13.1.20

DANS LE MEME BATEAU: my favorite comic strip of 2019.




German rowing champion in 1992, ZElba, 
now a graphic designer based in France, 
depicts the meeting with those who, 
more than an iron curtain, 
a whole world separates her from.


When the Berlin Wall fell on NOVEMBER 9, 1989, 
 you were either not born, 
or you remember exactly where you were.

Wiebke Petersen, 16, was living in Essen, West Germany, 
and she was rowing with her older sister, Britta.


The two rowing champions were then more concerned about their sports results and about their first love thrills. 
And yet, reunification would change everything for them.


With chiseled lines, 
rewarding us with a few pedagogical pages on the technicality of rowing, 
Wiebke, under the pseudonym of ZELBA, 
tells with a lot of humour about the OSSIS, 
these East German sportspeople 
with whom she had to compete in the 1992 Olympics, 
about the organized doping in the GDR 
or about the international political meetings 
which marked her adolescence.



This is not a comic strip like others.

"Dans le meme bateau” (In the same boat) 
plunges us into a pivotal period for her author and her country.

Another way to read history, without ever losing ground.



By Giulia Dobre



DANS LE MEME BATEAU by ZELBA, 
BD, Futuropolis 2019, 160 pages.

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