Rebuilding Story Worlds : The Obscure Cities by Schuiten and Peeters / Jan Baetens.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baetens, Jan, Author.

Series:

Critical Graphics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Graphic novels--Belgium--History and criticism.

Graphic novels.

Comic books, strips, etc--Belgium--History and criticism.

Comic books, strips, etc.

Schuiten, François. Cités obscures.

Schuiten, François.

Schuiten, François--Criticism and interpretation.

Peeters, Benoît, 1956---Criticism and interpretation.

Peeters, Benoît.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (199 pages).

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

A collaboration between Belgian artist François Schuiten and French writer Benoît Peeters, The Obscure Cities is one of the few comics series to achieve massive popularity while remaining highly experimental in form and content. Set in a parallel world, full of architecturally distinctive city-states, The Obscure Cities also represents one of the most impressive pieces of world-building in any form of literature. Rebuilding Story Worlds offers the first full-length study of this seminal series, exploring both the artistic traditions from which it emerges and the innovative ways it plays with genre, gender, and urban space. Comics scholar Jan Baetens examines how Schuiten’s work as an architectural designer informs the series’ concerns with the preservation of historic buildings. He also includes an original interview with Peeters, which reveals how poststructuralist critical theory influenced their construction of a rhizomatic fictional world, one which has made space for fan contributions through the Alta Plana website. Synthesizing cutting-edge approaches from both literary and visual studies, Rebuilding Story Worlds will give readers a new appreciation for both the aesthetic ingenuity of The Obscure Cities and its nuanced conception of politics.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

1. A New Series, a New Type of Author

2. A World of Its Own

3. More Than a Possible World

4. Between Chapter and Series

5. A New Fantastic

6. In and Out the Medium

7. Doing Politics in Comics

8. Close-Reading The Leaning Girl

9. A Conversation with Benoît Peeters

10. Birth of an Album: The Theory of the Grain of Sand

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jun 2020)

ISBN:

1-9788-0851-8

OCLC:

1153937406