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21: The Battle of the Square is Soloup’s new huge graphic novel. It’s a 752 pages long comic about the Greek War of Independence. It follows a woman who is in her early to mid 30s and listens to the story of the war of independence from a homeless, old man. They meet for the first time after some racists harass him and after that they meet again in the same place multiple times, so that he can talk to her about the war of independence. The graphic novel is separated in 21 chapters and in each chapter there’s a part of the main story with the woman and the old man, but there’s also one (some times more) story (or stories) that are adaptations of actual writings of the time.
This is a very interesting graphic novel. Personally I have a very good knowledge of Greek history and especially of that time, so I really liked how historically accurate it was and I also enjoyed learning many more things about that time that I didn’t know. Something else I liked is the way the graphic novel is structured. Because it’s so big, it could very easily become boring, but thanks to its very interesting structure it stays captivating until the end. Another thing that I liked in this graphic novel is the fact that it tells the story as it happened and unlike most other comics, books and movies about that time, it doesn’t try to make the Greeks seems like the heroes and everyone else like the vilains. Of course the Greeks were the “good” ones (if we can characterize something or someone as good or bad in real life), but they also did many horrible things and there were multiple instances when they massacred and raped Ottoman women and kids. Also, while they were fighting for their freedom, they started another war, a civil war which almost destroyed them and I’m glad that Soloup dedicated a lot of pages to talk about that stuff. Furthermore, one of the graphic novel’s most interesting aspects is the fact that it shows the story from multiple different perspectives. In the parts that are adaptations of actual writings of the time, said writings aren’t only by Greeks, but they are also by Ottomans and others. This is especially interesting because it allows the reader to see the multiple different perspectives, different people had about certain matters. Also, in some occasions, the different writings were contradicting each other, which is something very interesting. Finally, something else that I liked is that while this is a graphic novel about 1821-1830, it doesn’t fail to criticize the current situation of Greece.
While this is certainly a very good and important graphic novel, I do have two problems with it. The first one is that up to some point it feels like the characters of the woman and the old man are used only as storytelling devices and that they don’t have personalities of their own. Fortunately, after a while, we get to see some glimpses of their personalities, but still, we don’t get to know them as well as I think that we should. I get that this is a graphic novel about the Greek war of independence and not about these two, but since the writer decided to set the story in the current era and have these two in it, I think that he should’ve dedicated more time on their personalities. My second problem with this graphic novel isn’t really a problem, but it’s something that bothers me personally, in most of Soloup’s comics. While he’s really great at writing comics, I think that he’s not as good at drawing them. His main job is working as a cartoonist for the newspaper and I think that that has affected his drawing style a lot. To me his style seems very simplified and I think that especially for a story like that, a more detailed and realistic style would’ve worked much better. That being said, the artwork at the parts that are adaptations of writings of the time seems to me a bit more detailed than the artwork in the main story and I think that if the artwork was like that in the entire graphic novel, it would’ve been much better. Furthermore, while I don’t really love Soloup’s artwork, it’s clear that he has a great understanding of direction. His panels have a very cinematic “direction”, which works very well. Also, I admire his understanding of background. The surroundings are always very consistent and improve the feeling of the artwork.
Overall this is a very good graphic novel and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in Greek history or history in general. It has its problems, but it can still be read and enjoyed very easily.
9/10
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