Customer Reviews

The Hollow Grounds

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This paperback is a compilation of three hardcover oversized albums first released by Humanoids Press: "Carapaces", "Zara", and "Nogegon". ("Nogegon" with its beautiful palindromic structure was nominated for a 2002 Eisner award.) The print quality and beauty of these volumes has suffered greatly at the hands of DC, who started distributing European Humanoids titles in 2004- and has in May 2005 already announced that they will stop doing so! Apparently DC has no clue how to market and properly print "non-superhero" art: half-size washed-out reproduction on poor-quality paper, and shoehorning these three separate titles into a single paperback, is an injustice to the artist. Please try to find the original hardcover Humanoids volumes instead, and also check out the Schuiten/Peeters "Obscure Cities" titles released by NBM, an American publishing house that really knows how to treat this incredibly beautiful work in a respectful way. Then you will understand why Schuiten is one of the most revered and awarded "comic" artists in Europe. 5 stars for art and story + 1 star for DC's poor effort= 3 stars

This book is a little bit confusing because it's actually a collection of three books that were published separately in the original French editions over the course of 15 years (1980-1995). Furthermore, the first section/book (Carapaces) is itself a collection of six short stories -- so it all gets a little complicated for the reader. Not to mention that the worlds imagined by the French creators are so strange and surreal that they almost qualify as conceptual art. Sci-fi or graphic art fans with a taste for the offbeat may well enjoy this import and those looking for traditional narratives are hereby warned. It should be noted that while the drawing is quite nice, especially strong in capturing the human form and architectural elements (which often show a distinct art nouveau influence), the coloring and reproduction is pretty awful. Most of the book is very murky and dirty looking, and a somewhat cramped, as if the original art had been shrunken down a bit. It should also be noted that this is definitely an adult book, as there is copious amount of female nudity, and a few sexual scenes and situations.

Desire is the theme of the first section/book, "Carapaces", as each of the six stories is built on one person's desire for another. The first of these, "Shells" is possibly the most effective, as two humanoid figures in a post-apocalyptic landscape frolic and tease one another. Their desire overwhelms them, and for the first time ever, they remove their metal protection to have skin-on-skin sex -- which is when the insects show up... "Stampede" and "Sample" are much more abstract, while in "Crevice" a sentient and partly organic subterranean computer/entity splits the earth to be able to touch a woman. The final, and longest story, is "The Fog Cutter", set in a world where fog can roll in and freeze in place. The town's "fog cutter" is the person responsible for freeing trapped people from the fog, but he'd rather be left in piece to finish a giant nude statue of the woman he yearns for.

The second section/book is "Zara", which takes place in a planet whose outer shell rotates very quickly on the outside, and has a stable inner shell where people live vertically. It's rather bizarre and hard to explain, but the story basically follows one woman who crosses from the outer world to the inner, only to discover a village of sapphic women who've not seen a man in fifty or more years. Meanwhile, on another planet, a group of men without women learn of the same inner world and teleport themselves there in order to rape and plunder. It's an interesting, weird, adventure story, some parts of which are very modern, and some of which are totally old-fashioned pulp. The final section/book is the widely acclaimed experimental "Nogegon". It brings together elements and characters from "The Fog Cutter" and "Zara" in strange story that is all about symmetry. It's very hard to explain, but essentially, the story of one woman's search for her friend is exactly symmetrical. The search proceeds normally enough to the halfway point, and then it all doubles back upon itself in a mirror reflection. Very odd and impressive in the same way a mad genius is -- as is the entire book.

The artwork is fantastic. I wish the quality of publication - the vividness of the colors - was as good as the original printing of these stories in Heavy Metal magazine. It's worth getting, just not as high quality as other published work by Schuiten. The printing job doesn't do justice to the subject.

Francois Schuiten is one of the most accomplished artists working in the field.
This handsome trade paperback reunites three graphic novels that comprise the Hollow Grounds cycle.Worth mention is the excellent arguments by his brother Luc.

CARAPACES - Actually a collection of six stories that displays Schuiten's versatility, experimenting with a series of techniques.

ZARA - Zara is a vertical planet inhabited entirely by woman that never experimented "conventional" sex with men.After the arrival
of invaders with "vines" below their waists, things take a bizarre and often amusing turn.Zara is a marvelous blend of satire, adventure and science fiction that should appeal for fans of trippy european comics.

NOGEGON - Another baroque, amazing and wild adventure.This time a character from Zara goes in search of a missing friend and
becomes embroiled in a plot involving symmetry and murder.

These stories are all set in an odd world in an odd future. The first story, Shells, is a post-apocalypse. People defend themselves in full body armor at all times, even in making love. "Crevice" gives an odd echo to The Matrix, where an all-sustaining computer must itself be sustained by human company, but with a happy ending. "Olive" is another story, in a very different visual style, about a world governed by strange forces. After those disconnected short stories in the beginning, the Schuitens give us a longer tale. Men and women live in segregated societies, then rediscover each other. The result is ... well, you'll just have to read it.

The artwork is skilled and subdued. Figures are carefully drawn. The stories move well, from one turn to the next, without big fights and other cliched tricks. There's occasional nudity - this is not a comic book for little kids. It's thoughtful and lyrical. It's also a DC venture. For years, DC was the stodgy comic house, sticking to their superheroes in capes. DC still sells Superman and that crowd, but also sells the Vertigo line and books like these. I'm glad to see that DC's range of offerings has matured to match their readership.

"Hollow Grounds" doesn't blaze new trails in visual storytelling, but it's well drawn and well told. I've never been aware of the Schuitens before, but I'll be watching for them now.

//wiredweird