Comics

A timeless parable about oppression

Pavel Čech’s latest prize-winning comic book comes as something of a surprise after his previous work. The wordless story adopts a grim Orwellian tone and warns against all forms of totalitarianism. This is embodied by the ever-present letter A, which is the only letter permitted. Although there are generally just six panels to a page, upon repeated viewing we discover a wealth of detail related to the impact of autocracy: depersonalized factory machinery, a beret with a number on it, food rationing, dull school lessons and mass demonstrations in favour of the hysterically revered letter… One day, the inquisitive main character with the numbered beret spots a paper airplane with the letter B on it, for which an old man from the neighbourhood has been punished. Thanks to his desire to fly, he manages to reach a land full of colour and letters on a converted bicycle and decides to symbolically describe his experiences to others by going all the way from A to Z.