Kalina Muhova - Upside Down Diana

Kalina Muhova has created a comic book about a mischievous city girl who goes to visit her grandparents. There, in the Bulgarian Rose Valley, she learns from her grandmother what ingredients are used to make pancakes, and from her grandfather – what the secret of the “fragrant boulder” is. Things grow complicated when a fall off a cliff takes her to an underground kingdom of miniature rose people. There, Diana meets the Queen of Roses and is taken captive, just like a children’s Gulliver (to which there are references in this story, but they are filtered). She learns that the giants (the humans, that is) have littered the Land of Roses and sets out to help. After many ups and downs, Diana serves up the story’s finale: pancakes with wild strawberry jam, which has a secret ingredient. The comic book is an art that requires specific skills. Kalina Muhova possesses them. It also has its own language, which she is fluent in throughout its range. The creation of the characters and the storyboard, the choice of colour schemes, the convincing drawing of the characters, the ratio of the text and onomatopoeia, the use of metaphors, allegories, the inclusion of magical means, all according to the canons of Propp… This comic is insanely beautiful, for which we should congratulate Kalina Muhova.