The latest addition to my website is Hariton Pushwagner‘s Soft City. This is the first graphic novel on my website, the only graphic novel by Norwegian artist, Hariton Pushwagner. With Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina making the Man Booker 2018 Longlst, I thought it time to have a look at a graphic novel and went for something different, not least because Drnaso has already garnered a lot of publicity.
Soft City is the day in the life of a family in a mega-city – think Brave New World meets Metropolis – where everybody looks the same and does the same things. We follow the husband as he and hundreds of others leave their high-rise flat to go and work for the Soft Company (maker of armaments and toxic chemicals). We see briefly what the armaments and chemicals can do. Then they all go home, watch TV (Western, violent war film) and go to bed. Pushwagner makes his point and the drawings are well-done but I prefer a novel with lots of words so don’t look for many more graphic novels on this site.