Filling in the Gaps with Images
- By Aleksandar Brezar, Enis Čišić, with Edin Salčinović
Editor's note: The interview that follows was first published on September 25, 2014 in Oslobođenje, the leading daily in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina's capital city. The translation is by Una Tanović.
A. Brezar E. Čišić
After the comic “The Secret of Nikola Tesla,” based on a short story by Karim Zaimović, was published in the Massachusetts Review, we spoke with its author duo scriptwriter Aleksandar Brezar and artist Enis Čišić.
The media has reported that the comic was created at the suggestion of Jim Hicks, the editor of the Massachusetts Review. But how did the editor of the Massachusetts Review hear about Karim Zaimović’s stories?
Aleksandar Brezar: Jim Hicks was a visiting Fulbright professor at the English department at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, but his relationship with our city goes beyond academia. Jim is practically a Bosnian, a Sarajevan. He is an expert on our history and culture, and as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts, he often teaches works by writers from this part of the world. His book, published last year, is entitled Lessons from Sarajevo: it is about war and the victim-aggressor-observer relationship and an important section deals with the artistic and cultural resistance to the aggression on our country. He has already published translations of works by Bosnian authors in the Massachusetts Review: a few years ago, for example, he published my translation of Dario Džamonja’s short story “The Bridge Named Desire.” He claims that he is trying to repay just a fraction of what he owes our city, but I would rather say that it is we who are indebted to him.
Aleksandar, you mentioned on your blog that you kept putting off working on the comic for an entire year because the mere thought of the enterprise filled you with fear. What does adapting a short story into a comic actually entail? How difficult is it to exchange one genre for another? What is lost and what is gained when the genre changes?
Aleksandar Brezar: I was afraid because this is Karim's work, his creation, and Karim was, in the words of Ivan Lovrenović, the best that Sarajevo ever had. Given the context, any doubt in your own abilities can bring the whole thing crashing down because the quality you need to see it all through really weighs on you. You keep asking yourself, “Would Karim approve? What would he think of this scene, this dialogue, this character?” It’s not false modesty on our part to say that in comparison with Karim’s talent, we really are in his shadow and especially in the shadow of what he could and should have been.
Comics are specific in that they are simultaneously a visual and a textual medium. There are rules specific to the genre that you need to learn. That was the first step. I was fortunate to have access to a great library and that was my starting point. For a comic of this sort, in addition to knowing the rules of the genre and how to write a script, you also have to be familiar with literature, film, photography, history, architecture. Enis played a key role in this sense because he has a fantastic eye for a shot and a sense of aesthetics. My favorite panels in the comic—apart from the scenes featuring Tesla, another genius from our parts of the world that we have unfortunately abandoned to the mercy (or lack thereof) of a nationalist custody battle—represent Sarajevo not as some backwater but as a truly European city facing the worst evil since the Second World War.
Also, it was particularly important for us to convey what is written between the lines in Karim’s stories. For example, in “Tesla,” the main character, a kind of stand-in for the author, might come off as a coward in some situations, but Karim, on the contrary, was very brave in the act of writing his stories: he mounted a resistance to the armed barbarians on the surrounding hills.
Enis Čišić: From the very beginning, I understood the importance of this project, both because of Karim and his stories and because of my own experiences from the time when these stories were written. I took on the responsibility of creating a portrait of the city under siege as I remember it; I wanted to create a melancholy atmosphere in which the characters could live, work and act. In the process, some of my own nostalgic memories of that time surfaced and that helped me to better visualize the city panorama. After that, I felt that the entire city came to life and became one of the characters in the story, with wrinkles on its façades, its own shadows and shades.
At the same time, as an artist, I wanted to fill the gaps in the story with images and to figure out where that needed to be done so that the story would gain in depth.
One of the most obvious differences between the short story and the comic is that the comic has two authors: a scriptwriter and an artist. In that sense, how did you cooperate and how did you find “artistic unity”?
Enis Čišić: We speak the same visual language, admire the same films and comics, so it was easy to communicate. Aleksandar had complete confidence in me and I accepted all the suggestions coming from him. His suggestions enriched my visual expression.
Aleksandar gathered a lot of information from people who knew Karim, while I focused on visual references. I think that the “border” between the two of us as authors began to dissolve very quickly because we were working as one. Sometimes these things take a wrong turn, with the artist becoming just an extension of the scriptwriter, but in this case that didn’t happen and that’s why the comic, as the result of our cooperation, has multiple layers and experiences. Each of these layers is a part of us and at the same time they build on the already existing layers created by the author of the story.
As you were working on the comic, did you try to develop a specific style?
Aleksandar Brezar: Enis had a vision of what everything was supposed to look like and I tried to help by finding inspiration. Film noir, a truly post-war genre and a critique of war and post-war society, had a big influence on what I imagined for the comic. Also, we had to find relevant examples of how characters are usually represented, for example journalists such as Karim and Micić as they search for the truth. Readers might notice that Micić bears a strong resemblance to Howard Beale, a character played by Peter Finch in Sidney Lumet’s excellent film Network. In the film, Howard has that famous line: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” That’s an homage to Karim’s work because he must have been motivated by anger at what was going on around him.
The panels featuring Sarajevo throughout history are also important because we wanted to show the city in the best possible light, like postcards that remind us of better times. We also included a number of references to the period when the story was written. For example, Ron Haviv and one of his photographs show up in the comic, as does Adi Sarajlić, one of the hosts from Radio Zid. And we included homages to works by local artists, designers and photographers, such as Ismet Mujezinović, Milomir Kovačević, Dejan Vekić, TRIO... We hope that readers, especially readers from this part of the world, will enjoy discovering these references.
Enis Čišić: I would add that I try not to be a slave to any one style. I think that an artist should first learn his or her craft by trying out different approaches and style is something that grows out of this exploration. I followed certain storytelling rules that exist for comics but the style of the drawings evolved after many sketches and the first few panels.
Aleksandar, you mentioned that you selected your favorite story from Karim’s collection The Secret of Raspberry Jam. But would it also be fair to say that American readers will be more receptive to this story given that Nikola Tesla spent the majority of his life in the US? In other words, would it be fair to say that of all the stories in the collection, “The Secret of Nikola Tesla” is the most suited to the Massachusetts Review because of its subject matter?
Aleksandar Brezar: Nikola Tesla is definitely experiencing a real renaissance in the US right now. It's only now that the full importance of his work is being recognized in America. His tower/laboratory Wardenclyffe (that in the comic we turned into the prototype for Tesla's secret weapon) was recently purchased through a grassroots campaign so that it can be made into a museum dedicated to Tesla because there were plans to tear it down and build a shopping mall in its place. After the terrible injustice that he suffered during his lifetime, it’s good to see that many years later Tesla’s genius is being acknowledged. It is also interesting to see how the American public is moving away from Edison, a decent inventor but also a ruthless capitalist who exploited Tesla. And Tesla’s spirit lives on in the Tesla Motor company that makes electric cars: the owner Elon Musk recently announced that anyone can use their technology patents in good faith so that one day we can all enjoy electric cars.
Will the comic be published in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Aleksandar Brezar: I hope that we can publish an anthology of comics based on stories by Karim Zaimović, with other artists from BiH participating as well, but I think it is too soon to talk about this. First, we have to present our ideas to Karim's family because they hold the rights to his work. Also, our main priority is to support the Karim Zaimović Foundation which awards scholarships to Bosnian-Herzegovinian students and contributes to the education of Bosnian-Herzegovinian youth, which is of crucial importance at a time like this. I think it would be wonderful if readers, instead of thanking us, would thank Karim by contributing to the Foundation that bears his name.
Karim Zaimović was a Bosnian comic strip artist, journalist, radio host, and writer for many publications, including Lica, Mladina, Oslobođenje, The Phantom of Liberty, and BH Dani, in Sarajevo. He was killed by a shell in August of 1995, at the age of twenty-four, only months before the war's end.
Aleksandar Brezar has worked as a journalist at Radio 202 in Sarajevo and as a translator for PBS, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Al Jazeera English, and the Sarajevo Film Festival. His translations have appeared in the Massachusetts Review, the Brooklyn Rail, Protest.ba, Peščanik, and Lupiga.
Enis Čišić is an illustrator and comic book artist, and the creator of a number of music videos and album art for Bosnian musicians and bands. His artwork has been exhibited throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, and his comic books have appeared in magazines throughout the former Yugoslavia.
