Greys

by Olivier Schrauwen

Gris est un récit troublant écrit à la première personne. Olivier Schrauwen nous confesse un épisode de sa vie sur lequel il se doit de revenir : celui de son abduction, son enlèvement par des extraterrestres (Les gris). Aidé par l'hypnose, fouillant sa mémoire, il nous dévoile les détails parfois scabreux de cette abduction. Les personnages hydrocéphales ne feront pas que prélever sa semence mais l'emmèneront à la découverte de l'Histoire de l'Homme, de son histoire. Avec simplicité, l'auteur nous plonge dans un récit qui oscille entre véracité et surréalisme avec un dessin brut rendant à merveille l'étrangeté du récit.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels

60 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Olivier Schrauwen is a Belgian cartoonist and musician, currently based in Berlin.
Schrauwen was born in 1977 in Bruges, a city in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. He studied animation at the Academy of Art in Gent, then obtained a master degree in comics at the 'École superieure des Art Saint-Luc' in Brussels.
His works include the surreal Arsène Schrauwen (2014), the six sci-fi stories collected in Parallel Lives (2018), the pirate story Portrait of a Drunk (2019) in collaboration with French cartoonists Ruppert and Mulot, and his slice-of-life magnum opus Sunday (2024).

Reviews

[J.T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strange and unlike other comics by Schrauwen that I've read. I wasn't entirely sure if this is autobiographical or not, but I suspect that it is. Either way, I enjoyed it immensely but for an entirely different reason than I do the rest of his work.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schrauwen's delightfully absurd take on extraterrestrial activity is an absolutely great time. Schrauwen self inserts himself here and crafts a docu-comic about his encounter with an alien abduction that has him being milked and then shown a 3D movie about the nature of human cruelty. Truly bizarre but genuinely one of the funniest comics ever. Highly recommend.

This has been reprinted in Parallel Lives, so that might be the best way to read this comic now given how out of print this is.