panellogy 287 - enki bilal's & pierre christin's polit comics

[@primabrachii]

I'd no idea of this side of Bilal... stunning. Huge thanks to you as always as the finest gateway to European comics.

[@PERart6231]

Thank you for the great review, Bilal's works deserve more exposure and commentary. the story's capture the bizarre cold-war era with Bilal's awesome artwork. Once again thank you kind Sir.

[@RichardFriendartist]

how funny. I just grabbed a bunch of those out this past weekend...perfect timing to get suggested this video!

[@earlgrey862]

There IS actually a still easily available English edition. It's called "Century's end" (Titan books) and collects the two IMO best albums "The black order brigade" and "Hunting party"

[@olivierdehaas1786]

I was having a distached feeling about that series. Difficult to get invested with it

[@olivierdehaas1786]

Sorry wrong comment the hunting party is my favourite comi c ever

[@LukSter18998]

the new Bilal editions are no good. original and best are harder to find !

[@Xbale]

Awesome video, I was waiting for this to be dealt with on your channel ever since I watched your collection episode!

[@OdysseyMichele]

The video shows that you really felt these comics and I can understand why. They are still actual, indeed. I agree with you and I already said in a comment that the last 2 are the best. Bilal evolved and Christin too just got serious seeing what Bilal has achieved. It's not a series, btw, it doesn't have a name at least, but you can say that it's a conceptual series. Anyway, the first three are usually gathered under the name of Legends of Today, while the last two Century's End. The fact that from fantastic it became realistic and that from a non protagonists point of view to real protagonists, in other words, the evolution of a thought, political one, really makes this "series" unique and even more if we check the dates. If you loved The Hunting Party, as I understood, then remember that Nikopol is quite similar: cold and depressive political approach but futuristic.

[@earlgrey862]

yeah, seems I need Nikopol... thanks for commenting

[@GoreVidalComicbooks]

Greetings from Texas, my distant friend. A timely video. As you may remember, I discovered Bilal and Christin in Heavy Metal Magazine, when I was a kid. The clerk at the store was selling it to me without knowing it was an "adults only" publication. I can't imagine my childhood without Valentina, Ranxerox, and Den and the writers and artists in that magazine. Nor Fantomas...I read them before I did the X-Men, Teen Titans, The Legion of Superheroes, or Batman. I know what you mean by "escapist," however, in my case, I've always liked escaping into a story, irregardless of its lightness or heaviness (to borrow from Kundera). As long as the story works as a story, and, enchants. Too much reality in a comic, therefore, never bothered me, not then, not now. A clumsy execution would, but that would due to bad storytelling, not content. 1989...time...It doesn't seen like 30 years have passed. But what is even more unbelievable are how timely these stories are, when they should've been mere past history. One of my favorite American writers, Mark Twain, may or may not have this, but even if he didn't, it's like something he would say, that "history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." Next time you pass by where the Berlin Wall once stood, please send my regards to a fond memory of a Dresden woman I once knew, who told me that she danced on top of the wall, along with so many others...wind of change, indeed.

[@earlgrey862]

yeah, that one from Dresden... are you aware that almost every third comment from you mentions her in one way or another :P She had to be some woman! yeah 30 years, it's crazy... I was starting university back then, a lot of stuff and my beloved and two kids happened afterwards, but it still feels like yesterday

[@GoreVidalComicbooks]

@@earlgrey862 No, I wasn't aware of that until now. Yes, she was. And wonder what she is thinking this weekend, as the far-right parties in East Germany are predicted to do well in tomorrow's elections.

[@edward2962]

Somewhere, I have Black Order Brigade in a long box buried. I should probably dig it up and re-read it. I kind of remember The Hunting party being serialized in Heavy Metal magazine.

[@JaredOsborn]

I got "The Ranks of the Black Order," "The Hunting Party," and "The Town That Didn't Exist" back in about 1990 when Catalan Communications published them here in the USA. A comic shop in NYC discounted them from their $12, $14, and $15 cover prices down to $4 and I grabbed them up. I enjoyed them then and reread them a few years ago and enjoyed them all over again.

[@earlgrey862]

$4 are not too much for these for sure

[@PERart6231]

I like to see what you got to say about the nikopol trilogy.

[@joechip8666]

Another great video Earl Grey. Did you upload this video as an apology for the absence of Bilal from your top sci-fi European comics? Joke aside, Bilal is along with Geof Darrow probably my favorite artist although i am not crazy about his scenarios. Which is why his association with Christin was a match made in heaven. One thing i like about Bilal is that his style evolved quite a bit through the years and i appreciate every single period of his style ( la croisière des oubliés is very different from Nikopol or le sommeil du monstre. Animals is yet another style). Also the fact that he keeps the digital editing in his art to the bare minimum will make his art age well. IMO.

[@earlgrey862]

... hmm... as I said it before: I'm still not through with my lists of euro faves :)

[@petercooper9791]

I also recently read the latter 3 volumes, but the looser style of the first 2 look even better from the purely visual feastness of it. In pursuit of English versions of Hombre and Druuna via your recommends, wound up scrounging up almost every Heavy Metal issue from 1977 thru 2000, warts and all (and moles). Not too expensive when bought in bunches, fortunately and the HM site was having a big sale. Of course, I now see that these first 2 volumes were printed there, so soon to delve. There've been a few perusals of random issues where a page will look like Moebius only to turn out to be Enki. Such a delicious renderer of seedy flesh, eh?

[@petercooper9791]

Winds of Change might be tolerable if sung by Marlene Dietrich.

[@1luarluar1]

amazing drawings, great.

[@jaykolkata]

It seems I am much younger than most of the viewer and commentators here. But situation in India also not very bright looking . To say the truth I am no longer sure which side is right or wrong anymore. Anyway apart from that ... after long waiting I got the Century's End from titan comics. And after seeing your original one I can say they realy did a bad job of recoloring of Bilal faboulus work . I dont understand the reasoning behind changing such beautiful work . Particularly The Hunting Party .. it look like they have just added some grey-ish blue in every frame . All the colour are muted and it realy saddend my heart. Thanks for sharing another great video. Being in India and having money constraint this is the only way I am ever going to enjoy these great works.

[@earlgrey862]

it's like insanity rules almost everywhere with just little islands of (relative) reasonable governments... as to our much smaller concerns in our world of comic fandom: that's a pity to hear that they muted down the colors. For a good measure it's Bilal's colored pencil (&marker &...) that sets him apart from other artists... I mean in "the hunting party" there IS the dominance of greyish-blue cold color tones (which matches the story of course), but the the contrast to the colorful panels is very important.

[@spidervenom14]

I follow the Moskva Down to Gorky Park Listening to the wind of change An August summer night Soldiers passing by Listening to the wind of change The world is closing in Did you ever think That we could be so close, like brothers The future's in the air I can feel it everywhere Blowing with the wind of change Take me to the magic of the moment On a glory night Where the children of tomorrow dream away (dream away) In the wind of change Walking down the street Distant memories Are buried in the past forever I follow the Moskva Down to Gorky Park Listening to the wind of change Take me to the magic of the moment On a glory night Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams (share their dreams) With you and me Take me to the magic of the moment On a glory night (the glory night) Where the children of tomorrow dream away (dream away) In the wind of change (the wind of change) The wind of change Blows straight into the face of time Like a stormwind that will ring the freedom bell For peace of mind Let your balalaika sing What my guitar wants to say Take me to the magic of the moment On a glory night Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams (share their dreams) With you and me (with you and me) Take me to the magic of the moment On a glory night Where the children of tomorrow dream away (dream away) In the wind of change (in the wind of change)

[@earlgrey862]

rrraaaaahhh it's just my strong belief in uncensored communication that prevents this comment from deletion. well done my friend! "let your balalaika sing" urrrgh, even forgot about this part, yikes

[@spidervenom14]

@@earlgrey862 What's even more embarrassing than those lyrics is that I used to unironically(!) like this song back in the day. Asche auf mein Haupt! (But at least I never gave an interview on German television where I stated that the Puszta is located in Russia. Unlike Klaus Meine, singer of the Scorpions.)

[@earlgrey862]

he he, not the brightest candle on the cake, that Klaus ... but actually if you can get hold of the first scorpions album "lonesome crow", that was pretty decent Krautrock... and even the follow up wasn't that bad. But afterwards they discovered "stadion rock" and it got nur noch peinlich ...

[@AlucardNoir]

Thanks for doing this. Too bad neither Humanoids nor Dark Horse showed much interest in renewing their licenses with Bilal. Titan Books are technically reprinting these but there was almost two years between Century's End and the Exterminator. And Monster, that was supposed to be out in may still doesn't seem to be out. As for these being a bit old fashioned politically... I was born in '89. I first discovered these in 2005 after Bilal's Imortal Ad Vitam (his The Nikopol Trilogy adaptation) had come out on DVD. I liked them then and I still like them now. But I don't think that there was ever a time when they weren't relevant. The thing about fascism is that it's nothing more then a thin veneer of racism sprinkled on top of authoritarianism and well... even in countries were communism, actual Marxist communism was tried we ended up with that. Society is by it's very nature hierarchical and authoritarianism is just the extreme of any hierarchical society, indifferent of who's in charge or how good the intentions and ideas of the people at the top might be. Christine is far from the only socialist disillusioned with socialism, Bilal himself being from a socialist country. George Orwell was a massive english socialist but distanced himself from the political movement when friends from the soviet union started escaping to the UK. A lot of people forget that 1984 and especially Animal Farm are based in part on stories he heard from soviet dissidents in the UK. Turns out Nietzsche was right, people that hunt monsters should be careful not to become ones themselves. Like the international brigade fascist hunters that resort to full on terrorist tactics in The Black Brigade or the indistinguishable Hitler and Stalin regimes, people, especially well intentioned people always tend to behave as bad as possible if the think the're doing it in the name of a good cause.

[@Emma-R]

Interesting comment!

[@earlgrey862]

yes, a lot of stuff that I forgot to say (like Bilal being from Belgrad) ... but that's what I really like about KZbin and esp. "my" viewers: that you always can count on some knowledgeable commenters adding their point of view. my inner hippy would like to disagree on the assessment that society HAS to be hierarchical though... but unfortunately you're probably right about this as well :/

[@oaa-ff8zj]

Monster is in Stock again, so’s nikopol. Exciting times

[@AlucardNoir]

@@oaa-ff8zj I remember when I first saw they were publishing The Nikopol's trilogy and Century's End. I was so excited... Then I went to their site and saw that they didn't have a page for Century's End. I verified with multiple retailers worldwide that they were indeed publishing it, but they didn't seem to want to advertise it on their site. Then a year passed and they didn't publish anything else from Bilal, then another almost passed and they just published another book. If I didn't have the actual hardcover books behind me, and knew they were high quality I'd be very doubtful about the quality of their books in general. I dunno, Titan's treatment of Bilal doesn't make me to optimistic for the future of his works in the english speaking world.