imagination – Photography, aviation and flight simulation

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

ISBN : 978-2-203-27639-0

Lovecraft’s works: Les montagnes hallucinées.

Cover page of the manga "Les montagnes hallucinées", by Gou Tanabe. — Cover page of the manga “Les montagnes hallucinées”, by Gou Tanabe.

Gou Tanabe presents H.P. Lovecraft‘s masterpiece “Les montagnes hallucinées” (the French version of “At the Mountains of Madness”) as a two-volume manga. Leafing through Lovecraft is in itself a journey into the strange, but to do so by starting at the end of a book and reading from right to left adds to the weirdness of the experience.

This transposition of Lovecraft into manga is a success. And the statistics prove it. The 382 reviews left on Amazon show clear customer satisfaction, with a total of 4.9/5 stars at the time of writing.

I normally prefer color comics and graphic novels, but the black-and-white interpretation of Lovecraft’s work is a perfect match for the fantasy world into which Tanabe plunges us.

A page from the manga "Les montagnes hallucinées" from Lovecraft, by Gou Tanabe. — A page from the manga “Les montagnes hallucinées” from Lovecraft, by Gou Tanabe.

Lovecraft makes a phantasmagorical work credible by integrating a well-balanced mix of real and fictional elements into the plot. Unless you’re an archaeologist and paleontologist yourself, it’s hard to tell which data really belong to science. This helps to frame the reader. You recognize moments of pure imagination, but you’re still hooked.

I put myself in the shoes of someone who lived in Lovecraft’s time, when Antarctica was still a mysterious continent, unexplored in its entirety. A story filled with elements of fiction would gain in credibility, while no one could really confirm or deny some of the author’s statements.

A page from the graphic novel "Les montagnes hallucinées". — A page from the graphic novel “Les montagnes hallucinées”.

In “Les montagnes hallucinées”, we read about sailing, aviation, extreme weather and survival in icy, isolated spaces. Readers witness the problems experienced by the various crews exploring Antarctica. The scientists’ increasingly startling discoveries force them to make risky decisions that plunge them into an unknown world. In short, themes that still appeal to most people today.

The two volumes total around 650 pages, which can be flipped through with interest in a single day, since many plates include no text at all.

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Title: Lovecraft’s Masterpieces – Les montagnes hallucinées tomes 1 and 2.

Author: Gou Tanabe

TANABE Gou, 2017. Printed in Italy August 2022.

ISBN: 979-10-327-0398-4

Graphic adaptation: Clair Obscur

Translation: Sylvain Chollet