German / Austria
Blad
(Chubby)
Hofer, Regina
(text/illus.)
Wien: Luftschacht, 2018. – 117 p.
ISBN 978-3-903081-22-2
Eating disorder | Art studies | Graphic novel
Reading age: 16+
White Ravens issue: 2018
Regina Hofer’s autobiographical graphic novel uses unsettling pictures to describe psychic and physical torment. Born into a family that eschews love and comfort in favour of hidden and open aggressions, she flees to Vienna as a young woman to study art. But she can’t run away from her worries and fears. Since her fifteenth year of life, Regina Hofer is trapped in self-destructive processes. She stuffs herself, vomits, starves. It’s a life on the edge. The black-and-white pictures make her agonies visible: One sees bodies with enormous eyes, gaunt and bony, or a face that splitters across multiple panels. The narrative style is equally harsh – not that it exaggerates, rather the opposite: the text maintains its distance, remains sober, terse, and absolutely unsentimental. “Chubby” is a disturbing, honest book.