For City Explorers Über unterwegs: Part 5 Cosmopolis (Toronto)
In "Über Unterwegs: Cosmopolis", Barbara Yelin describes how the radius of life widens. She shows downtown's skyscrapers in twelve pictures - and points out that fewer than 2,000 buildings are still particularly tall there. Yelin shows Niagara Falls - and, next to it: the bizarre casinos, wax museum and the honeymoon kitsch 500 meters into town.
She has drawn for the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Tagesspiegel, publishes books and conducts workshops all over the world. Barbara Yelin is one of the best German-language comic artists.
Toronto is situated on Lake Ontario. In several films, it is disguised, staged as New York: sedate red streetcars and buses, many Victorian houses, cold winters, home of Margaret Atwood and comic-book stars such as Jeff Lemire, Francis Manapul and Bryan Lee O'Malley ("Scott Pilgrim").
The US calls itself a ‘melting pot’ and requires you to adapt. Canada sees itself a ‘tossed salad: not a homogeneous mass but a mixture in which every newcomer can retain his or her shape and form. Since 2016, more than half of all Torontonians have belonged to visible minority groups: white people no longer amount to the absolute majority.
Stefan Mesch about "Über Unterwegs: Cosmopolis"
Yelin’s art begins with drawings, lines in pencil optics. Where other graphic novels go the extra mile and use ink to clearly and cleanly define, demarcate and perfect lines, silhouettes, a range of contrasts, Yelin’s auxiliary lines leave open swirls."
