One character can sustain an entire album. The only condition is that he be a special character, with a great power of attraction, convincing, capable of capturing the reader from his first appearance and not letting go until the end of the story. Jordi Lafebre has managed to create one of those characters in his latest work, I am his silence, a comic published in Spanish and Catalan by Norma Editorial. The character in question is a young woman named Eva Rojas. She is smart, foul-mouthed, bipolar. She specializes in getting into trouble. Lovely. In short: a true discovery as the engine of history.
Eva Rojas is a psychiatrist undergoing therapy. She is being evaluated in the office of a colleague of hers, Dr. Llull, because lately she has had somewhat “eccentric” behavior and her license has been revoked. Eva must explain to Dr. Llull what her last week has been like. And as she explains it, it becomes evident that she is neither a conventional person nor have her last days been peaceful.
At the request of one of her patients, Eva visited the stately home of the Monturós family, a rich Catalan lineage that produces the cava of the same name. On that estate the will that would settle her family inheritance forever had to be read. But there was a setback: the murder of one of its beneficiaries. Events accelerate, her situation becomes increasingly bizarre. In the midst of the chaos, Eva feels like a fish in water and puts all her efforts into solving the case, even though she herself is one of the suspects. “Frankly, I'm pretty good at solving crimes,” she says immodestly.
I am his silence, is a good example of a thriller novel, although in this case, the strength of the characters is even more attractive than the resolution of the mystery itself. Lafebre knows how to move the narrative forward with agility thanks to some very lively dialogues and thanks above all to that unforgettable protagonist who is both confident and fickle, strong and fragile. An intelligent and fluent girl, capable of giving cutting responses to both the psychiatrist who psychoanalyzes her (the tug-of-war between the two is wonderful) and the alpha male who tries – unsuccessfully – to make fun of her and comes out shorn.
Psychiatry, police enigma and a lot of humor. A work that Jordi Lafebre signs with his usual talent as a cartoonist, which for years has already made him indisputably one of the most personal and talented artists in European comics, with a long career behind him. Lafebre has a drawing style that moves between realism and caricature. A tremendously dynamic drawing, with a composition of vignettes and frames that give its pages a unique personality. Just like his characters, endowed with great vividness and expressiveness. I am the silence of him joins from now on the list of great works by Jordi Lafebre.
For those who want to go a little further in the work of Jordi Lafebre, we propose here an essential guide with his essential work.
