Soft City cover

Soft City

by Hariton Pushwagner

""GOOD MORNING EVERYBODY. . ." So dawns a new day in Soft City, where pill-stuffed citizens sit in traffic, march off to work at Soft Inc., zone out in front of the TV news, and shop, shop, shop. The only graphic novel by the legendary Norwegian pop artist Hariton Pushwagner-- completed in 1975, lost for decades, and never before published in the United States--is a scathing masterpiece in the tradition of Brazil and A Brave New World but with an off-kilter beauty all its own. Pushwagner gives us an epic, exuberantly intricate vision of a single day in a world gone wrong: a brightly smiling, disturbingly familiar dystopia of towering skyscrapers, omnipresent surveillance, and endless, distant war. Every face looks like the next, and language itself has gone soft: "CLEAN BOMB THE HAPPY WAY," blares the morning paper; "Heil Hilton!" barks an overlord on the news. Welcome to Soft City. Now don't be late for work"

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?