By Enki Bilal & Pierre Christin translated by Edward Gauvin (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-681-0 (HB/Digital edition)
With the world hard set for imminent and dramatic political upheaval and with old scores shaping up to be settled one way or another in the months to come, here’s a portentous and captivating double bill of comics realpolitik from two of our art form’s grandmasters which have lost none of their bite but only become more relevant with the advantage of historical hindsight…
Born in Belgrade in 1951 Enes “Enki” Bilal broke into French comics in 1972 with Le Bal Maudit for Pilote. Over the decade he grew in skill and fame, achieving English-language celebrity once his work began appearing in Heavy Metal magazine. Although best known and most lauded for self-scripted fantasy The Nikopol Trilogy (comprising Gods in Chaos, The Woman Trap & Cold Equator) and his Hatzfeld Tetralogy (The Dormant Beast, December 32, Rendezvous in Paris & Four?) he has spread his creative net far and wide.
A multi-award winning megastar, Bilal has crafted gripping thrillers and academic tales like Phantoms of the Louvre beside his signature bleakly beguiling, ferociously contemplative fantasy tales like Exterminator 17, Magma, Julia & Roem and many, many more. However, throughout his career, Bilal has incessantly explored the history and political themes of his lifetime – especially with frequent collaborator Pierre Christin.
To my mind and despite the impact of their initial trilogy Légendes d’Aujord’hui/Legends of Today (The Cruise of Lost Souls, Ship of Stone, The Town That Didn’t Exist) the duo hit a particular high with their Fins de Siècle sequence which has been comfortably curated here by Titan Comics into single volume Century’s End.
As if writing one of the most successful and significant comics series in the world – Valerian and Laureline – was not enough, full-time academician Pierre Christin still found time over the years to script science-fiction novels, screenplays and a wide selection of comics, starting in 1966 with Le Rhum du Punch with Valérian co-creator Jean-Claude Mézières.
Born in 1938 and a graduate of the Sorbonne before becoming a political science and French literature lecturer, Christin (The Hardy Agency, A Magic Circle, Le Long Voyage De Léna) has produced many stellar graphic sagas with such artistic luminaries as Jacques Tardi, Raymond Poïvet, Annie Goetzinger, Françoise Boucq, Jijé and more, but whenever he worked with Bilal (beginning in 1975 with the exotic and surreal The Cruise of Lost Souls, the results have never been less than stunning and always make for compulsive reading.
The Black Order Brigade
First released in 1979, Les Phalanges de l’orde noir details in piquant detail and with knowing irony the last hurrah of a group of aging survivors: the defeated remnants of a leftist volunteer battalion of the International Brigade, who fought fascism together during the Spanish civil war. When their murderous opposite number – the titular “Black Order Brigade” – come out of the shadows to unite modern neo-fascist terror groups by sparking a wave of assassinations, bombings, kidnappings and bloody atrocities, British newspaper editor Pritchard starts phoning all the survivors of his unit.
Resolved to finally avenge their fallen comrades and complete their sworn duties, the oldsters – ranging from priests and judges to retired gangsters – drop everything and go undercover: crisscrossing Europe to hunt down and exterminate the old foe and the new generation of monsters they seek to inspire.
Of course, time has not spared either side and the hunt quickly assumes the weight of crushing nostalgia, taint of frustrated dreams and ultimately a stink of farce, all seasoned by occasional bursts of merciless bloodshed as their counterparts undertake a campaign of terror calling the police of dozen nations down on all their balding grey heads…
The extended months-long season of hiding and frustrated assaults takes a heavy toll on the vengeful nemeses and when the final confrontation comes the chance of any survivors coming home is scant indeed…
A captivating travelogue of Europe still recovering from festering old wounds, the story unfolds slowly and with mesmerising detail, exhibiting a balance of tension and Dad’s Army surreal black comedy that beguiles but never forces a full suspension of belief…
The Hunting Party was published in 1983 as Partie de chasse, with the setting and locale stemming from Bilal’s desire to do something set in his eastern European birthlands. Playing out at the height of Cold War tension, when the Soviet old guard was falling to age, infirmity and the ambition of their subordinates, it is for many their best collaboration, exploring idealism, guilt, regret and human nature, all of which have never been more coldly and clearly depicted…
As the Soviet system begins to crack, ten old men of the Party gather at an exclusive Polish estate for an extended winter holiday of reminiscing and shooting. Stars and survivors in their own Warsaw Pact countries, these guests are all linked in deed and indebted to one charismatic man who still stands red and proud amidst the icy landscapes…
He is legendary figure and hard-line apparatchik Vassili Alexandrovich Chevchenko, who has given his long life to the pursuit of the Communist ideal, but is now a doomed man: partially paralysed and rendered mute by a stroke, he is being slowly sidelined by the Politburo which is again repurposing itself, as it has so many times during Chevchenko’s life.
The aged politician’s serried career has been one of surrendering self and sacrificing personal desire to serve the State, and now he has gathered his closest colleagues about him for one last diverting weekend of vodka, chess, hunting and history…
As festivities proceed the silent grandee is plagued with red-handed recollections of things he has done and the love he chose to sacrifice for the sake of the Dream. His internal colloquy is balanced by the naïve questions and attitudes of the young and anonymous French Communist hired to translate for the other interloper among the old Comrades – reforming go-getter Sergei Shavanidze, who has been appointed Chevchenko’s successor and can’t wait to start pruning dead wood and outmoded beliefs…
The entire history of the Movement is examined via the personal reminiscences of these creaking remnants of the system recalling past glories, old horrors and narrow escapes, but the bemused and bewildered Frenchman has no inkling as he absorbs the secrets of their socialist past of the part he will unwittingly play in its future…
This mesmerising, beguiling and utterly chilling thriller methodically skins the hide from an idealistic dream and spills the dark hot guts of guilt, arrogance and the pursuit of power in a sublime example of graphic narrative’s unique facility to tell a story on a number of levels.
The diptych of political Götterdämmerungs is supplanted by a forthright, extensive and highly informative ‘Interview with Enki Bilal and Pierre Christin’ conducted by Benoît Peeters, adding clarity and a light close to these ponderous but exceptional slices of cartoon reality that no serious student of the medium or lover of human drama can afford to miss.
Century’s End and all contents ™ & © Casterman.