The Collector, a modern adult fairy tale, talks about the alienation of children from one parent after a divorce. The protagonist, Dionysis, waits every morning to take his daughter to school, according to the court’s decision. The mother, however, chooses to put her in a cub. Dionysis begins to record the cubs’ numbers and thus turns into an unusual “collector” of cubs’ numbers.

Soloup’s new graphic novel consists of 6 chapters. Each chapter illuminates the story from a different point of view: a neighbor, a canary, a grandmother and a grandfather, Little red riding hood, and Dionysis. The fifth (colored) chapter is a re-telling of the well-known fairy tale as recorded by the brothers Grimm in their second version. Its allegorical narrative mirrors the book’s reflection on parental alienation, a difficult and challenging social problem. In addition, Soloup’s new graphic novel opens a fruitful dialogue with significant oeuvres of Western culture, such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice in the Wonderland (John Tenniel’s sketches), Kafka’s Trial and the famous myth of Plato’s cave, in order to look at the way people perceive and interpret reality, while they try to find truth or happiness.

Ikaros, 2018, 270 p. / B/w and one chapter (48 pages) color