Rutu Modan didn’t even know such a thing as comics existed when she started sketching out stories and characters during her childhood in the dry-lands of central Israel.
In this Pretty Cool People Interview, she introduces us to her first full-length graphic novel, Exit Wounds, which follows the consequences of a fateful meeting between Koby Franco, a twenty-something cab driver and a young female soldier called Numi, who approaches him with some disturbing news.
Defining a genre which might be described as ‘casual carnage’, Modan approaches the constant threat of mass violence suffered by many urban Israelis, with a dosage of irony which may be construed as flippant, but which poignantly illustrates how death and devastation have become just another humbrum part of daily life in this corner of the world.
Resonating the naive simplicity of Herge’s legendary oeuvre, she applies her jaded (but nonetheless charming) tone and pioneering visual framework to communicate rich, multi-layered messages which are at once grotesque, bizarre and true.
Watch Goody Two Shoes – an animated short by Rutu Modan and Batia Kolton, a SubmarineChannel exclusive.
Pretty Cool Crew: Interview: Remco Vlaanderen, Camera & Sound: Niels de Roos, Editing: Geert van de Wetering & Paul de Heer.
these blurbs explaining the artist often extrapolate something they say into a grander, more impressive lie. she doesnt say she didnt know comics existed.