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Memories of Outer Space
Contenu- Drame colonial- Au nom du fer, du fil...- Ultime négociation- La Planète du non-retour- La mort d'Orlaon- Le déglingué (scénario P. de la Varech)- Drame colonial bis- Le Plitch
52 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1978
About the author
Enki Bilal
240 books322 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 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 11, 2024
Historias muy "Metal hurlant" con personajes esquemáticos, dibujo muy trabajado y finales con sorpresa en un tono humorístico.
May 25, 2019
3,5/5
April 15, 2022
A Collection of Short and Shorter Stories
Enki Bilal's work was published in 2002, in hardcover, large format graphic novel. Rich in vibrant hues, the book is readily accessible to readers of different backgrounds and cultures. It is the global idea of 'outer space' and 'alien' vs. 'human' that ties it all together. That, and the idea of an ongoing intergalactic war that unifies several of the stories.
The artwork is of good quality, though not to my taste. It's of a style that seems somewhat juvenile. Though the English translation was done in 2002, it was published in the original French in 1974-1977. Enki Bilal would have been about 24 at the time, though he's now 70.
The individual stories are intriguing, though they often seem preoccupied with alienation, death, war, and blood predominantly. The writer employs a great deal of irony in the resolutions, and none of the stories seem to have an ending that embodies hope.
But those ironies! They leave you thinking. I got the feeling the young Enki was experimenting and exploring his ideas and art, while bringing some of his own cross-cultural experiences into ink. Born in the Balkans, to a Czech mother and a Bosnian father, he emigrated with his family to France where his father obtained citizenship while Enki was still young.
Enki has an extensive bibliography and award history. I would be interested in seeing some of his writing and art from this century.
Enki Bilal's work was published in 2002, in hardcover, large format graphic novel. Rich in vibrant hues, the book is readily accessible to readers of different backgrounds and cultures. It is the global idea of 'outer space' and 'alien' vs. 'human' that ties it all together. That, and the idea of an ongoing intergalactic war that unifies several of the stories.
The artwork is of good quality, though not to my taste. It's of a style that seems somewhat juvenile. Though the English translation was done in 2002, it was published in the original French in 1974-1977. Enki Bilal would have been about 24 at the time, though he's now 70.
The individual stories are intriguing, though they often seem preoccupied with alienation, death, war, and blood predominantly. The writer employs a great deal of irony in the resolutions, and none of the stories seem to have an ending that embodies hope.
But those ironies! They leave you thinking. I got the feeling the young Enki was experimenting and exploring his ideas and art, while bringing some of his own cross-cultural experiences into ink. Born in the Balkans, to a Czech mother and a Bosnian father, he emigrated with his family to France where his father obtained citizenship while Enki was still young.
Enki has an extensive bibliography and award history. I would be interested in seeing some of his writing and art from this century.
February 10, 2017
Com fotos em https://osrascunhos.com/2017/02/08/me...
Neste Memórias D’Além Espaço reúnem-se várias histórias de Enki Bilal que decorrem sobretudo no exterior da terra e envolvem outras espécies inteligentes, espécies com códigos diferentes dos nossos que cuja interacção deriva numa estranha e catastrófica confusão diplomática.
Mas aqui não se ironizam apenas os contactos com outras culturas, mas também a interacção com robots e inteligências artificiais ou homens que se cruzaram com robots de forma simultaneamente louca e romântica. Os seres humanos continuam a tentar usar os outros seres que encontram e que fabricam, relativando as suas necessidades e pensamentos, e julgando que podem facilmente manipular com uma atitude condescendente e prepotente.
Aqui encontramos espécies alienígenas que destacam as suas próprias cabeças, mantendo-se conscientes e vivos, espécies que se dedicam à paz e à harmonia apesar das capacidades que fariam deles excelentes soldados, plantas que criam ilusões fenomenais e amores impossíveis entre robots e humanóides.
Divertido e irónico, possui algumas histórias engraçadas, destacando-se pelo aspecto gráfico de algumas componentes, carregadas de aspectos futuristas mas, ainda assim, tão humanos.
Neste Memórias D’Além Espaço reúnem-se várias histórias de Enki Bilal que decorrem sobretudo no exterior da terra e envolvem outras espécies inteligentes, espécies com códigos diferentes dos nossos que cuja interacção deriva numa estranha e catastrófica confusão diplomática.
Mas aqui não se ironizam apenas os contactos com outras culturas, mas também a interacção com robots e inteligências artificiais ou homens que se cruzaram com robots de forma simultaneamente louca e romântica. Os seres humanos continuam a tentar usar os outros seres que encontram e que fabricam, relativando as suas necessidades e pensamentos, e julgando que podem facilmente manipular com uma atitude condescendente e prepotente.
Aqui encontramos espécies alienígenas que destacam as suas próprias cabeças, mantendo-se conscientes e vivos, espécies que se dedicam à paz e à harmonia apesar das capacidades que fariam deles excelentes soldados, plantas que criam ilusões fenomenais e amores impossíveis entre robots e humanóides.
Divertido e irónico, possui algumas histórias engraçadas, destacando-se pelo aspecto gráfico de algumas componentes, carregadas de aspectos futuristas mas, ainda assim, tão humanos.
December 16, 2019
Bilal è un grande autore ma questa raccolta mi lascia l’amaro in bocca: le uniche due donne che appaiono sono personaggi di contorno e inoltre sono nude. In molte opere sue c’è un forte contenuto antifascista, ma se questo viene condito con il sessismo, allora di che stiamo a parlare?
November 20, 2024
The 2nd of this week's literary recommendations is for "Memories of Outer Space" by Enki Bilal, first published in 1978.
This is an anthology of short science-fiction comics written from 1974-1977. Most of the stories use the genre to satirise colonialism and militarism as well as the instrumentalisation of religious institutions to promote those agendas, especially in the form practised by the French Empire during the 19th and 20th centuries. This theme is clearest in the first story, which follows an extraterrestrial drafted as a colonial auxiliary to fight for an interstellar empire ran by humans while resenting that task, and in another where a Catholic missionary on a distant exoplanet has to deal with his cybernetic implants malfunctioning. Both of those stories build to morbidly hilarious conclusions I won't spoil. Notice that the author is a Bosnian immigrant to France, and hence would have an easier time seeing through the ridiculous aspects of France's history as a great power than most authors who grew up there.
Then we have the artwork, which takes the gritty lived in "used future" aesthetic popular at the time (reminiscent of "Star Wars" and "Alien" despite all the stories having been written before those films) and adds to that a colourful and whimsical yet nightmarish sense of surrealism. I usually find Bilal's comic books worth reading for that unique art style and atmosphere nobody else has quite replicated, even when I don't 100% understand the themes. (which I do here!)
If you like trippy science-fiction with an extremely dark sense of humour and a clear curiosity about sociological and political issues, this is definitely something to pick up if you have the opportunity.
This is an anthology of short science-fiction comics written from 1974-1977. Most of the stories use the genre to satirise colonialism and militarism as well as the instrumentalisation of religious institutions to promote those agendas, especially in the form practised by the French Empire during the 19th and 20th centuries. This theme is clearest in the first story, which follows an extraterrestrial drafted as a colonial auxiliary to fight for an interstellar empire ran by humans while resenting that task, and in another where a Catholic missionary on a distant exoplanet has to deal with his cybernetic implants malfunctioning. Both of those stories build to morbidly hilarious conclusions I won't spoil. Notice that the author is a Bosnian immigrant to France, and hence would have an easier time seeing through the ridiculous aspects of France's history as a great power than most authors who grew up there.
Then we have the artwork, which takes the gritty lived in "used future" aesthetic popular at the time (reminiscent of "Star Wars" and "Alien" despite all the stories having been written before those films) and adds to that a colourful and whimsical yet nightmarish sense of surrealism. I usually find Bilal's comic books worth reading for that unique art style and atmosphere nobody else has quite replicated, even when I don't 100% understand the themes. (which I do here!)
If you like trippy science-fiction with an extremely dark sense of humour and a clear curiosity about sociological and political issues, this is definitely something to pick up if you have the opportunity.
March 8, 2025
Des histoires courtes de science fiction, la plupart dans l'espace, pleines d'humour noir et d'intrigues folles...
January 18, 2024
Second read through of this book which is comprised of many Métal Hurlant-esque vignettes set in the same diverse universe which are all so wonderfully drawn and so funny and interesting. There’s a perfect balance present of intriguing random ass space lore thrown out there combined with all too down-to-earth antics. Almost all of the short stories sort of have a punch line, but moreso its like each vignette is one long punch line itself and the tee up for the joke is humanity but juxtaposed in space or with non-humans. Seriously so damn funny but still so visually stunning, ive gotta read more enki bilal i am such a fan of his art style; he’s almost in league with moebius (almost). If u need me I’ll be in a clinic in Albania
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews