The statistical basis is thin, it is admitted, but there seems to be a tendency: there are four years between each release in the series about the sixties heroes Krüger and Krogh. Four years is a long time. I had almost forgotten that I was looking forward to another volume in this absurdly funny and clever comic. Sparkling character as it is. SPECIAL AGENTS: Jacob Krüger (left) and Otto Krogh. Photo: Strand forlag The intermediate? Well, after “Brennpunkt Oslo” (2014) and “Spøkelsjakten” (2018), the third volume in the chronicle about AMFA’s special investigators Krüger and Krogh is now available. AFMA stands for Section for Intermediate Affairs (!). The authors describe it as follows: “The body works with cases that fall outside, or rather between, the tasks of the police monitoring center and the military E-staff. The apparently inexplicable, improbable and inexplicable is the subject of investigators.” We don’t get very much wiser from this, but that’s not the point either. An element of elegant historical nonsense is part of the very core – combined with real, pointed references to real events and moods in the series’ contemporaries. The middle of the 1960s, that is. Did I mention the comic? Nose bonanza TOP SECRET: Jens Chr. Hauge, Einar Gerhardsen and intelligence chief Vilhelm Evang around the meeting table. Photo: Strand forlag The authors portray with style and motherhood post-war profiles such as Jens Chr. Hauge, Einar Gerhardsen and the intelligence chief Vilhelm Evang – to name a few. The book otherwise has an excellent overview of the non-fictional characters at the back, so the reader can save any Googling there. A couple of them were unknown to me. And, we might as well take it now, while portraits are the theme: The artists’ dealings with noses, fake shafts, is a chapter of its own and a juxtaposed source of the reader’s motherhood. Discreetly normal, inconspicuous noses are completely absent here. In fact. “He fat!!!” To the case. In Andfjorden, between Andøya and Senja, something quite extraordinary happens on a March day in 1965. The brothers Noralf and Marinius are out with the sharken. At first they think it is a huge shoal of fish that appears on the sonar, but no. A terrible roar and tumult, the sea rises sky high. (“SPLASH! BULDR!”) MUCH WEATHER: And genre-true sound effects. Photo: Strand forlag The boat capsizes, Noralf (who has long since uttered his “He’s fat!!!”) ends up in the sea, sees the boat disappear into the depths, with his brother on board. The dragon or the Russians? Noralf believes he has seen the Draugen himself, the world around has other ideas. We cut to Youngstorget and the top of Folketeaterbygningen. There we find the aforementioned Jens Chr. Hauge and the head of AFMA, known only as Høvdingen, and eventually E-head Evang. “Unidentified Marine Sound Wave Signals”. That is the point, suggests Hauge. A case for AFMA, he also believes, but Evang disagrees. The power struggle is underway. Krüger and Krogh must pack their voluminous and outlandish equipment and get to Andøya – with the defense’s huge amphibious aircraft. Are the Soviet Russians behind it? ESPIONAGE AT SEA: AGI was the name the United States used for Soviet fishing trawlers equipped with sophisticated sensors and communications equipment. The November class was the Soviet Union’s first generation of nuclear-powered attack submarines. Photo: Strand forlag Style and associations “Nord og ned” is located in a genre landscape of humor and excitement. References and inspiration can be many. I quickly think of Belgians such as Viggo creator Franquin and Tintin’s father Hergé, but also of compatriot Edgar P. Jacobs’ less humorous suspense comics about Blake and Mortimer. The latter goes straight into the horror of nuclear war, fear of new despots and fascination with the infinite and frightening possibilities of technology. As with Captain Blake and Professor Mortimer, Krüger and Krogh have a studied, almost sardonic sense of detail and style in drawings and environments, fantastical inventions and suspense that holds a lot of water. The two Norwegian representatives for AFMA have humor and slapstick as well, and there they definitely separate teams. HARD ROAD TO THE TOP: No lift in the sixties lighthouse. Photo: Strand forlag Creative constructions The strange instruments the AFMA gentlemen use to search for the in-between are perhaps more reminiscent of the aforementioned Viggo’s countless constructions for the strangest purposes. While cars that like to move at high speed above ground level, with the rear suspension facing inwards, a cloud of dust or snow behind, are almost too classic to count. In Krüger and Krogh’s first two stories, we are primarily euphorically happy in a Volvo Duett, drawn with love and perfection. I was downright happy when it turned out that there was a Duett available to the men on Andøya as well. GOOD SPACE FOR GADGES: The Volvo Duett got its name because, according to the advertising, it was two cars in one: a toiling work car in the weekdays and a sensible family car for weekend outings. Photo: Strand forlag Get up to speed! At the same time, the pleasure of reading Krüger and Krogh would not have been the same without the lovely town drawings in exquisite detail and unfamiliar perspective, which are distributed sparingly between drama and humour. An indispensable example in this edition is the drawing of the top of the Folketeaterbygningens, with Storgata and AFMA’s headquarters in Gasmanngården far below. HIGH UP: Krüger & Krogh reproduces Sixties Oslo with great detail. Photo: Strand forlag I really only have one objection to “Nord og ned”, namely the subtitle “Part 1”. As it says on the last double page: “Read the incredible continuation in Part 2”. Nice, but pick up the pace! In the meantime, I’ll take part 1 one more time. news reviewer Photo: Strand forlag Title: “Krüger & Krogh 3 – Nord og ned part 1” Author: Bjarte Agdestein and Endre Skandfer (drawing), Ronald Kabíček (script) Genre: Comics Publisher: Strand Number of pages: 71 Date: August 2022
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“Krüger & Krogh 3 – North and Down Part 1” – Reviews and recommendations
