Review: (In a Sense) Lost and Found by Roman Muradov
Summary
What if you woke up and your innocence had gone missing? That’s just what happened to one young woman.
The first graphic novel by rising star Roman Muradov explores the theme of innocence by treating it as a tangible object-something that can be used, lost, mistreated. Roman Muradov’s crisp delicate style conjures a world of strange bookstores and absurd conspiracies.
My thoughts
I’m a bit hestitant when it comes to rating the graphic novel (In a sense) Lost and Found. I know that it wasn’t for me but that it’s still a really good graphic novel. My problem with it is that I had kind of a hard time understanding what it wanted to tell. I think there are people out there who read these kind of stories all the time and maybe won’t have that problem. So do I give it a higher rating because I know it was at least in part because of me that I didn’t enjoy it as much, or a lower rating because the novel wasn’t able to convey it’s message properly?
The artwork
This is what drew me in in the first place. I love Roman Muradov’s style! I saw a preview of this novel and wanted to have it without knowing what it is about.
His art is amazing. He only plays with a few different shades of one color which varies throughout the book. He also keeps it all rather simple and doesn’t add many details so that the panels don’t seem crowded. He plays more with coloring areas rather than drawing lines. His panels are truely stunning. Some look like a piece of abstract art.
What I also liked is that this story relies more on the pictures than text. Most panels don’t even have any text in them.
The story
A story that mostly works with pictures and also includes some kind of philosophical message is kind of hard to get. It’s not that I didn’t understand what he wanted to express, it’s more that I was constantly wondering if I’m right. I had to read until the last panel to know for sure.
The lack of text might be great in same cases, but in this one it led to me often staring at a panel, asking myself what it wants to tell me and if I’m missing something important for the story.
My confusions might actually support this message that a thing doesn’t make any sense until you put a label on it, but it wasn’t much fun to read. It also depicts a great message, something like „do what you want, no matter what society thinks“ which made me like the idea of his story but not the execution.
Overall
If you like more surreal, philosophical stories you should definiely check this out because the artwork is stunning. Even though it didn’t work for me overall, I’m still going to look out for more grapic novels by Roman Muradov.
