Dieselbrugger Apokalypse
Emanuel Halpern, Dieselbrugger Apokalypse
Hardcover, 80 pp., offset 4/4, 220 x 297 mm
English and German
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-3-905714-89-0
Published by Nieves
$46.00 ·
When someone as peaceful as Emanuel Halpern (Zurich, 1948) draws an apocalypse, things must be pretty bad with the world. His fifty large-scale coloured pencil drawings telling the story of the destruction of Dieselbrugg confirm this prediction. This is his comic version of Dürrenmatt‘s valley of confusion. Reality, which is usually slouching towards tragedy, can be described only by comic means. Both talented storytellers subscribe to this truism. They give us solid citizens with image and text collages that are almost excessively artistic and hypertrophic. But the images underline the fact that this is the only way that we can tackle and escape from the mess.
In the Dieselbrugger Apokalypse, Halpern manages to move between pilgrimage and the misery of refugees with the sure-footedness of a somnambulist. “You can‘t really be as dozy as that” he seems to be muttering. “Come into my yurt In here you will hear peace bells ringing, you‘ll see bathing towels fluttering. This is Dieselbrugg.”
— Guido Magnaguagno