A picture book I drew as a young man around 2000 and self-published in a run of 4 copies a few years later. I couldn't find a publisher for this surreal, bleak tale about - I guess - the blurring of the lines between capitalism and socialism in our times. It did end up as a short story in the anthology Wat Fred niet wist (2004).
The story shares some themes with the movie Goodbye Lenin (2003), as was
pointed out by people when the story appeared in 2004. My protagonist and his mother haven't left their appartment since the Berlin wall fell and fill their days by reading old communist newspapers and him dressing up as his father. I guess the feeling of 'ostalgia' was in the air then.
I was immodestly and foolishly under the spell of people like Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Joseph Lada, Picasso and obviously Frans Masereel. I was living in Peshawar, Pakistan when I made this as my girlfriend Tessa worked with Afghan refugees there. I remember bringing the art along on a long trip we did in Pakistan and India and me drawing further panels in the night trains we took. I got the idea for the drawing above at an art show in a church in Goa that warned against the abuse of alcohol. I'd like to see that Goan picture again sometime.
