Ur djupen ropar jag till dig #[nn]

Benjamin Stengård's Ur djupen ropar jag till dig (Ordfront Galago, 2009) announces itself with an unsettling, almost sculptural cover portrait — a gaunt, wide-eyed figure rendered with painterly, hyper-realistic detail that feels somewhere between grotesque and deeply melancholic. The stark dark background throws every haunted feature of the subject into sharp relief, signaling the kind of unflinching, personal visual storytelling that Swedish alternative comics do so well. If you're drawn to work that sits at the raw, uncomfortable edge of the form, this one earns a place on your shelf.