---- (Here is a quick translation of the text by Rob Clough)
Paul Holmberg, better known in Argentina under the pseudonym Kioskerman makes comics that elude easy description. They are about the spaces in between, of actions that happen behind the scenes.
are often funny and are structured as a classic comic jokes, in terms of four-panel grid, but rarely have their strips per se auction. The reader is immersed in a forest of dreams without the benefit of an explanation or a story arc higher.
However, the familiarity to the reader the type of drawing comic and narrative structure (a line relaxed and iconic, almost sketch) makes you feel like you've read this material before. There is a bit of Winsor McKay Holmberg line, but also the sadness and the game of Charles Schulz.
One almost feels as if the strips are read "behind the scenes, things the characters say and do in their free time when they are having affairs. We see them waiting, "low" or simply spending time together.
As a result, these silent scenes take on a lyrical quality. Time is a crucial aspect here, which is sometimes a cruel, almost tangible force that only promotes nostalgia. In some strips, this desire is replaced by a direct, almost sentimental. In other strips, it is much more oblique, approaching the comic-as-poetry from the way the beat Holmberg produce the images and uses language in a much less direct. Holmberg's thoughts on children is particularly poignant when you mix text and images to reach the mysteries behind the feeling of being a parent.
Eden is in a sense an attempt to reach Holmberg ineffable, describe a circle which can not be described. Or rather, the emotions you feel as a father, son or a lover can be described, but the description is not the experience itself. Eden succeeds because it manages to evoke the experience of the sublime page after page.
That experience is not necessarily a happy experience, in fact pain is a constant in this book. This is all the pain we feel as we try to avoid pain, as evidenced by the strip on the wolf and the woman who wants to know why criticize those he loves.
Eden is a book terribly simple. Its components are simple to the point of cliché occasionally, but how Holmberg sorts the elements is what gives life to each page. It is a book where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If a piece seems too sentimental, the next strip will have a more cynical turn or evasive.
The kingdom of the forest as the setting is crucial to join together these emotional variations, by putting the basic human emotions (like a child who wants to meet her father) in a fantastic context.
In this respect, much like Peanuts where painful emotions are often raw and filtered through a form of comedy and charm. At the same time, Holmberg is clearly interested in this book is beautiful as those of McKay, in giving the reader something to watch. Without the luxury funds, which are juxtaposed against a series of conflicting feelings in the book, the emotions presented are perceived as more basic and obvious. When wearing the unanswered questions of life in the deep mysteries of a great forest where plants, animals and even the stars are able to perceive and feel, Holmberg has created a world where the language of poetry, the language of every day and the visual language of his drawings are the same thing. ***
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