An Enemy of the People — Truth, Power, and the Courage to Speak

Sometimes a book doesn’t need to convince you. You just open it… and you already know.

We found this one in Belgrade, at the graphic novel fair. I picked it up almost casually — and immediately the artwork caught me.

The line.

The composition.

The quiet confidence in the drawing.

Before I even knew the story, I knew this was something special.

“Some books speak before you read a single page”

Once I started reading, I realised just how deep the story ran.

Javi Rey adapts An Enemy of the People, the powerful 1882 play by Henrik Ibsen, often called the father of modern drama.

At the centre is Dr. Thomas Stockmann, a principled doctor in a small island town whose prosperity depends on its famous spa.

Everything looks stable.

Until he discovers the springs are contaminated.

Fixing the problem would ruin the town financially.

Telling the truth could destroy everything.

And suddenly the real question becomes:

Not whether it’s true.

But whether we can afford the truth.

“The moment truth threatens comfort, it becomes political.”

What follows is not just a disagreement, but a public storm.

Stockmann finds himself opposing his own brother — the mayor — backed by money, politics, and the loud certainty of public opinion.

The man trying to protect the town becomes branded its enemy.

What struck me most in Rey’s version is how visual the storytelling is.

Each section carries its own emotional weight.

The pacing shifts through colour, framing, and gesture.

You feel the pressure building long before anyone speaks.

“The drawings don’t decorate the story — they carry it.”

Rey understands how to turn stage drama into lived tension.

Crowds feel heavy.

Rooms feel smaller.

Faces hold just long enough.

The visual language quietly guides our reaction — reason against hysteria, integrity against conformity.

More than a century after Ibsen wrote it, the story feels uncomfortably current.

Ecological threat.

Political manoeuvring.

Public opinion shaped by those in power.

And underneath it all, one unsettling question:

“What is the cost of telling the truth?”

And it’s that emotional pressure — the weight of truth — that Rey translates so carefully into the visual language of the book.

Rey’s colour choices are incredibly deliberate.

Tone and palette shape the mood of each moment instead of simply decorating the page.

That’s something we carry back into our own process — thinking not just about what a scene shows, but what it feels like when the reader turns the page.

For me, this is why books like this matter.

When art, story, and theme align this clearly, the result isn’t just engaging — it stays with you.

It makes you pause. It makes you wonder how any of us might act in the same situation.

Would we stand with the truth? Or with the crowd?