Ghost Story | 2021, graphic novel, digital illustration
Ghost Story is a short comic about a struggling artist haunted by their own thoughts and actual spectres.
It's not the scary kind of ghost story, but nevertheless a story about ghosts.
I've been curious about things like nostalgia and visual repetition. After reading essays by cultural theorist Mark Fisher on these topics, I decided to explore it further.
Fisher brings up the term hauntology (coined by philosopher Jaques Derrida) – an obscure notion that no one seems willing to explain in a concrete manner, but which formulates a sense of our present time where an infinite access to historical artefacts and idéas puts us in a state of being haunted. By ghosts of the past as well as lost visions of futures that never came to be. Derrida's post-structuralist concept is often used in order to criticise social structures, e.g. through Fisher's writings, and films by journalist Adam Curtis, which also has influenced the project.
I wanted to make a comic which operated on a somewhat theoretical and (at least for me) ambiguous level. The intention not being to argue for an opinion – but rather encourage reflection and causing recognition. At the same time I wanted to have a casual approach, leaving space for the illustrations – and the mystery.