Italian Holocaust graphic novel trilogy debuts final installment
Casa Prima del Buio's emphasis on characters and their experience in the world literally and figuratively binds history, character and art together within the pages of the graphic novel.
By AARON REICHA page is seen from Casa Prima del Buio.(photo credit: Courtesy)
The third and final installment in the Casa Prima del Buio series, an Italian graphic novel series detailing the fictional story of a German conductor and his Jewish pupil during the Holocaust, has already hit shelves, and will be available in full December 23.Known in English as At Home Before Dark, the series, which began in 2017, follows the story of German conductor Kristof Von Hofmann during Nazi Germany. The third installment will see Von Hofmann's conduct called into question during a trial, and his alleged ties to the Nazis will see him suffer from ostracism in the post-war period.Despite this, he also hid his Jewish pupil in his home after her family was deported by the Nazis.While Von Hofmann is entirely fictional, his world is painstakingly crafted, presented as a false documentary of sorts by building off the in-story discoveries of Von Hofmann's personal diaries and documents, with artist Emiliano Albano's inking illustrating the characters and their world in carefully drawn artistic realism.A page is seen from Casa Prima del Buio. (Photo credit: Courtesy)A page is seen from Casa Prima del Buio. (Photo credit: Courtesy)The world building is also bolstered by other notes gathered and edited by author Franesco Moriconi, which present accurate and authentic information to the reader. This unique style of blending the comic strips themselves with the text-based information, similar to what was employed by Allan Moore's Watchmen series, ensures that the comics themselves are inseparable from the texts.Graphic novels have touched on the Holocaust using different approaches. One of the most famous examples, Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, used the medium of comics and cartoons to tell the story of his parents' experiences in the Holocaust in a more cartoonish style, using animals as characters.A more recent example that took a different approach was The Butcher of Paris, telling the true story of the eponymous serial killer who targeted Jews in Paris during the Nazi occupation.
