International influences
International influences |
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Page 11 of 17  Lone Sloane: Delirius Thrillers in album form were slightly more successful. Two collaborations between Enki-Bilal and writer Pierre Christin (a doctor of sociology), were particularly notable. In The Hunting Party, ten Politburo members gather for a bear hunt. But things go wrong when the sudden murder of a rising apparatchik highlights the doomed nature of the Warsaw Pact, and of Soviet communism. In The Ranks of the Black Order, old animosities from the Spanish Civil war ignite again as two factions consisting of elderly radicals pursue each other across contemporary Europe. Jacques Tardi also contributed to the genre with two Nestor Burma adventures, adaptations of private eye novels by Leo Malet, and Adele and the Beast, an album spoofing early twentieth-century thriller fiction, and starring a plucky heroine. Mention should also be made of the remarkable series Sinner, by two South American exiles working in Europe, Jose Munoz and Carlos Sampayo. The story involves the grim biography of a down-on-his-luck sleuth, as he witnesses modern Manhattan go to hell around him. Sex albums were marketed as 'Eurotica', and found a small but devoted following. The most popular creators were both Italians: Milo Manara for his exquisitely rendered albums Butterscotch, about the adventures of an invisible sex maniac, and Click!, about a scientist who invents a machine that unchains women's libidos; and Guido Crepax for his more serious, and equally strikingly drawn, adaptations of Emmanuelle and The Story of O. Mention should also be made of the Frenchman Georges Pichard, whose 1977 album Candide at Sea featured a voluptuous heroine 'who just can't seem to keep her clothes on' (where have we heard that one before?), and who later became notorious for his Illustrated Kama Sutra.  The Towers of Bois Maury (Titan Books, 1989). Art/script: Hermann. |