European comics

I started off this weeks reading with Mobius Stories from Heavy Metal. This comic allowed European artists to showcase their talent in western cultural comics. Mobius Stories from Heavy Metal comprised of multiple stories. The comic opened up with a story titled Arzak which caught me by surprise with the bright saturated colors. Another aspect about this story was that is was wordless. Wordless comics are becoming one of my favorites to read because of how it relies more on the illustration and the placement of the subject matter to explain the narrative. The same thing also happens in the movie the Triplets of Belleville. There isn’t much talking in the film, however, I could tell exactly what was going on. This is a French made movie that depicts the story of a young man who works extremely hard to pursue the life of bicycling and competing. He works so hard that he becomes lean and bony to the point where he almost looks like a stick figure. His legs are long and skinny similar to his upper body and the most prominent feature is his nose which was long and pointed. I saw part of this movie when I was a child, however, the oddly shaped imagery of the bicyclists scared the life out of me. I’m not as frightened now that I am grown and can watch it now for enjoyment. His mother is also shown in the story and is the driving force behind his career. Everything from the design of the characters to the design of the environment was oddly shaped and didn’t look anything like something made in western cultural animation. However, that was the intriguing part.