A dangerous, post-apocalyptic world, contrasted with the fragile protagonists trying to reach their goal
Wojtek Wawszczyk and Tomasz Leśniak’s comic Fungae is part of the currently extremely popular wave of post-apocalyptic stories. It is the story of the unending journey of the three protagonists, through a dangerous jungle full of mutated creatures and plants. That, though, is only the backdrop to the comic’s story.
The three wanderers are a son, mother and father heading through a gloomy, visually-repulsive landscape. They have one aim – somewhere there is said to be a better world, which they are arduously and determinedly searching for. And although the road gets harder and harder, they cannot stop. As they repeat relentlessly: “We must keep going on, keep living.”
The claustrophobic space of the post-apocalyptic jungle literally flows out of the pages and at the reader. This is the result of the painstaking work of Tomasz Leśniak, who fully devoted three years to the creation of Fungae’s panels. The two creators are very well-known in the world of comics. Tomasz Leśniak, thanks to the comedy George the Hedgehog, while Wojtek Wawszczyk can boast of his Mr Lightbulb being published by the cult American publisher Fantagraphics – he is the first Polish comic artist to have earned that honour. Their teamwork on the comic has achieved incredible results, both in terms of the images and the text.
Fungae is a simple story which to a great extent we watch rather than read, so stripped back is it in words. Questions about what happened, why and when, quickly become meaningless in the face of the gruelling journey. For an apocalypse may strike us here and now, in many moments of our life’s path. That is the simplest way of reading this story, which above all presents us in metaphorical form with the responsibilities, difficulties and (more seldom) joys of a shared family life.
Tomasz Miecznikowski, translated by David French
