Wide World of Comics

This week was a lot of rough reading for me. I skipped around different titles and couldn't find anything for a while that interested me or didn't disgust me. But then I realized: that's the point.

My first reading attempt was Incal by Moebius and Jodorowsky. I think what put me off the most about the work was the art style. The people were too grotesque looking (though the slug man was cool) and read more like an internet porn webcomic to me. I had seen artwork from the story before and liked it, and I love Moebius' work so I'm sure if I read further into the story I'd grow accustomed to the style. But I did enjoy the themes of classism, and how it's represented by a giant space tower city thing, with the rich affluent people living higher up (being adorned with halos) and the lower class living at the bottom. In that way, it reminded me a lot of Le Transperceneige/Snowpiercer which was released around the same time.

I then bounced over to Nikopol and enjoyed the art style, but couldn't grasp onto the story for some reason. But then I read Moebius' "Heavy Metal" collection and fell in love. I adore the art style and how the grand landscapes and color palette felt like I was looking at a dream. The piece that stood out to me the most was "Ballade", which follows a boy who travels away from his mountain clan to see the beauty of nature all over the world. He meets a forest woman who accompanies him on his journey, but their adventure is soon cut short when a group of military soldiers mows them down for seemingly no reason. The story felt very real, even though the characters and environment came across fantasy-like. The brutal reality of war, and the mistreatment of innocent people by soldiers, is something too common in our society.

I can definitely see why Moebius and Miyazaki were friends and fans of each other. Their work is so similar when it comes to themes, and much of Miyazaki's early films reflects the genre and feeling of Moebius' fantasy/sci-fi pieces. There are so many similarities to Moebius' Arzack and Miyazaki's Nausicaä that you can tell the two were truly inspired by each other's work.