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THE REPORT FROM POLAND FAILED TO ARRIVE... ... but fortunately Lukasz Zandecki sent us enough material evidence to enable us to write a few lines... And if these lines will leave you unsatisfied, please write to Lukasz Zandecki, the co-editor of the beautifully produced AQQ magazine. He knows more than we do. The most famous Polish comics artist today is without doubt Grzegorz Rosinski, who started working for Western publishers in 1976 and emigrated in 1982 to become one of the biggest stars of classical European fantasy and SF with the comic series Thorgal and Hans, both of which were originally published by the Belgian publisher Le Lombard. The stories are written by J. van Hamme and A. P. Duchateau, respectively. Thorgal started as a Viking adventure with more and more fantasy elements thrown in as it developed, and Hans is a sophisticated SF series. Graphically, Rosinski follows the well-trodden path of Belgian realist comic artists like Hermann or Franz with his delicate shading and precisely rendered textures, employing rich hatching and cross-hatching with his penwork. Judging from the AQQ issues Lukasz sent us, the Grand-master's shadow seems to hang heavily over his native country, and quite a number of other artists try to emulate his approach. The other important source of inspiration are Polish editions of American mainstream material like X-men, Star Wars or Batman. Examples of the latter way of approach can be seen in the Cracovian KKK [Krakowski Klub Komiksow] fanzine. But there are some cartoonists who work in a more personal way, which qualified them to be included in this anthology. Slawomir Jezierski's work is marked by subtle sense of humor and blemish-free craftsmanship. Alexandra Czubek likes to experiment with page layouts and, in our opinion, her work owes much to poster design, which is a field of graphic art for which Poland is famous. Tomasz Tomaszewski is drawing newspaper strips about a young boy commenting (apparently innocently) on the world around him. The artwork is, again, immaculate. And the Poles won't stop here. Fanzines are being published (with subject matter ranging from straightforward fan stuff to angry comments in the publications by Tomek Zdunek to surrealist graphic art by Piotr Storoniak), there are exhibitions and even comic conventions (with Lodz being apparently the capital of Polish comicsland) . . . The soil is fertile. . . J.K.
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