Emanet Şehir

Safe City

"They entrusted us with this city. Which of us is from Ankara? None of us. If you betray the trust, they will kick you out of here. It would be better if these party activities were not done in Ankara, in other cities, and this place was never touched." The end of the forties, the beginning of the Cold War. The Democrats have already come to power or they will come to power... Ankara is uneasy, another era will begin. Winds will blow, floods will come, a different politics will collapse on the city...


Communists are wandering in the back streets, there are people with tuberculosis in hospitals, famine at sunset, poverty at sunrise... Jews are migrating to Israel.. .Civil servants who talked about poetry and novels in short evenings gathered again... Broken drinking tables, fights, squabbles and Bohemians... Wooden houses in Altındağ, concrete apartments in Yenişehir...


Sekip and Orhan are two friends. Skip, liar; Orhan, poet. Faik, the son of Haciga, Bobstil. He came from Adana to study, he knows business. Fahriye, smiling bright red, is Sekip's love. Emel is an unconventional traveler, the world is small, Sekip's roommate... Sekip writes serials: Feride Celal, Pardayans and Istanbul's Conquest. Doctor, how can I tell you, my heart is hurting, you are the cure for my problem... Glasses to hijra!


Emanet Şehir, an Ankara story, the graphic novel of a liar, a failed writer, Sekip. With Levent Cantek's scenario and Berat Pekmezci's lines... Graphic novel is a new form of expression that is not well known to us. Art Spiegelman calls graphic novels "comic books for which you need bookmarks." They could also be called comic books that tell serious stories for adults and deal with a human situation. Emanet Şehir is one of the few examples of the graphic novel in Turkey.


Berat Pekmezci masterfully reflects the daily life of the forties with meticulous and documentary lines that overcome all the difficulties of the period story. Moreover, he achieves this in a knowing and comfortable style, as if depicting today. It shows that he has a good command of the graphic novel language, sequence, and continuities that strengthen the story. Levent Cantek continues his "Ankara Trilogy", which he started with the album Dumankara, Hayat Bir Yangindi, with Emanet Şehir. He walks his incompetent and lying hero around like a flaneur in 1950, while Ankara is returning the capital to Istanbul.
(From the Promotional Bulletin)



Number of Pages: 134

Year of Printing: 2014


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Contact Publishing

Drawings : Berat Pekmezci

Number of Pages: 134

First Printing Year: 2014

Language: Turkish