Review by Ian Keogh

Asaf Hanuka’s final selection of weekly pages produced for Israeli newspaper Calcalist are, as ever, an exceptionally well drawn selection veering from family life to politics, sometimes comic strips, sometimes illustrations.

As in Plug and Play, Hanuka’s presentations are always personal, introspective and contemplative, high on worries about both his own shortcomings and the shortcomings of humanity, especially politicians. At his best he offers incisive assessment of complicated situations, yet is also very funny, examples being the attitudes of Donald Trump reduced to behaviour as a house guest, a miniature Death dancing on Hanuka’s hand and his imagined superhero life.

From the beginning there’s been an attractive illustrative precision to the art. The comic strips never stray from a nine panel format, obviously able to accommodate everything Hanuka wants to say, and they’re frequently neat variations on the same scene. He’s a good caricaturist, with no mistaking his targets, although sometimes they’re nationally known in Israel, but not beyond. His illustrations are equally good, detailed, but conveying the essence of what’s being transmitted, often with considerable energy, although on occasion with personal material the meaning doesn’t transmit. The cover picture is powerful, but titled ‘My Shadow and I’. Make of it what you will. That’s an exception, though.

The family strips are consistent highlights, the love for partner and children shining through alongside the desire to be a good, protective parent, while there’s also mileage in the behaviour and comments of his children. It’s with strips such as the children smearing goo around the walls that there’s the danger of dropping into the sentimental and conventional, but Hanuka always manages to steer away into something more interesting. In this case it’s an all-consuming green goo monster.

The book ends with a ten page strip about a circus cleaner co-opted into standing in for the human cannonball. Although it’s written by Etgar Keret, Hanuka draws his own caricature for the protagonist. It’s funny, but trivial.

Last Day on Earth takes us to 2021 and ends while the covid era continues. What does Hanuka make of Israel in 2024? He certainly has no love for Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he has lying about having crushed Hamas in a strip toward the end of the run. It’s another fine collection, intelligent, funny, humane, thoughtful and thought provoking and so beautifully drawn.