Askel Aden

KH Misha (in English “Love, Misha”, published by First Second in 2025, translator unknown) is a story about finding one’s path, both in relationships and in life itself – and very much within the fantastical and entirely alternative universe that Misha and their mum enter when a car journey, in many different senses, takes its own unexpected route into a world where the impossible suddenly becomes possible and a shared story can begin.   

Misha has never lived with their mum, and now they’re going on a trip together, intending to enjoy themselves and grow closer. There are many unspoken expectations surrounding their relationship, which both of them find very difficult to articulate. Mum enthusiastically calls it a mother–daughter trip, but Misha is non-binary and feels neither seen nor understood by her. During the journey, Misha writes letters in an attempt to put feelings into words, but these are letters Misha doesn’t dare give to their mum. The trip quickly goes off track, both metaphorically and quite literally, as the two choose the road less travelled and suddenly find themselves in the Realm of Spirits. Here they encounter other lost travellers, some wild beings, and tragic, lonely fates. They must face a classic series of challenges and trials in order to find a path they can both follow. The divide between them grows, and a final confrontation is needed before they slowly begin to move towards each other, with a much deeper understanding of what it means to be – and to become – who one wishes to be.  

The dialogue is simple and unpretentious. The artwork is characterised by an original craftsmanship that supports the story’s own visionary spaces. The illustrations follow their own internal logic, where a so-called reality is primarily depicted in soft, almost faded tones, while another world opens up in shades of blue and purple. Threads are drawn back and forth between two modes of being in a world, which come together in the final part of the story, where the novel is rendered in warm, reddish-brown hues that appear before the reader. Not everything is resolved, but something is moving towards a new way of seeing oneself and others. Their relationship has changed.  

Love, Misha is undoubtedly an ambitious work with international potential. Many readers may recognise themselves in Misha’s deep desire to be acknowledged, but also in the mother’s longing for the child she hasn’t lived with, yet doesn’t want to regard as a stranger. The meeting between two worlds, which merge to form a new foundation for coming closer to oneself and to each other, with curiosity and respect for one’s own and others’ ways of being human, becomes a moving story about what connections between people can mean, for better or worse, regardless of whether they are biological or not. It’s a story about one person among others, who encounters both the courage to love and the resistance to being loved.  

Graphic novels have gained prominence in Denmark in recent years. Askel Aden has created a story that dares to challenge old worldviews so that new ones can emerge. It’s not only within LGBTQ contexts that entrenched ways of thinking need to be reconsidered. It applies to the whole world. Thank you for that.  

Askel Aden studied Graphic Storytelling at The Animation Workshop in Viborg and achieved considerable success at the age of 17 with the web comic Crossroads. He made his debut in 2022 with the trilogy Åndevandrer.