The Nikopol Trilogy - Enki Bilal
I have even less background information about this book than I did about the Chaland Anthology: there's no "About the Author," no dust-jacket blurbs, not even a page with the copyright information. It's an oversized hardcover book, and the images are more of an illustration style (colored pencil, maybe?) rather than comic-book style. I'm assuming it was translated from French but I'm not certain.
At any rate, the trilogy consists of three related stories: "The Carnival of Immortals," "The Woman Trap," and "Equator Cold." Of the three, I liked the first one best. It's set in a distopian Paris, full of political intrigue. The Egyptian gods figure into the story, and it's the second story I've read in recent memory in which Horus goes a little crazy. "The Woman Trap" is told mostly from the point of view of Jill Bioskop, a blue-haired white-skinned reporter who starts popping pills and offing her overenthusiastic suitors (or so you think; it's a little like "Total Recall" and a little like Edgar Allen Poe's "Tell-tale Heart"). The final story, "Equator Cold," ties the two previous stories together a little more, bringing all the characters together as things fall apart.
The artwork is well-done and really conjures up a gloomy future, but the story is bizarre and feels somehow empty. None of the characters really seems to have any motivation except Horus, the power-hungry hawk-headed god. Hard to find, and maybe not worth the effort.
Fed to jonathan's brain | July 10, 2006
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