Enki Bilal, a French citizen born in Belgrade and the
legendary creator of the highly-regarded graphic novel series
Nicopol Trilogy, had plenty to say about
both art and politics on a recent visit to Istanbul, all reported at
hurriyet.com. In the
U.S.,
Bilal has worked only with
Heavy Metal,
disdaining, we gather, offers from Marvel and DC and the like. "Smart and
interesting comics stay in the shadows there,” he said. “The main problem with
America is they
fit everything into confined frameworks and I am against that," he added.
Many of his colleagues aspire to doing work in
America, considering it the
pinnacle of their careers, he said, but he doesn’t think the cultural level of
the American consumer is high enough. "Of course, metropolises like
New York do not fit in with what I have just said, but
the majority of
America is
not
New York
either," he said. Bilal perceives differences between American, European
and Japanese comics. "There are three important and different types of
comics, but they complete each other," he said. In his opinion, the writer
is more important in
Europe, the construction
of the story comes first for Americans and the Japanese focus on the manga
style. "All three scenes produce determined and quality work," he
said.
Comments