A JEW IN COMMUNIST PRAGUE

The second volume in Giardinos poignant graphic narrative of growing up under Communist rule in postwar Prague lives up to the clean elegance of its first (rev. 5/1/97). Giardino's beautiful background art of Prague architecture contrasts with the sad tale in the foreground: a young man's tortured adolescence made worse by having his father imprisoned as an enemy of the state. The rush of events, both personal and political, flash by in near-wordless frames: Jonas, kicked out of school, gets a job in construction; Stalin dies; Jonas finds better work in a bookstore; the Czech ministry renews its campaign against counter-revolutionaries. The humanity of everyday Czechs is apparent in the sympathetic faces drawn with perfection by Giardino, from the beery plumber, Slavek, to the kindly bookstore owner, Pinkel. Jonas's self-pity reveals itself when he falls for a pretty girl, herself part of a group of young people who read forbidden books for sheer ``mental survival.'' Visually compelling and historically resonant, Giardino's full- color narrative is evolving into a masterwork of its kind.