(this was supposed to be posted on saturday which NEVER gets any articles but some shit come up and I'm a little late so you guys will get 2 articles this week!)

I always joke with my friends that whenever "recommended reading" is brought up for comic books/graphic novels one can usually expect to hear the same old stuff rattled off:

-Watchmen
-Kingdom Come
-The Dark Knight Returns
-Fables
-Blah blah blah blah

Fact of the matter is, comics is a pretty quiet medium.  There are only a handful of major publishers, it's relatively cheap and easy to self publish material (as opposed to books which practically require a publisher), and for the most part it's easy to miss out on releases due to their limited availability.  This [comic]book club is designed to open your eyes to material you may have never even heard of and, hopefully, get you interested in something you may not be familiar with.

The Nikopol Trilogy



Completely written and drawn by Yugoslavian director, writer, and cartoonist Enki Bilal (who contributed some amazing work to Heavy Metal in the 80s) over the period of 12 years (1980-1992), The Nikopol Trilogy is an amalgam of dystopian science fiction, adventure, and romance stories.



As the intro states, the story takes place in early 21st century Paris at the outset of 2 nuclear wars, alien activity, and terrorist attacks.  Now ruled by a fascist dictator (who makes a point to hold elections to appear autonomous), a mysterious pyramid owned by Egyptian gods hovers over the great city.  In exchange for mass amounts of fuel, the gods promise Choublanc immortality who wishes to use the deal as a means to forever seal his place in history at the cost of city resources.



Alcide Nikopol, the protagonist of the story, was a deserter who was sentenced to life frozen in space in the 1990s.  After a malfunction in his cryopod that causes him to fall to earth, he quickly "befriends" the Egyptian god Horus.  Despite their obvious differences (and the fact that Horus is a massive dick), Nikopol "willingly" lends his body to Horus in order to stop Choublanc and the gods that are willing to give up their greatest gift.


Broken up into three continuous stories (Carnival of Immortals, The Woman Trap, and Cold Equator), The Nikopol Trilogy is a haunting vision of the future world and man's connection with the supernatural.  Despite the actual existence of gods in the flesh, man still denies their presence and Choublanc himself denounces them as nothing more than alien beings necessary to further his own goals.  The writing in the first half of the comic is rather stale but as it continues Bilal refines his story telling to include more iconic imagery and subtlety in his words (not to mention dark humor).

Needless to say, the art is breathtaking especially when one considers that the comic was drawn by hand entirely by a single person.  Bilal's water colors perfectly blend with his tight hatching and he shows a mastery of perspective, character design, "silent panels," dynamic lighting, and various angles; story telling effects that weren't common in comics in the 80s.  Very few events and creatures are ever explained such as the odd homunculus-like Cherubs or the various alien humanoids that populate modern France but Bilal's designs and attention to detail gives them a life of their own.  The setting is both strange and different yet it feels strangely normal as if parasitic slimes and discarded man-size eggshells are NORMAL.  His art is very reminiscent of Jean "Moebius" Giraud which is, by all means, a compliment.



The Nikopol Trilogy (available by order in most major book retailers as well as online vendors) should be on the shelves of anyone who has even a passing interest in science fiction.  While the plot itself doesn't break any new ground, the setting is entirely original and the characters are both unique and interesting.  The art alone is worth a purchase just to study Bilal's attention to minute details.  If I had a retarded rating system in place I'd give this a high grade but I don't want to fall into the 4.0 stereotype so just buy the damn thing.

In case anyone's wondering, Bilal is credited as the inspiration for Chess Boxing (a pretty popular sport in Russia) which was heavily featured in the third book.