Categories
Graphic novels and comics

Brüsel

Cover of the "Brüsel" comic book
Cover of the “Brüsel” comic book

Brüsel will delight fans of well-crafted comics. There’s everything in this book: top-quality graphics, attention to detail, an overflowing imagination on the part of the authors, a little humor and sensuality, a touch of cynicism.

We find ourselves with familiar themes, but developed backwards from common sense to pique the reader’s curiosity. Society will be saved by the advent of plastics, a veritable revolution. And we’ll finally be able to get rid of the plants we have to look after, which wither away and constantly need a little water.

The authors also take an original approach to the deterioration of hospital care. The script shows us a patient who is always promised incredible treatments by a doctor whose reputation is beyond reproach. However, no intelligent action is taken, and the patient gradually recovers from the lack of treatment.

The hero of the story and an employee he meets by chance form an unconventional duo and take us into the twists and turns of a city in the making that a megalomaniac is designing without consulting the citizens.

The few people appointed to obey the wishes of a single man walk around with scaled-down buildings under their arms and place here and there the skyscrapers of the future city. It’s all decided behind closed doors and in the interests of a few, as sometimes happens in city planning.

In short, if you’re looking for a story and graphics out of the ordinary to escape from déjà vu, this is the comic for you.

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Title : Brüsel

Authors : Schuiten-Peeters

© Casterman, 2023

ISBN : 978-2-203-27639-0

Categories
Graphic novels and comics

The Valley of the Immortals, step 2.

Painting of Blake and Mortimer : la vallée des immortels.
Painting of Blake and Mortimer : la vallée des immortels.

This is step 2 of the enlargement work I started from the Blake and Mortimer comic book: The Valley of the Immortals. The original album is at the bottom of the image above to give an idea of the original scale.

I want to use the entire 24 × 36 canvas space starting from a standard size comic book. I must modify the scale by adding an extra 10% to the height. However, when comes the time to draw the perfect circle located at the top left of the album, a standard 1:1 scale must be used so as not to transform the faces of the two heroes who are looking at us from the front. A painting made with two different scales does not produce a true copy, but it is still acceptable and realistic.

Trying to match an album’s original colour often requires mixing four different colours or more. Experience has shown that any newly created colour should be allowed to dry for several minutes on another canvas to ensure that it does not deviate too much from the desired colour, because it darkens when it dries. Mistakes are inevitable, however…

It looks as I will complete the canvas within the next few months, providing I work a few hours each day.

A third and final article will be published when the painting is completed.

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