International influences
International influences |
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Page 12 of 17  Towers of Bois Maury Last but not least, the European avant-garde also found a place in British and America comics shops. Two graphic novels by Italian Lorenzo Mattotti, both painted in an abstract style, exemplified the best of and worst of the genre. In the superb Fires, mysterious fire spirits take over an island, and disturb the minds of the sailors aboard a passing warship. In the infinitely more pretentious Murmur, scripted by Jerry Kramsky, a man with a burned face, lost in a strange land, finds salvation in nature. Humorous avant-garde titles included work that was analogous to the anglophone underground and alternative scenes. Early examples were the brace of albums starring the character Ranxerox (Ranxerox in New York and Happy Birthday Lubna), by Gaetano Libertore and Stefano Tamburini, about the incredibly violent (and amusingly amoral) adventures of a punk Frankenstein. A notable later addition was Pixy, by the Dane Max Anders son, which offered up a smorgasbord of bizarre images, where money eats people, buildings have personalities, and foetuses roam the streets armed with bazookas. These were just some of the many European titles translated for a British and American readership over the last twenty years. The fact that in commercial terms none came anywhere close to rivalling the popularity of Tintin or Asterix, and that, indeed, most ended up in remainder bins, is not necessarily a comment on their quality. Like so many other graphic novels, they were not marketed properly, and fell foul of the mini-slump that followed the 'comics grow up' hype of the late 1980s. If indigenously-originated material of this kind had problems getting established, then it can be no surprise that the European output has fared even less well.  Lone Sloane: Delirius |