212 - Bilal

Bilal ENKI BILAL Hunting Trip, Dargaud 1983 Original artwork no. 38, first published in Pilote Mensuel no. 99 in August 1982. Signed. Acrylic on paper 34.5 × 45.2 cm (13.58 × 17.8 in.) This panel is from one of the most iconic albums by the duo Pierre Christin and Enki Bilal, as *Partie de chasse* foreshadows the fall of the Berlin Wall, which would occur a few years later, in 1989. The “Soviet bloc” was then in a state of complete decay, led by a class of aging apparatchiks clinging to their privileges and undermined by dark court intrigues among the secret services. One cannot help but admire Bilal’s artistry. He is among the pioneers of “drawn color”—direct coloring—which emerged shortly after the advent of home scanners in the early 1980s. From Leonardo da Vinci—about whom Téodor de Wyzewa speaks of “lascivious terror” to the “symphonic ” of Peter Paul Rubens, through Rembrandt’s “playfulness of colors” or that of Watteau’s “poems,” color conveys sensations and emotions. Comic book authors are no exception... Color sets the mood, whether it’s calm or meditative, or heavy with menace, as it is here. Some use it with consummate artistry, which sometimes constitutes the very essence of their storytelling style. This is the case in this panel, where Bilal, with his deep, brilliant blues, his wood paneling, and his marbles of “pure Soviet chic,” creates an atmosphere that perfectly serves the narrative.