A unique view of contemporary provincial life that entirely dispenses with words.

Comics

Beer, pizza and selfies are not enough to liven up the north-Bohemian town in Marek Rubec’s small-scale, non-textual but by no means silent comic-book Jarmil. The place remains stagnant in a paradoxical way: everything here is either in a constant headlong rush or locked into a continual wait for any kind of change. Jarmil the monkey surveys all of this without words. This cartoon analysis of consumerism and the endless cycle of the everyday in a small Czech town – where life revolves around new goods in the supermarket and the desire for a new tattoo, and all energies are concentrated into the anticipation of something different – is a unique probe into today’s world.

Marek Rubec (1979) is a graphic artist, comic-book writer and animator. He comes from Litoměřice and studied art education and basic social science at the University of Hradec Králové and animation at Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín. The main focus of his work is comics and illustrations as well as animated films. Together with Pavel Kosatík he created the graphic novel 1942, Jak v Londýně vymysleli atentát na Heydricha (1942: How the assassination of Heydrich was devised in London) from the cycle Češi (Czechs, 2014). The comic book Jarmil was brought out by the Polish publishing house Centrala, which operates in the UK and the Czech Republic. Rubec also created a Google Doodle to mark the 80th anniversary of the legendary Czech comics Rychlé šípy (Rapid Arrows), won the competition at the 2017 Frame Prague Comics Art Festival and was also behind the visuals for the festival. His work is characterized by the exceptional variability of his artistic style, which makes it impossible to identify superficial unifying traits. In terms of content, he gravitates towards dark comedy and absurd humour.