A surrealist journey through alienation, lost dreams, and self-redemption A woman loses her sister to suicide and struggles with the overwhelming and confusing feelings that continue to plague her. A man reflects on a decade spent working in a call centre and the strange day-to-day momentum that caused him to unconsciously abandon his goals. Helem relies on a propulsive graphic narrative and evocative illustration to tell the intensely personal stories of two characters at a crossroads. The stories contained in Helem, originally published by TRIP as "Agalma" and "Sequences," delve deep into the internal lives of their characters. Helem, created while Wany was in a hallucinatory state brought on by a severe lack of sleep, also provides an intimate look into his own personal dreamscape. Reviews: "[Helem] feels like a gift for anyone who appreciates a certain type of mainstream comics art, but wishes it were allowed to flower unhampered." --The Comics Journal "This is one of those narratives that asks us to bring something of ourselves to it; as such every reader will take something different from it, reacting and interacting with its pages in distinct and individual ways." --Broken Frontier About the Author: Stanley Wany is an Afro-Canadian artist whose practice includes graphic novels, pen and ink drawings, and paintings. His works have been exhibited in Canada, the United States, FInland, France, Portugal and in Australia. His first graphic novel, Agalma, was nominated in 2016 for a Doug Wright Award at the Toronto Comics and Arts Festival. |