Sebastian Magnani: Off Duty

Sebastian Magnani grew up in a small mountain village in Canton Valais, Switzerland, and spent years working as a creative director at an advertising agency before he let himself do what he actually wanted to do. He left in 2011. The work that followed is what happens when someone stops making things for other people and starts making things that will last.

The Daily Bat series began in 2019 after a conversation with his girlfriend about who the coolest superhero was. They landed on Batman, not for his gadgets or his mythology, but for a simpler reason: he is the only one without any superpower. He is entirely human, and he spends his life trying to help people anyway. Magnani found something moving in that, and he wanted to see what happened when that figure was placed not in Gotham but in the world the rest of us actually live in.

Cat's Escape arrived as a natural companion. Where Batman is solitary and searching, Catwoman is languid, self-possessed, and entirely comfortable taking up space. The two series sit alongside each other the way the characters do: opposites that make more sense together than apart.

Abel Tesfaye, known as The Weeknd, collects Magnani's work. That detail is worth noting, not as a credential but as a clue. These are images that people return to privately, that mean something when no one is watching.

That is harder to achieve than it looks.