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My heaven is better than yours

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A Dutch Stoic

Ronald Slabbers is a master of economy. He only uses color when he wants to add special emphasis to his subject matter. This is the case here, where he presents the cultures of the world in the colorful shades of a schoolbook - one of those beautiful old books from the early 1960s with a nearly graphic feel. Today we have religion class. We see a church, a cathedral, a minaret and a pagoda, all towering to the realms where humans have assumed "heaven" has existed for millennia. And what's happening? A dark cloud is gathering, and a storm is about to break. Slabbers has a fine sense of humor that is never malicious. It is infused with an optimism that makes the imminent catastrophe all the more bearable. And then there's the hidden moral, suggested by the windmill from his Dutch home: a symbol of stoicism. Religions come and go, but the world continues to turn, without beginning or end. Or, as expressed in the wonderful song by composer Michel Legrand: "And the world is like an apple / Whirling silently in space / Like the circle that you find / In the windmill of your mind."

(toonpool 02/08)