Les Murailles de Samaris...

[fajrdrako]

Just finished reading Les Murailles de Samaris by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters. It's from a series called Les Cités Obscures.

The joy of this graphic novel is its art. Gorgeous. It's a paean to architecture, a feast of art nouveau grandiosity, and almost pornographic celebration of doorways and arches and roofs. Costuming, too: sort of louche late Victorian clothes that segue into a Robinson Crusoe style towards the end.

The story? A gentleman named Franz, telling his own story, is sent on a mission to the city of Samraris, almost impossibly hard to get to, from which earlier emissaries have not returned. He goes there, stays in a magnificent hotel, and finds the city off-kilter and bizarre, until he eventually discovers the secret of the walls of Samaris - and has to find his way home again.

It's ... predictable. I'd even go so far as to say the story was slight. But architecturally, artistically, compositionally gorgeous.