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Enki Bilal
[Les Humanoïdes Associés]
Enki Bilal is undoubtedly the most renowned (though of Bosniac origins) and above all the most respected French drawer, as much by his peers as by comic books fans. Five years after "Le Sommeil du monstre" he finally deigns offering us the long awaited follow-up to his new trilogy. Whereas the first tome started with the bombing of Sarajevo in 1993, we here finally get away from these cumbersome political considerations to find, thirty years later, the three orphans born in the first part. They meet again and the plot is about these meetings, the sometimes tough emotions that come out of them, and the chaotic world where we find again the artist who bases his art on the setting of violence and evil, and where all the religious protagonists fight for the same reason... Politics, religion, tolerance, the author's obsessions are still the same.
Even if Bilal's drawing is still impressive, it hasn't changed much since "Froid équateur" (92). On the other hand, the author makes daring experiments with the narration, allowing him to add a really new dimension to his drawings. We're moving further and further away from the "classic" form of comics. And Bilal won't deny it. Though acclaimed as a drawer and a script writer, he's been keeping an eye on cinema for a few years now. But "Tykho Moon" and "Bunker Palace Hotel" didn't meet with the expected critical success. What we have in our hands is clearly more than a comic book, it's a kind of synopsis, even a catalogue of drawings with comments in its margins... Indeed, the narration is very broken down, with a systematic use of off-comments like if a shy script author didn't dare interfering with the drawings by putting too many captions in them. In wanting to be too clever, the narration sometimes becomes confused, even totally hermetical. The good news is maybe that today, Enki Bilal is no longer the only main author of the 9th art, his heirs are numerous; he created a new art and he's undeniably the master of it.
Christophe Labussière |
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