It's 1928 and Germany is still recovering from its defeat in the Great War. Unemployment and poverty is sky-high and on the streets of Berlin, violent clashes between communists and national-socialists are a frequent occurrence. The days of the Weimar Republic are counted and the city, not to mention the rest of the nation, is about to change forever.
The two central characters of Berlin are Kurt Severing, a journalist with leftist leanings (though his political involvement is limited to writing articles) and Marthe Müller, a country-girl who has come to Berlin to study at the art-school. The majority of the action in the two volumes are seen through the eyes of these two, who meet when the story begins and will soon form a relationship. Lutes surrounds Kurt and Marthe with a huge cast of characters, including art-students, communists, entertainers and others and its a testament to Lutes' strength as a writer that each character in the comic comes across as a believable and recognizable human being.
On the art-side of things, Berlin is very good as well. Lutes does an excellent job at making the time-period comes to life and portrays both squalid poverty as well as the excesses of the nightclubs, with aplomb. He's also very good at facial expressions, to prove my point I present a scene from the second volume, in which a visiting African-American jazz band happens upon a poster meant to portray them. The look on their faces says more than a thousand words:
I strongly recommend Berlin to anyone who has either an interest in the time-period or just want to enjoy a truly great work of sequential art. My only real complaint (if it even counts as one) is that now I will have to wait for a long time until the final volume comes out. Still, as the saying goes; He who waits for something good can never wait too long.
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