New Comic "Saloon" by Mia Oberländer  Dysfunctional Family, Western Style

A family gathering without conflict is conceivable, but unrealistic. Mia Oberländer knows this all too well. Her new comic Saloon is set in the Wild West, where there is no escaping conflict and resentment in the middle of an endless desert. Can reconciliation still be possible?

Everyone knows the drill: a family gathering is coming up, you arrive with peaceful intentions, promising yourself to avoid arguments and remain conciliatory. At first, everything seems harmonious; by the first cold drink, the mood is suspiciously good. Then everyone sits down at the table, and suddenly a “dispute over a vegan salami pizza” turns into a full-blown ideological debate. Any peaceful resolutions are forgotten, replaced by misunderstandings, accusations, and disappointment.

Something very similar happened to Mia Oberländer. But instead of swallowing the experience—as one might a snide remark from an uncle about spending too many years at university—Oberländer turned it into the starting point for her new comic, Saloon, in which a matriarch invites her family to celebrate her birthday. 

Inside the Matriarch’s Saloon

Her three children, along with their partners and families, are invited. There is the taciturn daughter, whose hotel reservation has been unceremoniously cancelled by her mother, who has reassigned her to her old childhood bedroom. Then there is the son, a timid and anxious character who frequently transforms into a submissive little lapdog—a trait that reliably sends his furious wife into a rage. So much so, in fact, that Mia Oberländer has saddled her with a bright red, oversized head. The third sibling is an excitable blond man in sunglasses who constantly introduces himself as “the funny uncle.” His jokes arrive unprompted and at rapid-fire speed: “A cowboy goes to the barber… pony gone!” 

And then there is Mrs. Spar, who is not actually called Mrs. Spar at all, though nobody seems to care—not even the hostess. After all, surely she did not earn that nickname simply because she works at the local supermarket, Ultraspar.  The graphic novel takes place in the Wild West. The stern mother’s house resembles a saloon, standing alone in the desert, surrounded by sand and cacti. Only a few red balloons hint at the festive nature of the day. Along the way to the gathering—and during occasional attempts to escape it—billboards appear bearing slogans, nonsense sayings, and platitudes of the kind that seem obligatory at family celebrations: “You have to celebrate the holidays as they come.” 

Seafood in the Desert

For ten years, the mother has been serving her “famous seafood buffet.” For just as long, her son has been reminding her about his allergy. The matriarch cannot believe it: “Why are you trying to ruin my party?” As she storms off, her crestfallen son instantly turns into a lapdog, driving his red-faced wife nearly mad with frustration: “Either you stand up for yourself for once, or you’ll have to bring your own food!!!” The little lapdog flees into the vast emptiness of the desert, which becomes a refuge from the family chaos—not only for him, but for others as well. Yet no one can escape the real conflict.

It is hardly surprising that Oberländer has such a keen eye for familial and social frictions. She already demonstrated this talent in her amusing and empathetic debut comic Anna, which follows three unusually tall women from different generations while exploring questions of normality and otherness. The book immediately established Oberländer as one of the most celebrated newcomers in the German comics scene, earning her the prestigious Berthold Leibinger Comic Book Prize as well as numerous grants and residencies.

The Possibility of Reconciliation

In Saloon, Oberländer uses broad areas of color and dry pastel tones—with a particular fondness for vivid red—to show how entrenched judgments and unspoken conflicts inevitably lead to arguments and misunderstandings. Yet the Hamburg-based artist does not leave her readers entirely without hope. Ultimately, she is interested in the question of how forgiveness and reconciliation might be achieved. Like a deus ex machina, two conflict mediators suddenly appear, clad in full-body suits. The colors begin to fade; the images gradually lose their vibrancy. The problems are not erased, of course, but the emergence of a new common enemy unexpectedly unites the quarrelsome family—and unleashes a fresh wave of absurd chaos. With humor and grotesque imagery, Saloon, subtitled “This Is Family Business”, captures an experience that almost everyone can recognize: arriving at a family gathering with the best intentions and leaving feeling misunderstood and resigned. For outsiders, such moments are often nearly impossible to explain. Mia Oberländer manages to do so with remarkable insight and precision.

July 2026