIRE FROM THE SKY USHERS IN THE NEW DARKNESS. A WOMAN WITH A CHILD IN HER ARMS, AND INSTEAD OF A CHILD THERE IS NOTHING, THE AIR SURROUNDING THE NEWLY BORN BABY IS HARD, HARDER THAN THE PARCHED SOIL, THE FASTING RAIN, COLDER THAN THE AFTERNOON SUN, WHEN NOT EVEN SWEATING HELPS, HYPERTHERMIA, FREEZE, THE EQUATOR, THE LIFE LINE, THE INCEPTION OF EVIL, IN A FIRE RAINING FROM THE SKY, INSIDE THE FIRE, A STONE, STONE IS EARTH, LIFE IS EARTH, LIFE IS A MISTAKE, A HUMAN ERROR, EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE, SAY THE GODS, THE PEOPLE WILL VANISH, THE SLAVES WILL REMAIN, THE PUNISHMENT, THE CURSE OF THE GODS, GOD IS MOTHER, A DEVIL YOU KNOW.

I CAN’T GET OUT OF THE SUBJECTIVE BECAUSE THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE. THIS IS A STORY ABOUT ALL OF US, EVERYONE IS TELLING THIS STORY, THIS IS THE OLDEST STORY, THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK, A TRADE, A VICE, A FIRST WISH, THIS IS BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, NO ONE KNOWS WHAT’S HAPPENING, THIS IS THE SAME, SAME AS A FIGHT, A DOG FIGHT, A DOG AND CAT FIGHT, A FIGHT BETWEEN MEN CATS AND WOMEN.

IBRAHIM, AUGUSTA AND MARTINA, ALAIN, BARBIE AND KEN. THE BLACK BARBIE IS A REFUGEE, SHE SELLS BETTER, IN THE CENTER OF PARIS, IS THAT WHAT WE FOUGHT FOR, IN THE DESERTS OF ALGIERS, TO LET THEM TAKE KOSOVO FROM US, AND METOHIJA TOO, WAS THAT, IS THAT, IS THAT WHY WE FOUGHT, AGAINST THE TURKS, THE BLACK DEVILS, THE FRENCH, AND THEIR PERVERSION, THE FLEMISH BELGIANS, THE MOST CONSPICUOUS YELLOW WHITE AND GOLDEN FRENCH BRAIDS ON RED FACES, BURNT FROM THE SUN, A HORNED HELMET, THE SOLDIER TAKES IT OFF, BUT THE HORNS STAY ON HIS HEAD, THESE ARE MY HORNS, MY WIFE GAVE THEM TO ME, SHE WAS RAPED, LUCKILY, SHE’S GOING TO GIVE BIRTH TO A WHITE CHILD. THE MAN IS A PASHA[4], HE WILL LET YOU SEE YOUR SON, WHEN HE GROWS UP A LITTLE, ENOUGH TO FORGET YOU, HE’LL COME BACK, ON HORSES, ON CAMELS, ON ELEPHANTS, MAMMOTHS, HAIRY BEASTS AND FIERY MONSTERS, FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD.

ALL OF US HERE CAN UNDERSTAND, IF NOT FEEL, THESE GRAPHIC STORIES. AS WELL AS ALL OF THEM OVER THERE AND OUTSIDE OUR BORDERS. BECAUSE THIS IS THE STORY, WHO ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOUR PAPERS? WHERE DID YOU COME FROM, WHO INVITED YOU, GO BACK HOME, WE WERE WRONG, WE CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT NOW, YOU’RE GOING TO A CAGE, THE COURT IS UNBIASED, THE JUDGE DOES NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE, HE JUST READS WHAT’S WRITTEN, HE’S A STERN JUDGE, A RIGHTEOUS JUDGE, HE’S OUR JUDGE.

FORGED DOCUMENTS, I HAD TO SELL A COW TO PAY FOR THEM, I HAVE NOTHING NOW, I WILL SLEEP ON THE STREET, I DON’T NEED ANYTHING, I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I CAME FROM, I’M NOT HUNGRY, I’M THIRSTY, I DON’T CARE HOW YOU’LL GET BACK HOME, DIE.

THIS STORY IS POETRY, LATER COMPLICATED BY IMAGES, THE FLOW OF THE STORY, A RIVER WITHOUT AN END, AND EACH RIVER HAS ITS SEA. GO BACK TO THE SEA. SWIM.

A HIDEOUS VOICE, COMING FROM THE TOP OF THE MINARET, DREADFUL SOUNDS OF TORTURE, COMING FROM THE LOUDSPEAKERS, THE SOUND FROM AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH, BLACK AND WHITE, TURNED YELLOW OVER TIME, A POLICE SIREN, COLD EYES, A RUBBER BATON… A BLACK WOMAN, WHITE SAILS, RED FLAG, WITH THE WHITE CROSS IN THE CENTER, WHAT IS IT. I KNOW YOU KNOW, I DON’T ASK. IT IS A MESSAGE, FROM THE NORTHERN GODS, THE PEOPLE WITH HORNS, THEY SAID THEY WERE GODS, I DON’T KNOW, I DIDN’T ASK. NEITHER DID I. DADDY, HOW MUCH DOES FREEDOM COST?

IN THE COUNTERLIGHT OF LIFE, THE YELLOW SUN, THE HORIZON LINE, THE GEOMETRIC SHAPES, THE TRIANGULAR WHITE SAILS WITH A RED CROSS ON THEM, A PROPHECY FULFILLED, THE CURSE OF THE GODS, AND HUMANS, THEIR SHADOWS, WOMEN, PEOPLE AND POLICE, MAN SHADOW AND WOMAN, THE BLINDING LIGHT OF HEADLIGHTS…

I DON’T ENVY MYSELF FOR TRYING TO EXPLAIN, TO ILLUSTRATE THE EXPLANATION, TO ANALYZE THE SONG, THE POETRY OF SYMBOLS, I DON’T ENVY THE TRANSLATOR EITHER, NOT ONE BIT, SORRY BANE, SORRY YVAN, SORRY JOHANNA, AND SORRY MILICA. NOW, COME ON, EXPLAIN THE SONG, TO A DEAF MAN, EXPLAIN THE PAINTING TO A BLIND MAN, EXPLAIN THE LIGHT TO A VAMPIRE, A NIGHT TO A FOOL, PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT YOU MEAN BY THAT. IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING, I DON’T KNOW, I DIDN’T WANT TO, I WASN’T THINKING. PLEASE, SHORTEN THIS TEXT, I HAVE BECOME LOST. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT I WANTED TO SAY, OR WHERE I WAS GOING WITH THIS, I HAVEN’T WRITTEN LIKE THIS IN A WHILE, IT CANNOT BE EXPLAINED. I’M SURE THAT THIS IS A GOOD THING, BUT, AGAIN, TRY EXPLAINING A SONG, TO A FOOL, JUST HIT HIM WITH A STICK, AN OLD MAN WHO DIED ON THE SQUARE WOKE UP IN HIS ROOM.

i will slowly bring this impression to a close, for the third and last time, but not the last time, of that i’m certain, while reading, re-reading, enjoying and empathizing, seeing and looking around, smelling and breathing the printed ink, of this comic book, a designed strip, a graphic novel, whatever we wish to call it, and let’s call it a comic, off my computer screen, i bid you farewell. after ten years, of empty vacuum, i return again to my old lover, the graphic novel, the final refuge of us lowlives, murdered accomplices, lords of darkness and builders of light, intentional errors. for years i escaped into the false security of my colored tv set, inarticulate network cut-outs, social dystrophies, wrong choices, and now i return to the source, the first experience, second only to a picture book, before books, and at the same time as film. the nobility of the medium, of the story in question, begs for the story of the cause, the comic strip, the story and the sermon, without judgment and evaluation and quantity, a journey to the beginning of a new day, to that moment, an instant, a split second after the darkest night, and just before the bright of dawn, the smell of old paper, the yellow press, the motion inside the images, the stories inside the motion, the image inside the story, and so on, in a circle. forever. i leave this book now to cool down a bit, for the dust to settle, for me to blow away this dust, again and again, three times, because this is the magic that we needed. it has to hurt, a lot, it has to be felt, it has to reek, to tear new and validate old scars, across the tattoos, the invisible red ink, on the red heart and dick. a yellow-colored negrito, finito, finito…

[1] t/n: In French, literally translated as designed or drawn strips, or comic books.

[2] t/n: Short for Theodore Dreiser Street in Belgrade, the location of a specialized drug-abuse treatment facility.

[3] t/n: Croatian ultranationalist, racist and fascist organization, active between 1929 and 1945, which supported the creation of a racially pure Greater Croatia and advocated genocide against Serbs, Jews and Romani people.

[4] t/n: Pasha, or bashaw, a high-ranking officer of the Ottoman empire.