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On monochrome, wombs and Algeria


I was intending on briefly presenting the two volume comics Waratha (the Heirs) but I've changed my mind.  Instead, it is the preface that caught my attention.

Waratha was published in 2012, the year commemorating Algeria's 50 years of independence, and this subject matter is the focus of this collective album.  There are five works per volume.

Etienne Schreder prefaces that there is a majority of women cartoonists in this new group and asks: "Is it a sign of our times or a sign that women's interest lies more in stories that draw on roots and origins?  It is true to say that the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Algeria's independence woke up in them stories anchored in their family memory, or in their own experience. Men, true to themselves, trusted more in their imagination."  [my bold] According to Schreder, himself a cartoonist, women cartoonists are anchored in the womb, while men, unbridled, less womby, give fuller flow to their imagination. 

!!!?!!!

At this point, in a parallel world, my hands have gone through the preface's lines and have grabbed Schreder by the hair, note the typical female fighting-style, swear-words burst out of my cartoon speech-bubble, swear-words shaped like marshmallows that morph with speed into steel pins with ink on their ends, they splash and crack Schreder's spectacles, so many insults that can't be spoken because they would be censored, plus they could be interpreted as slightly racists, but Schreder's not sure they're racist because he can't think, he's blindened by the bright green of my Hulky skin... I release my hold and withdraw
shedding a caramel tear or two or three, away from this immensely offensive preface, written by a foreign guest, invited to comment on the effort of a so say new generation of multi-faceted beings.

But I can't go through paper, my wrath will find no expression, though one day in a non-parallel world I might just meet him and then...

Perhaps I should laugh about his summing up of wombmen relations and agree to the equation that women equal verity, and men fiction. But, I can't, it would make life and Algeria so monochrome and both aren't.


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