On May 28, 1828, began the official life of Kaspar Hauser, a
young man who appeared mysteriously in the streets of Nuremberg
and died of knife wounds five years later under equally
mysterious circumstances. "Europe's child," as pamphleteers
referred to him, captured the imagination of salon society.
Allegedly raised in a dark cellar and deprived of human contact
until the age of sixteen, he became proof of concept for
theories about natural man, original sin, and the civilizing
mission of culture. Rightful heir to the throne of Baden or a
fraud? Redeemer of man's sins or "ambulatory automatist"? The
curious circumstances and significance of his life have been
disputed ever since. In Kaspar, Quebec cartoonist Obom draws on
Hauser's own writings, and contemporary accounts, to tell the
foundling's strange story. Minimalist grayscale panels and the
simplest of line work register the wonder and bewilderment of a
trusting and sensitive soul emerging into a fickle society.
Gentle and poetic, naive and profound, Obom