Peplum

by Blutch, Edward Gauvin (Translator)

Overview

The man known as Blutch is one of the giants of contemporary comics, and Peplum may be his masterpiece: a grand, strange dream of ancient Rome. At the edge of the empire, a gang of bandits discovers the body of a beautiful woman in a cave; she is encased in ice but may still be alive. One of the bandits, bearing a stolen name and with the frozen maiden in tow, makes his way toward Rome—seeking power, or maybe just survival, as the world unravels.

Thrilling and hallucinatory, vast in scope yet unnervingly intimate, Peplum weaves together threads from Shakespeare and the Satyricon along with Blutch’s own distinctive vision. His hypnotic storytelling and stark, gorgeous art pull us into one of the great works of graphic literature, translated into English for the first time.

This NYRC edition features new English hand-lettering and is an oversized paperback with French flaps and extra-thick paper.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590179833
Publisher:	New York Review Books
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	344,226
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 11.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Blutch (Christian Hincker) is an award-winning, highly influential French cartoonist. He has published almost two dozen books since his 1988 comic debut in the legendary avant-garde magazine Fluide Glacial, including Mitchum, Le Petit Christian, and So Long, Silver Screen, his only previous book to be published in English. His illustrations appear in Les Inrockuptibles, Libération, and The New Yorker.

Edward Gauvin has translated more than a hundred and fifty graphic novels and is a two-time winner of the John Dryden Translation Competition. He is the contributing editor for Francophone comics at Words Without Borders.

Editorial Reviews

Famous in his native France and nearly unknown here, the cartoonist who goes by Blutch (real name: Christian Hincker) has a magnificently expressive line, so bold and ragged that it often looks as if he's snapped his brush in half and is mashing its splintered end into the drawing board.

The New York Times Book Review - Douglas Wolk

03/14/2016
Blutch (aka Christian Hincker) is a revered cartoonist in France, but this is only the second of his books to be translated into English. Considered one of his masterworks, it’s a rough continuation of The Satyricon, with Blutch’s own feverish story line providing the counterpoint. Roman Publius Cimber finds the statue of a woman in a cave, and madness and obsession follow—accompanied by faux-Shakespearian dialogue, finely captured by Gauvin’s translation. Blutch’s art is truly exquisite, rendering battles, orgies, and conversations in dense, inky lines akin to Mattotti, but completely his own and completely haunting. The storytelling likewise consists of simple grids of panels. Despite all this clarity, the story is elusive and disjointed, as men, beasts, and monsters all stand in the way of Cimber’s quest for love. The book requires rereading to grasp the scope of storytelling and linework, which is effortless enough to make the greatest American cartoonists jealous. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Famous in his native France and nearly unknown here, the cartoonist who goes by Blutch (real name: Christian Hincker) has a magnificently expressive line, so bold and ragged that it often looks as if he’s snapped his brush in half and is mashing its splintered end into the drawing board.”
Douglas Wolk, The New York Times Book Review 

"Blutch’s art is truly exquisite, rendering battles, orgies, and conversations in dense, inky lines akin to Mattotti, but completely his own and completely haunting.... The book requires rereading to grasp the scope of storytelling and linework, which is effortless enough to make the greatest American cartoonists jealous." —Publishers Weekly

“Peplum reads like a dream... Here, in poetic and aesthetic glory, Blutch explores the attraction of death and the psychotic longing to encounter the sublime.” Shea Hennum, The AV Club

“Blutch works in scratchy black: his lines are elemental and start and his frames hefty…His story, too, has an epic quality…Haunting and ambiguous, this is a brutal tale not only of endurance, betrayal and mistaken love, but also of a realm whose centre can no longer hold.” —Rachel Cooke, The Observer (UK)

“This book isn’t so much a book as a procession of images to be beheld, a sensual spectacle to be felt. It’s the fervour and rush, seething and surging off Blutch’s pages, which leaves the most savage impression.” —Brian Gibson, Vue Weekly

“Blutch is a master. No other cartoonist renders with such casual virtuosity. It’s long overdue for his books to be translated into English.” —Craig Thompson

“One of our greatest artists.” —L’Express

“In the hands of the amazing Mr. Hincker (who uses the pseudonym Blutch), a simple pencil takes on the qualities of a magic wand.” —The New York Times

“One of the greatest living cartoonists (and if you don’t think Blutch fits this bill you really, really need to read more Blutch).”—The Comics Reporter
 
“One of the most important European cartoonists of the past 20 years.”—Robot 6

From the Publisher