Enki Bilal

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Enki Bilal

Enki Bilal, September 2008
Birth name Enes Bilal
Born October 7, 1951 (1951-10-07) (age 57)
Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Nationality French
Area(s) artist, writer, director
Notable works Nikopol Trilogy
Légendes d'Aujourd'hui
Partie de chasse
Awards full list

Enki Bilal (born Enes Bilal on October 7, 1951) is a French comic book creator, comics artist and film director.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to a Slovak mother and a Bosnian father who had been Tito's tailor, he moved to Paris at the age of 9.[1] There, at 14, he met René Goscinny and with his encouragement applied his talent to comics. He produced work for Goscinny's comics magazine Pilote in the 1970s, publishing his first story, Le Bol Maudit, in 1972.

He began working with script writer Pierre Christin in 1975 on a series of dark and surreal tales, resulting in the body of work entitled Légendes d'Aujourd'hui.

On of his most renowned works is the Nikopol trilogy (La Foire aux Immortels, La Femme Piège and Froid Équateur), which took more than a decade to appear. Bilal wrote the script and did all the artwork. The final chapter, Froid Équateur, was even awarded the book of the year award by the magazine Lire and is acknowledged by the inventor of chess boxing, Iepe Rubingh, as being the inspiration for this new sport.

His most recent publication is Quatre? (2007), the last book in the Hatzfeld tetralogy, dealing with the breakup of former Yugoslavia but from the future. The first installment came in 1998 in the shape of Le Sommeil du Monstre opening with the main character, Nike, remembering the war in a series of traumatic flashbacks. The third chapter of the tetralogy is titled Rendez-vous à Paris (2006). It gives a good indication of Bilal's popularity, being the fifth best selling new French comic of 2006 with 280,000 copies.[2]

His cinematic career has recently been revived with the expensive Immortel (Ad Vitam) which is his first attempt to adapt his books to the screen. The film received split critics, some panning the use of CGI characters but others have seen it as a faithful reinterpretation of the books.

On May 13, 2008 a video game based on the Nikopol trilogy was announced entitled Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals. To be published in North America by Got Game Entertainment in August 2008, the game will be a "point and click" adventure for the PC; however, the Lead Designer is Benoit Sokal and not Bilal himself, who will be the art designer, along with Yoshitaka Amano for the upcoming video game Beyond Good & Evil 2.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Légendes d'Aujourd'hui

written by Pierre Christin

  • La Croisière des oubliés (The Cruise of Lost Souls, 1975)
  • Le Vaisseau de pierre (Ship of Stone, 1976)
  • La ville qui n'existait pas (The Town That Didn't Exist, 1977)
  • Townscapes (reprint of La Croisière des oubliés, Le Vaisseau de pierre, and La ville qui n'existait pas, 2004)

[edit] Nikopol Trilogy

[edit] Hatzfeld Tetralogy

[edit] Other

  • Mémoires d'outre-espace, Histoires courtes 1974-1977 (Memories From Outer Space, 1978)
  • Exterminateur 17 (Exterminator 17, 1979; written by Jean-Pierre Dionnet)
  • Les Phalanges de l'ordre noir (The Black Order Brigade, 1979; written by Pierre Christin)
  • Partie de chasse (The Hunting Party, 1983; written by Pierre Christin)
  • Los Angeles - L'Étoile oubliée de Laurie Bloom (Los Angeles - The Forgotten Star of Laurie Bloom, 1984)
  • Hors Jeu (Off Play, 1987; with Patrick Cauvin)
  • Coeurs sanglants et autres faits divers (Bleeding Hearts and Other Stories, 1988; written by Pierre Christin)
  • Bleu Sang (Blue Blood, 1994)
  • Mémoires d'autre temps, Histoires courtes 1971-1981 (Memories From Other Times, 1996)
  • EnkiBilalAnDeuxMilleUn (EnkiBilalInTwoThousandOne, 1996)
  • Tykho Moon - livre d'un film (Tykho Moon - Book of a film, 1996)
  • Un siècle d'Amour (A century of Love , 1999)
  • Le Sarcophage (The Sarcophagus, 2000)
  • Magma (2000)
  • The Chaos Effect (reprint of Les Phalanges de l'ordre noir and Partie de chasse, 2005)

[edit] English translations

[edit] Comics in Heavy Metal Magazine

In the Eighties Bilal was a frequent guest in American Heavy Metal Magazine. Many famous Bilal comics made their English debut in this period of the magazine, although shorter stories appeared later also.

Graphic Novels

English title Date (start) Issue (start) Date (end) Issue (end) Writer Number
of pages
Exterminator 17 1978/10 Vol. 2 No. 6 1979/03 Vol. 2 No. 11 Jean-Pierre Dionnet 60
Progress! 1980/07 Vol. 4 No. 4 1980/11 Vol. 4 No. 8 Pierre Christin 54
The Nikopol Trilogy: The Immortals' Fete 1981/05 Vol. 5 No. 2 1981/12 Vol. 5 No. 9 Enki Bilal 62
The Voyage of Those Forgotten 1982/04 Vol. 6 No. 1 1982/11 Vol. 6 No. 8 Pierre Christin 52
The City That Didn't Exist 1983/03 Vol. 6 No. 12 1983/09 Vol. 7 No. 6 Pierre Christin 54
The Hunting Party 1984/06 Vol. 8 No. 3 1985/03 Vol. 8 No. 12 Pierre Christin 82
The Nikopol Trilogy: The Trapped Woman 1986/Fall Vol. 10 No. 3 same as start Enki Bilal 54

Short Stories

English title Date Issue Note Number of pages
Crossroads Of The Universe 1977/07 Vol. 1 No. 4 reprinted in Greatest Hits 1994 7
The Death Of Orlaon, or: Legendary Immortality 1978/07 Vol. 2 No. 3 reprinted in The Best Of 1982 4
Ultimate Negotiations 1979/01 Vol. 2 No. 9 4
True Tales Of Outer Space: The Planet Of No Return 1979/02 Vol. 2 No. 10 7
Going Native 1979/04 Vol. 2 No. 12 7
The Road to Ruin 1980/02 Vol. 3 No. 10 written by Pierre De La Varech 2
Of Needle and Thread 1980/04 Vol. 4 No. 1 reprinted in hardcover version of Greatest Hits 1994 4
Only the Plitch 1980/05 Vol. 4 No. 2 reprinted in The Best Of #2 1986 10
Amusing Stories Section: A Day in the Log of the City of Alger 1982/08 Vol. 6 No. 5 written by Jean-Pierre Dionnet 4
Enki Bilal Enters the World of Hardcore Science Fiction 1983/10 Vol. 7 No. 7 Art gallery 7
The Gray Man 1984/09 Vol. 9 No. 6 reprinted in Greatest Hits 1994 1
Over the Wall 1984 Son Of Heavy Metal 4
The Leader's Surprise 1997/07 Vol. 21 No. 3 4
Mondovision 1997/11 Vol. 21 No. 5 4
Close the Shutters and Open Your Eyes 1997 Horror Special - Vol. 11 No 1 10
On The Wing 1997/Fall 20 Years of Heavy Metal - Vol. 11 No. 2 7
New York, 2000 AD. 1998/01 Vol. 21 No. 6 4
The Slow Boat to Vega 1998/03 Vol. 22 No. 1 4

[edit] Albums

Since the late seventies publishers like NBM,[3] Catalan Communications, Humanoids publishing have released several albums by Bilal.


[edit] NBM

  • The Call of the Stars (March, 1979. Flying Buttress Publications ISBN 0918348021, ISBN-13 9780918348029)

A collection of short stories.

[edit] Catalan Communications

paperback books

[edit] Humanoids Publishing

hardcover, large format books

The Bilal Library: (small format - 190 × 260 cm - paperbacks)

Trade Paperback:

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Awards

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Lambiek Comiclopedia. "Enki Bilal". http://lambiek.net/artists/b/bilal.htm. 
  2. ^ Beatty, Bart (2007-01-03). "ACBD Status Report for 2006". The Comics Reporter. http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/eurocomics/8313/. 
  3. ^ [Hervé St.Louis: Interview with Terry Nantier - Publisher of NBM Publishing on Comic Book Bin]
  4. ^ a b Enki Bilal biography bilal.enki.free.fr
  5. ^ ToutEnBD. "Le Palmarès 1987" (in French). http://www.toutenbd.com/article.php3?id_article=839. 
  6. ^ La Médiathèque. "1997". http://www.lamediatheque.be/dec/cinema/film_fantastique/1997.php. 
  7. ^ Press release Fantasia Ubisoft 2004 Festival
  8. ^ IHG Award Recipients

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enki_Bilal"
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