“All rightâ€: The story of an obsessive-compulsive disorder in delicate images
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Loading... - Jordan Thompson
- 02 Sep 2022
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"All Right" is the graphic novel debut of the young Lucerne artist Anja Wicki. With her pictures in delicate pastel colors, she sensitively tells the story of a young woman with an obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The right angle, the straight line, the decided plan determine the life of Eva, a sporty young woman and architect. Anything spontaneous scares her. If the precise order gets confused, she loses control of herself. She tenses up, her face turns into a mask and she simply lies down on the ground wherever she is.
In her graphic novel debut, Anja Wicki tells how this obsessive-compulsive disorder hinders Eva's life and alienates her from her friends. They just find them complicated, even if they like Eva. Nothing seems to help, no therapy brings relief - until Eva receives a votive image of Saint Gabriel from her beloved grandmother. A little later a freak appears who calls himself Gabi.
As clear as the diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder is, Anja Wicki tells her story with just a few words and sparse pictures. Her stroke is extremely simple, no hatching, only fine outlines without unnecessary details. In terms of color, the pictures are accentuated by monochrome areas, which the draftswoman sometimes lets follow the lines, sometimes simply superimposes. Their tint reveals the time of day or the change from inside to outside.
This graphic novel appears just as tidy as the protagonist with her need for order would like it to be. Anja Wicki has found an extremely sensitive way of staging a disturbing clinical picture. In terms of visual language, it is particularly convincing how she patiently advances her plot with image sequences that often only vary slightly in perspective, without comments and alternately zooming in on inconspicuous details or opening a scene full-page. Read More…
