When Norbert asked me to write an introduction to his comic I was
honoured, but also a little lost. I have never attempted something like
that before and I didn't know where to start? With a wise quote?
Cultural reference? How to tie it all together? Right now I am literally
just a few minutes after visiting Casa Batlló, probably the most complex
realisation of Antonio Gaudi, the famous modernist architect and
visionary from Catalonia. I am going to tell you one thing- this comic
is like this building. Via its subtly bent doors it invites [you] into
its remarkable interior full of intricately twisted lines, how very
pedestrian in their application. Because, all appearances aside, Casa
Batlló is a regular tenement building. There is probably nothing more
prosaic then that for a building. But for its inhabitants, living in the
interiors inspired by the sea flora and fauna, must have been a real
adventure. Likewise "Staring from the Hill" simply talks about the
every-day reality of a group of friends, who above all cherish their
mutual company, music and juice. And similar to Gaudi's works all of
that is served with a handful of surrealism, love of colour, light and
form, and gigantic dose of vision. Flipping the pages is like climbing
up a twisted staircase - you never know what might lurk around the next
bend. There are only two things which are certainone, that shortly you
will reach yet another astounding floor, and the other, that at the end
of it you will be lead to the rooftop adorned with a ceramic dragon,
where you can see a really beautiful panorama of Barcelona. This comic
really is like Gaudi's architecture. You will find out yourselves. Just
let the rhythm of the staircase carry you. The only remaining thing is
to wish the author that, like the architect of La Sagrada Familia, he
may be appreciated by us - his contemporaries. And that thanks to this
he obtains the means necessary to allow us to climb the stairs of his
imagination towards the sky, which, as you will find out after reading
"Staring from the Hill", will never be the same again. Jan Sidorownin
