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A Japanese salaryman decides to ditch everything and go to a remote island to produce salt. A rocker plays with local clubs at night while working as a garbage man by day. An award-winning manga author earns extra income by working at a retirement home to maintain his authorial integrity. On the weekend, a father goes to the nearby swimming pool with his disabled son... Eleven poetic views of ordinary, everyday life in contemporary Japan, far from geishas, robots, otaku, panty vending machines and other preconceived visions of the land of the rising sun. Eleven stories set mostly in the typical residential district of Suginami ward, west of Tokyo, around the Iogi train station, edited by acclaimed Czech comics author Vaclav Slajch and written by Czech-French poet Jean-Gaspard Palenicek. Eleven artistic styles by artists from Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine and Russia.

The whole universe worships the Little Prince, but no one pays any attention to his cousin, Fat Princess Petronia. In contrast she''s sullen and completely unsentimental. She just doesn''t fit the princess cliche at all: She hates pink frills and loves maths. Naturally, the Little Prince has a huge planet while Petronia is stuck on probably the tiniest and most boring planet in the whole wide universe. With the help of multi-purpose worm Mirco, she tries to pep up her dismal life by travelling the cosmos by wormhole or by attempting to meet David Bowie - usually without success.

In this spell-binding coming-of-age story, a young girl struggles to fit in, subconsciously mimicking her mother''s lonely existence. Her interest in the computer game, Lonely Journey, becomes an obsession, but it also becomes a means to reinvent herself. In the virtual reality, she can escape and live out her dreams. Slowly reality and virtuality start to merge.

An important role was played in the armed struggle against the Russian authorities by women who were active within the Polish Socialist Party's paramilitary units. In underground jargon they were known as Dromaderki, the feminine form of the Polish word for dromedaries-the one-humped Arabian camels used to transport people and goods-because they carried weapons, ammunition and explosive materials.In the Czestochowa district alone there were several dozen of them. Unfortunately, most of them have remained anonymous; the names or aliases of only a few of them have survived to the present day. In 'civilian' life they were students, teachers, doctors, housewives or factory workers. Active involvement in the fight for independence meant the risk of imprisonment, lengthy sentences to hard labour, or exile to Siberia. From the afterword by Juliusz Setowski

It all began when everything was in the same place. We don ¿t know how it appeared,but we do know that the Universe started in a very small space. It seems impossible,but it's true: when it all began, all the big things were very little. IMPOSSIBLE tells us the Universe's history since the Big Bang to the birth of plants,animals and humans. Catarina Sobral's first non-fiction book is a colorful journeythrough particles, stars, dinosaurs and our genealogical tree.

Arnaldo''s life is filled with a pneumatic void. He can''t stand Fridays, can''t stand working, he can''t stand, in general, his sorry postmodern existence. Until one day something random happens. Against his will, his spirit is shaken to the core leading him into an all-consuming obsession. He goes on a compulsive hunt to find answers, and his search will lead him through Russian novels, gallons of beer and into metaphysical questions to finally realise one can escape any place on earth except one''s mind.

Under an ever-present orange sun illuminating a desert landscape, two artisans, one for glass the other for clay, meet every day for lunch and chat. Both are sleepwalkers, but experience this phenomenon in drastically different ways. The potter hates his somnambulism, considers it an uncomfortable part of his being as if he shared a body with a stranger. The glassblower, however, is not nearly as bothered by being a sleepwalker. One night, he wakes up startled. Taken over by insomnia, he goes to his workshop and there he will make a horrifying discovering that will trigger the conclusion of this story.

The story of the Mašín brothers and their band waging guerilla war against the Communist regime in the early 1950s could be the most dramatic Czech tale of the 20th century. After their activities in Czechoslovakia, these five young men headed west ¿ facing off against twenty thousand East German Volkspolizei and shooting their way to freedom. In the novel So Far, So Good, Jan Novák wrote the story like a thrilling Czech Western and won the Magnesia Litera prize for Best Book of the Year. Now he and the artist Jaromír 99 have created a dramatic and visually arresting graphic novel in Jaromír 99¿s unique and specific style of noir. After the runaway success in Czechia of their previous collaboration, Zátopek, the authors return with an even more explosive comic book.

Poetry from the comfort of your couch...Every chapter of `My Muse Lies on the Settee¿ opens with a short poem that is depicted in an accompanying illustration. This is followed by a comic strip, usually wordless, of a few pages, which builds on the same theme. Wide Vercnocke does not opt for adventurous themes, but instead explores the world of the couch potato. Although the idle protagonist wallows comfortably in the security of his lazy existence, the repeated and powerful depiction of his biceps suggests that his passivity is only a temporary phase, the silence of a resting volcano.

A horror detective story about two sisters, whose world is created from the surreal visions of Vojt¿ch Mašek, one of the most acclaimed Czech comics authors. When one of the Dietl sisters ends up in hospital after what appears to be a brutal attack, leaving her with a mutilated face and unable to move, Mašek leads the reader on a detective story exploring change of identity, doppelgängers, deformation, hallucination and altered states of mind in contrast with idyllic family life. This comics takes place in a fictional world woven from dreams, hazy and distorted memories of childhood fears, fear of the unknown and the desire for a safe hiding place. Reality constantly disrupted by doubts, changing points of view, the neurotic need to find objective truth. All this is contained in the story about the Dietl sisters ¿ many theories, many possibilities but seemingly with only one solution. Mašek employs a unique multilayered art style, combining backgrounds created from various texts, newspaper cuttings and patterns with the main plot taking place in the foreground. The connections and juxtapositions between these two levels brilliantly evoking the main themes of the book.

The existential graphic novel about Prague's thirty-something who's just been dumped by his longtime girlfriend. Is it a blessing or a curse? Drawn in a highly expressive but highly detailed style that fits the closed protagonist, for whom beer and soccer are essential life anchors. The story about loneliness disguised under a tough macho shell.

Antologia "Krew" obrazuje wielosc znaczen krwi, poczynajac od jej wymiaru mitycznego (magiczna moc przypisywana krwi menstruacyjnej), poprzez symbolike dziedziczenia, nieuchronnosci kontynuacji genealogicznej, ale i zemsty, przemocy, az po bardzo konkretna konotacje z cielesnym cierpieniem. Takze estetycznie "Krew" dotyka wielu warstw sztuki, nie tylko komiksowej - znajdujemy tu nawiazania do drzeworytowych pre-komiksow Fransa Maseerela czy Lynda Warda, subtelnosc graficznego portretu, cartoonowa oszczednosc kreski, fotomontaz i psychodeliczne nawiazania do science fiction. Wyjatkowosc i aktualnosc antologii lezy juz w samym umieszczeniu krwi w tytule, a wiec i programie, realizowanym wylacznie z udzialem artystek komiksowych: Beaty Sosnowskiej, Natalii Kulki, Marii Kadyszewskiej, Anny Krzton, Olgi Wrobel, Agi Gojskiej, Zavki, Marty Zablockiej, Katarzyny Kowalczyk. Zasygnalizowany tu dyskurs gender pozostawia za soba czarno-biale przypisania patriarchalno-martyrologiczno-ojczyzniane i ujawnia, po mistrzowsku unikajac doslownosci, kulturowe uwarunkowania takich kategorii, jak plec, klasa, gatunek. "Krew" przez swoja kontrowersyjna koncepcje, a przy tym wielorakosc semantyczna, oferuje niejako polska odpowiedz na niedawno powstale feministyczne i genderowe komiksy Liv Strömquist i tak jak one i tak jak one ma szanse stac sie wydarzeniem na rynku komiksowym.Kalina Kupczynska

A funny adventure in counting - with a twist!

Daria has neither hope nor prospects for a great career. She does not have the time nor energy to draw, let alone sleep. What idiot said that with just a little bit of work everyone can succeed?An inspiring tale of working hard to acheive your goals.

Elephant on the Moon is a richly illustrated tale of courage, passion and determination. Although it is directed mainly at younger readers, it refers to serious events.