Comix Reading List #6: SOCIAL FICTION

6. SOCIAL FICTION by Chantal Montellier (New York Review Comics) Library

"1996" by Chantal Montellier was serialized beginning in one of the most well-known magazines of the 70s, HEAVY METAL #1 (April 1977), although unlike Moebius, Druillet, and Corben (all three appeared alongside her in HM #1) she did not go on to become a comic book version of a household name in the U.S.! 

"Wonder City"

This book probably won't rectify that oversight entirely, but translator Geoffrey Brock gives Montellier's original vision a better chance to be experienced, at least.

"Shelter"

Three graphic novels by Montellier are newly translated and gathered together to great effect. I love the art style very much, but it's the gravity of the stories that really impress here.

"1996: So Fast In Their Shiny Metal Cars"

Montellier's dystopian vision of the future is now familiar in our everyday lives. Her work is very brutal in depicting a surveillance state that manipulates, controls, and disposes of indiscriminately it's poor, minority, and politically disenfranchised citizens. This last illustration is from a segment of "1996" that is particularly powerful in depicting systemic racism, the final page of the segment is way beyond a shock ending.