“Heartless” by Nina Bunjevac

Debut collection of comics by the amazing Nina Bunjevac is due in fall 2012, with an advance preview in May 2012 at TCAF (Toronto Comic Arts Festival). In case you’re nearby, make sure you pop in to get your copy signed by the author

Nina was born in Toronto, but raised in Yugoslavia, only to be back in Canada when she was sixteen, where she graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design. As an art teacher and multiple winner of the OAC Artist in Education grant, she has taken her cartooning and zine-making projects into a number of Toronto public schools.

Powered by an expressive black&white drawing style, reminiscent of Robert Crumb and the meticulous pointillist technique of Drew Friedman, the dark undertone of Bunjevac’s humour brings into light the range of socio-political issues her comics deal with, such as gender, nationalism or urban alienation, always from an ironic feminist perspective.

Her chain-smoking, slightly alcoholic and manically depressed character Zorka may just be today’s ultimate antiheroine. A Balkan immigrant in the Brave New World, working in that same meat factory for the last twenty years, tormented by family constraints and her own secrete desires… we simply can’t get enough of her.

Heartless (Condurum Press, 2012) is a collection of Bunjevac’s comics previously published in various magazines accross America and Europe, such as Mineshaft (USA), Exile, Broken Pencil (Canada), Black, Giuda (Italy), Komikaze (Croatia) and Stripolis (Serbia).

www.ninabunjevac.com