FANTAGRAPHICS AT 50! Time for another celebratory exclusive preview courtesy of Fantagraphics and today it’s the turn of Mikael Ross for his new book Nirvana is Here, translated by Nika Beauchamp. You can check out our review of a previous Ross/Fanta title The Thud here at Broken Frontier.
NIRVANA IS HERE
by Mikael Ross
A chance encounter in a flea market parking lot and a severed finger embroil two Vietnamese German siblings on a mission to save a desperate young Vietnamese woman from her pursuer.
Two German siblings, 12-year-old Tâm and 14-year-old Dennis Nguyen, encounter a young Vietnamese woman in trouble in a flea market parking lot. When Tâm’s spy movie-obsessed schoolmate, Alex, discovers an abandoned backpack with a photo of a happy couple with Tâm’s address on the back, it will lead the two to discover a severed finger. Worried, Tâm searches for the desperate woman, aided by her reluctant brother, and eventually finds Hoa Bin, who escaped from her kidnapper — who’s still tracking her down. Drawn to Hoa Bin, Tâm vows to save her — even if she has to break her stern-but-loving mom’s rules, dodge the bad guys in wild chases through the Berlin streets, and combine the forces of Marina, the Nguyens’ tough-chick neighbor, Jutta, an elderly retired actress, a rollerblading girl gang, and many others to do so.
In Ross’s empathetic, loose-but-controlled lines, cartoonishly expressive kids interact against and within the realistically depicted urban environments, given texture and grit by screen-tones. Nirvana is Here is a contemporary crime thriller that has adventure, diasporic, coming-of-age, and love story elements, set in Berlin’s working-class Lichtenberg district against a backdrop of very current social issues.
Fantagraphics at 50 Month runs through August at Broken Frontier. You can see articles as they’re published in one tagged list here.
