Frans Masereel (1889–1972)
Comic Books are one of the most underutilized forms of storytelling out there. I’ve loved them since I was a kid, and as I’ve gotten older the medium itself may be one of my favorite aspects of comics as a concept. I’m often amazed at the new ways artists and writers find to express their ideas and visually explore the pages they write them on. It’s because of this that I find the work of Feans Massreel absolutely incredible.
Massreel worked extensively in woodcuts, giving his wordless novels a distinct and bold look. They’ve got a very pointed and expressionist feel about them, with a lot of sharp angles that help the black and white illustrations really stand out against the page. These are wordless novels (so no, his works are not technically comic books, but the spirit and flow is still present), and while an initial read may be very breezy and quick, I find myself taking longer to read each story whenever I revisit it. Each read has me slightly more engrossed in the details and implications of his wordless storytelling. The themes are near universal, detailing the individual's struggles for love, fulfillment, and for progress against those whose only goal is to slow or stop progress for their own advantage and profit.
If I were to recommend a place to start, I’d recommend checking out 25 Images of a Man’s Passion, and follow it up with Passionate Journey. 25 Images acts as sort of a prototype for Journey, and reading both will make you appreciate each novel both as its own stand alone story as well as a companion to the other.
The greatest strength in the above two stories is the way in which the characters' experience becomes relatable in spite of living a different life than we do. Part of this is due to a lack of elaborate information; it’s always easiest to see ourselves in a character that we can project ourselves upon. Even if we’re not a male worker in 1920s Europe, the images in the book contain so much emotion and humanity that seeing ourselves in the protagonist becomes easy. There’s a universality to the human experience that’s easily forgotten, and whenever I read Mansreel’s work that same universality is pushed closer to the front of my mind for a while.