Today sees the release of a major new Danish graphic novel — Rikke Bakman’s autobiographical Glimt (“Shimmer” or ‘”Flashes”), an account of a childhood summer at the Danish west coast. Both funny, touching and slightly disturbing, it evokes childhood experience better than just about anything I’ve read in recent memory, and it’s beautifully rendered in coloured pencil. I urge anyone who reads Danish or Swedish to check it out, and any international publisher interested in great, reality-based comics to consider publishing it.
Glimt is published in Denmark by Aben maler and in Sweden by Optimal Press. There’s a reception for the book today between 57 pm, at Beaver Projects Gallery in Copenhagen (Strandlodsvej 15), where an exhibition of Bakman’s pages for the book will be shown until 29 January. Also, check out this clip of Rikke reading from the book at Berlingske Tidende.
Here’s a preview of the comic: