Rebuilding Story Worlds: The Obscure Cities by Schuiten and Peeters (Critical Graphics)

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. "'The Obscure Cities' series is a long-running comics series by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters that is considered one of the major European and global contributions to the "new comics". It is a series that escapes the dichotomy "comics" versus "graphic novel" as well as the opposition between popular comics and avant-garde niche production. 'The Obscure Cities' is the perfect example of a series that is both highly innovative and very popular. Both authors, Schuiten and Peeters, are key players in contemporary cultural debates and work in Europe, and well known to the American public. 'Rebuilding Story Worlds', aims at providing the first introduction to this essential series. It has the ambition to offer, in a truly interdisciplinary spirit, a threefold presentation and analysis of the work by Schuiten and Peeters : a synoptic overview and historical contextual contextualization of the series and the European and global comics culture of which it is part ; a critical reading of the major themes and techniques of the series, in relationship with the general stakes of the field and in light of cutting-edge research on comics, with a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary concerns (architecture, gender, visual culture, genre theory) ; and, an analysis of certain themes that stress the political and societal relevance of 'The Obscure Cities', more specifically themes that have come to the fore in recent and current scholarship in comics studies (which have shifted, very generally speaking, from semiotics to cultural studies and critical theory), the question of gender will play a major role in this regard. 'Rebuilding Story Worlds' also contains a wide range of close reading, which make it a great choice for comics fans and for classroom discussion."-- Provided by publisher 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.00Rebuilding 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.00Synthesizing 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