building
cartoonist: Andrei Klimovsky
Publisher: self-made hero
Publication date: December 17, 2024
“I am constantly trying to convey something that is incommunicable, to explain something that is inexplicable, to tell something that I only feel in my bones and that can only be experienced in my bones.” –Franz Kafka
Understanding is not always a two-way street. Sometimes the only thing we can do to understand is to slowly accept the things we don’t understand, rather than assuming an answer to every question. But the journey from experiencing the unknown to accepting it can itself be arduous because it requires one to surrender. Giving up their roots, their sanity, their ego.
polish cartoonist Andrei Klimovsky Back with a new graphic novel set in Engelstadt during the holidays. As is characteristic of his wider work, Klimovsky does not build this around a simple narrative, but instead delves into a series of Kafkaesque nightmares that compound and propose More questions than answers.
From his history of making movie posters to his comic work, Klimovsky has a knack for creating unease in his audience. Often this is achieved by juxtaposing two contradictory images. The essence of his style has always boiled down to the visual representation of taboos. Whether horror or pornography, his art always confronts what we feel in our bones, leaving us unsettled but unable to look away. Or even we have become numb to the shock, allowing ourselves to succumb to the fear we lack to face.
building It opens simply, with a tenant entering his apartment building. But from here, we see a cloak slowly transform into the shape of a woman. The shift toward female form begins slowly, but is characterized by exaggerated panel after exaggerated panel, creating a series of pages that are both seductive and uncomfortable.
Klimovsky also changes the perspective here, from the tenant’s gaze to that of the mysterious woman. Our own positions of shock, excitement, and fear succumb to the perspective of something we don’t understand, which both attracts and repels us. The movement eventually became building‘s mission statement: We should abandon our roots, release what little control we seem to have over the world, and let the nightmares, the uncontrollable, and the weird happen.
Klimovsky plays the rest of the horrific scene at the heart of the story without any judgment. The book is laid out primarily as a series of rectangular panels, 2 per page, and then the occasional full page or 2 page spread. The result is that the entire experience feels like browsing a photo album, a series of images captured from the outside in.
From here, we meet a series of characters who inhabit the building, preparing for some kind of holiday tradition. Klimovsky carefully integrates the story and the introduction of these characters into the architecture of the building, moving a series of pages through different floors and apartments, allowing us to gain a sense of geography while getting used to all these names and faces. but like The Shining Or any haunted hotel style story, the important thing is not to understand the building itself, but how the space you inhabit is destroyed, how it subverts your expectations.
Klimovsky’s pages are not meant to be understood in a strict, literal way, but rather as mood pieces that move us from one feeling to another. We move from exhaustion, to desire, to fear, or from love to resentment, as he carefully creates the residents of this apartment building, whose faces are rich, expressive, and often jaded.
building As the title suggests, at its core it is about the dreary interiors of this sanctuary-like building and the practices and rituals of those inside. The more we see each character living their lives within these walls, the more we are reminded of the unity and prison-like structure of the buildings themselves and even the town. The distractions of the holidays are juxtaposed with the maze-like streets of Engelstadt in which everyone is essentially trapped. While some people have an obvious desire for the outside world, or a need to spruce up what’s inside their cell, Klimovsky doesn’t give anyone a chance. All these lives, with different ways of life at first, ultimately boil down to the same aspirations, to the same scope of this unwavering building that shows no signs of change.
Thus, horror, creeping forces and the unexplainable are introduced not in a confrontational manner but as a way of revealing the spiritual and inner life within. While Klimovsky always uses contrasting images and scenes to create unsettling atmospheres, he never forces the images into opposing positions. Weirdness and the unknown are as normal as anything else, and the presence of the unknown is often our only way out of the confines of routine and structure.
building is a striking comic with a style and imagery that will stick with you long after you’ve finished reading it. If you’re familiar with Klimovsky’s work, you’ll enjoy this continued encounter with him, but this is also a great introduction to him and his wider oeuvre.
The building is now available.
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