Ah, abstract comics and that ironic aspect where their dissociative qualities actually bring the reader closer to their subject matter. ‘Silent Observations’ by Apolonija Lučić is #128 in the kuš! comics’ mini kuš! minicomics range and uses a jarring incongruity between imagery and narration to make its thematic point. Though, as is often the case with work that sits within the borders of abstraction, what that point is may differ from reader to reader.
In ‘Silent Observations’ we are asked to look beyond the mundanity of our day to day lives, its conventions, and its strictures, and to imagine something outside. Lučić’s unseen narrator envisions a realm of the imagination; one that allows us to reconnect with a dreamlike world of nature as we explore its environs, the sound of its unreal waves, and walk its beaches collecting the treasures to be found there.
You can, of course, interpret this short in any manner of ways. An escape from the confines of the capitalistic 9 to 5 for something more pure and worthy perhaps? Or a meditative visual essay on the importance of well-being in a world designed to fracture your soul. Lučić juxtaposes instructions on escaping to this environment alongside indistinct illustrations that hint at the surroundings we are passing through without ever defining them. Which, of course, is kind of the point.
There’s something oddly tranquil about this mini kuš! offering which seems more than serendipitous at this point in 2025.
Apolonija Lučić (W/A) • kuš! comics, $7.95
Review by Andy Oliver
