This handful of titles published in recent years hardly allows us to speak of a trend for ‘émigré comics’, nor do they warrant any generalisation on the attitudes and motivations shown in the books. But we should give the creators their due for daring to tackle vital, relevant topics. Apart from the above titles, the emigration theme is also to be found in comics by Daniel Chmielewski, Wanda Hagendorn, and Denis Wojda.
In Zapętlenie (Looping) by Chmielewski, the experience of going to work in Spain was an event that made him decide to become a full-time artist.
For Wojda, emigration was a force that shaped the fates of his family for generations, as they travelled between Sweden and Poland and were forced to make tough choices concerning their identity. His book 566 Kadrów (566 Frames) is an ideal story of his daily search for himself at the intersection of two worlds. As in Chyżewska’s reminiscences, the principal theme of Wojda’s stories is family ties, for they define who we are, how we react, and what evokes the strongest nostalgia in us. Wherever those ties are forged – be it in Sweden or Poland – is of secondary importance.
The oppressive vision of Poland in You’ll Come Back resurfaces in Wanda Hagendorn and Jacek Frąś’s autobiographical comic Totally Not Nostalgia. Both books portray communist-era Poland as a patriarchal hell for women, with no room for independently minded girls – one of the major reasons why the previous generation of Polish women emigrated.