Panorama

by Michel Fiffe

From the archives of Copra creator, Michel Fiffe, comes a body horror romance of epic proportions.Panorama follows the adventures of teenage couple Kim & Augustus as they navigate their way through a shared, unwanted ability they can't control. Panorama blends chiaroscuro with a kinetic line that perfectly captures runaways trying to find love, define identity, and survive a metamorphosis unlike anything ever seen before.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Bande Dessinée, Comics Manga

128 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 16, 2020

About the author

Michel Fiffe is the creator of the action series COPRA, published by Bergen Street Press, and the intimately surreal Zegas, collected by Fantagraphics. He's worked with Marvel, Valiant, and BOOM! and continues to serialize COPRA when he's not writing massive essays on comics of note. Fiffe has produced Bloodstrike: Brutalists (Image Comics) and G.I. Joe: Sierra Muerte (IDW) in their entirety and has recently launched a new title, Negativeland.

Reviews

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 'body horror romance' is really the best description. Fiffe's art is exceptional. The story is okay.

3.5 stars

[Amanja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Panorama is a graphic novel that could be described as a body horror romance. Certainly not the most popular genre but it's honestly one of my all time favorites. What can I say, I like my romances dark and twisted.

For the unfamiliar, body horror is a subgenre of horror that uses the human body to create the fear. This may be done through transformation, disfiguration, manipulation, evolution, devolution, or torture. The most popular kings of body horror are David Cronenberg and Junji Ito. I'm huge fans of both.

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[Jordan West · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sort of Parasyte by way of Scott Pilgrim, and while it doesn't reach heights of either of those, Fiffe is incredibly adept at portraying all manner of body horror, at times rivaling Ito and Kaga for grotesquerie, and I'll be interested in seeing what phantasmagorical depths he explores in his future work.

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really weird horror romance. The plot was difficult to grasp, but I could feel the characters so that's something.

[Sem · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a bit too disjointed to enjoy in full but the body horror sections are amazing to look at and Fiffe's art is just a great fit for this type of story. Plot-wise it's nothing astounding but as a visual spectacle - it works.

[RJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aesthetically body horror, tonally coming of age romance story. Michel Fiffe is one of the best cartoonists alive and this is a great short self-contained story with which to introduce yourself to his kinetic and zany style. Also, a Cronenberg guy cums.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with the other reviewers here: a lot of the art is exceptional, with its sheer explosion of inventive detail and phantasmagoric anatomical transformations. Check out Alexander Peterhans' review for some examples.

The writing is reasonable, but peters out in the last chapter.

[Ross Tomita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Art = 5/5
Story = 🥺🥴🤨?

[Alex E · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are into body horror, boy do I have the book for you.

This book tells the story of a guy who has these ...powers, and I hesitate to say that word as they are, to me, more of curse, but he has these powers to twist, bend, stretch, and all sorts of other things to his body. He often becomes what can only be described as a psychedelic mess of body parts. It is usually strange and disturbing to look at, and is frequently featured within the book as the most prominent occurrence. It's basically the driving force of the plot. This guy has a girlfriend who is unbelievably indifferent to her boyfriends ability and in fact, relishes in the fact that she takes over his powers after he is absorbed into her - yeah its weird and it only gets weirder and weirder.

I will say the story is... odd and doesn't really flow too well in my opinion. However, the art is pretty incredible. If you are familiar with Michel Fiffe's work, you know he has a lot of energy and originality to his art. And it is in full effect here as you can almost "see" movement and feel the pulls and pushes of skin, bone and muscle. I gave the book an extra star just for the originality of the art.

Overall, I would say if you are into Michel Fiffe or general body horror, this one is one you cant miss.

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following two teens who find themselves with odd body-transforming abilities, Panorama is advertised aptly as a body horror romance. The story is quite disjointed and unclear, but it's the artwork that makes this a bit more special. Fiffe seems to pull from the sensibilities of Shintaro Kako's ero guro works or even a bit from Hitoshi Iwaaki's Parasyte series. Adding to the highly grotesque imagery are some radically inventive panel layouts to make for an incredibly unique looking comic.

[Brett Marcus Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this when it was initially serialized as part of a webcomics collective on LiveJournal called Act-I-Vate, and it melted my brain and showed me a way that comics could be made which I'd never considered before. Years later I actually met and sort of befriended Fiffe at HeroesCon, and got really into his other comics. He's incredible, and this reread more than a decade later still feels super fresh, even with a better understanding of his influences (there's a LOT of Love and Rockets in this!!) and the work he went on to do. Good body horror coming of age romance stuff.

[David Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early body horror, so odd to see Figfe’s work in black and white, he’s an artist that has such a specific color sense, like Graham or Stokoe.

[Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5

[Soap ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ · Rating 4 out of 5]

lots of gender expression here, love the sapphic notes