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Breakthrough
Still in original polybag
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
47 people want to read
About the author
Enki Bilal
243 books319 followersEnki Bilal (born Enes Bilal) is a French comic book creator and film director.
Bilal was born in Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, to a Czech mother, Ana, who came to Belgrade as child from Karlovy Vary, and a Bosnian Muslim father, Muhamed Hamo Bilal who had been Josip Broz Tito's tailor. When he was five years old, his father managed to take a trip and stay in Paris as a political émigré. Enki and the rest of the family followed him, four years later.
Enki Bilal has no sense of belonging to any ethnic group and religion, nor is he obsessed with soil and roots. He said in one interview: "I also feel Bosnian by my father's origin, a Serb by my place of birth and a Croat by my relationship with a certain friends, not to mention my other Czech half, who I am inherited from mother".
At age 14, he met René Goscinny and with his encouragement applied his talent to comics. He produced work for Goscinny's Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote in the 1970s, publishing his first story, Le Bol Maudit, in 1972.
In 1975, Bilal began working with script writer Pierre Christin on a series of dark and surreal tales, resulting in the body of work titled Légendes d'Aujourd'hui.
He is best known for the Nikopol trilogy (La Foire aux immortels, La Femme piège and Froid Équateur), which took more than a decade to complete. Bilal wrote the script and did the artwork. The final chapter, Froid Équateur, was chosen book of the year by the magazine Lire and is acknowledged by the inventor of chess boxing as the inspiration for the sport.
Quatre? (2007), the last book in the Hatzfeld tetralogy, deals with the breakup of Yugoslavia from a future viewpoint. The first installment came in 1998 in the shape of Le Sommeil du Monstre opening with the main character, Nike, remembering the war in a series of traumatic flashbacks.
In 2012, Bilal was featured in a solo exhibition at The Louvre. The exhibition, titled "The Ghosts of the Louvre", ran from 20 December 2012 to 18 March 2013. The exhibition was organized by Fabrice Douar, and featured a series of paintings of "Ghosts", done atop photographs that Bilal took of the Louvre's collection.
Bilal was born in Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, to a Czech mother, Ana, who came to Belgrade as child from Karlovy Vary, and a Bosnian Muslim father, Muhamed Hamo Bilal who had been Josip Broz Tito's tailor. When he was five years old, his father managed to take a trip and stay in Paris as a political émigré. Enki and the rest of the family followed him, four years later.
Enki Bilal has no sense of belonging to any ethnic group and religion, nor is he obsessed with soil and roots. He said in one interview: "I also feel Bosnian by my father's origin, a Serb by my place of birth and a Croat by my relationship with a certain friends, not to mention my other Czech half, who I am inherited from mother".
At age 14, he met René Goscinny and with his encouragement applied his talent to comics. He produced work for Goscinny's Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote in the 1970s, publishing his first story, Le Bol Maudit, in 1972.
In 1975, Bilal began working with script writer Pierre Christin on a series of dark and surreal tales, resulting in the body of work titled Légendes d'Aujourd'hui.
He is best known for the Nikopol trilogy (La Foire aux immortels, La Femme piège and Froid Équateur), which took more than a decade to complete. Bilal wrote the script and did the artwork. The final chapter, Froid Équateur, was chosen book of the year by the magazine Lire and is acknowledged by the inventor of chess boxing as the inspiration for the sport.
Quatre? (2007), the last book in the Hatzfeld tetralogy, deals with the breakup of Yugoslavia from a future viewpoint. The first installment came in 1998 in the shape of Le Sommeil du Monstre opening with the main character, Nike, remembering the war in a series of traumatic flashbacks.
In 2012, Bilal was featured in a solo exhibition at The Louvre. The exhibition, titled "The Ghosts of the Louvre", ran from 20 December 2012 to 18 March 2013. The exhibition was organized by Fabrice Douar, and featured a series of paintings of "Ghosts", done atop photographs that Bilal took of the Louvre's collection.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 27, 2021
Com a queda do muro, reuniu-se, à laia de edição comemorativa, a nata da BD dos dois lados e fez-se uma coletânea tipo Live Aid com 2 ou 3 páginas para cada um. Vale por isso.
March 15, 2021
I've had this sitting on my shelf since it first came out, still sealed. It's terribly disappointing. Meant to celebrate the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, three of the creators instead attack capitalism. I was very happy when the wall went down. I have a picture of myself somewhere with the section of the wall that Microsoft moved to its campus in Redmond.
But here we have 3 creators who essentially dismiss the lack of creative freedom, terrible living conditions, shortened lifespans, and political slavery that was East Germany and instead let readers know the "real" problem is capitalism, that terrible system in which one chooses how to make a living, how to spend one's own time and money, and can spend as much time as one would like creating as long some time is spent producing a good or service someone else is willing to buy. It just proves one can be considered a talented comic creator and still be an absolute idiot.
But here we have 3 creators who essentially dismiss the lack of creative freedom, terrible living conditions, shortened lifespans, and political slavery that was East Germany and instead let readers know the "real" problem is capitalism, that terrible system in which one chooses how to make a living, how to spend one's own time and money, and can spend as much time as one would like creating as long some time is spent producing a good or service someone else is willing to buy. It just proves one can be considered a talented comic creator and still be an absolute idiot.
July 2, 2018
Olihan se iso juttu, kun Berliinissä muuri kaatui. Onneksi muuta vuosi myöhemmin rakennetaan uusia muureja, että saadaan muutaman vuoden päästä päivitetty versio tästä albumista.
Toisaalta, ei tämä nyt niin hyvä ollut, että saadakseen tästä päivittetty versio, kannattaisi muureja rakentaa.
Oli tässä hetkensä, mutta osa jutuista oli myös liian syvällistä, että olisin jaksanut nähdä vaivaa keskittyäkseni. Taidetta.
Toisaalta, ei tämä nyt niin hyvä ollut, että saadakseen tästä päivittetty versio, kannattaisi muureja rakentaa.
Oli tässä hetkensä, mutta osa jutuista oli myös liian syvällistä, että olisin jaksanut nähdä vaivaa keskittyäkseni. Taidetta.
May 11, 2023
This was hit or miss for me. Mostly, though, I didn’t feel I knew enough about the moment it was trying to capture for it to really resonate with me. The cover did remind me of the We Are The World album which I enjoyed.
October 31, 2018
THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL in words and/or art by many Europeans- some towards or in U.S.S.R. and also Bill Sienkewiscz!
October 6, 2025
An anthology series of comics, prints, and essays commerating (and commenting on) the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, featuring a huge variety of notable creators at the time.
This was a quite an enjoyable and varied collection of contemplative content. Many of the contributions were modest but there were plenty of really well executed and thoughtful little works. My favorite was probably Dave Gibbons satiral comic about a capitalist superhero nominating himself the "boss" of the East Berlin government after it's fall. Milo Minara's comic about a girl dancing with living graphitti on the wall was cute and surprisingly innocent given his ouvre. I also quite enjoyed Pahek's futurist adaptation where countries are floating ships but Europe remains landlocked due to a heavy military checkpoint before it becomes dismantled due to civilian uprising.
This was a quite an enjoyable and varied collection of contemplative content. Many of the contributions were modest but there were plenty of really well executed and thoughtful little works. My favorite was probably Dave Gibbons satiral comic about a capitalist superhero nominating himself the "boss" of the East Berlin government after it's fall. Milo Minara's comic about a girl dancing with living graphitti on the wall was cute and surprisingly innocent given his ouvre. I also quite enjoyed Pahek's futurist adaptation where countries are floating ships but Europe remains landlocked due to a heavy military checkpoint before it becomes dismantled due to civilian uprising.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews