Review by Win Wiacek

Born in 1972, Swedish cartoonist, artist, filmmaker and teacher Knut Larsson is blessed with a unique vision and talent to spare. Keen devotees of Euro-comics will have seen his stories in assorted anthologies, and may well have visited his international exhibitions. Typically, he is not a household name in Britain or USA.

Sadly, that means a lot of brilliant works – like this book – are also unavailable in digital formats yet.

Back in 2008 Larsson crafted Krokodilstaden: an eerie, post-apocalyptic, horror-tinged love story devoid of all dialogue or sound effects. It’s a neo-symbolist paean to the end times combining brutish, callous survivalism, ghostly mysticism, unchanging human passions, stubborn self-inflicted loneliness and the tenacious capacity of life to adapt to changing situations.

Rendered in muted greys and brown monotones, one panel per page, the tale focuses on a drowned Earth where the waters have risen, relegating humanity to the top floors of buildings whilst toothy amphibians have proliferated all around and below them. Mankind is still hanging on, turning crocodiles into the primary natural resource: affording food, clothing, tooled utensils and even objects of cultish worship. However, the saurians are everywhere and everybody and everything – humans, birds, surviving mammalian pets – are missing limbs or appendages.

In this world, one particular croc-hunter ekes out his solitary existence, trading reptiles for booze and gasoline. He’s haunted by his memories until the day he captures a strangely enticing woman in his nets. She is young, beautiful, exotic and has a vestigial reptilian tail. Avoiding the spooky, crazy crocodile cultists that also proliferate, he takes her back to his place and endeavours to dress her in the garb and form of his dead lover before she seduces him.

Sadly, that’s when his dearly departed darling returns, bristling with malice and ready for some spirited revenge!

Wry, moving, nightmarish yet ethereally lovely, City of Crocodiles is a masterpiece of visual storytelling to astound and delight all lovers of the weird and macabre. If you love to be disturbed and distressed, this is a treat you must track down.