The 9th Art: Before Blake and Mortimer: The Memorable Pulp of The U Ray and The Fiery Arrow
The U Rayis not perfect, but it’s bursting with adventure that has inspired one of the greatest comic writers of our time.
The U Rayis not perfect, but it’s bursting with adventure that has inspired one of the greatest comic writers of our time.
Curated by Eric Dubois, this exhibit holds a looking glass up to the earliest works of Blake and Mortimer’s creator, portraying him as a modern-day Homeric storyteller.
The series, which focuses on the adventures of the daring duo of Francis Blake and Phillip J. Mortimer, has a feeling, a style, all its own. Edgar P. Jacobs and his successors craft fully fleshed-out worlds that draw readers in, making us sad to leave at the end of each work.
The old cowboy has had the great luck to be written and illustrated by people who love and believe in the original Luke, people who recognize that we still need joyful stories about heroes.
To read Franquin’s Spirou and Fantasio comics is to blur the line between child and adult and to enter a world of wonder of which we could all use a taste.
Are comics, as some Francophones argue, a distinct ‘9th art’? In the first of a monthly series, Felix James Miller argues they are and introduces readers to some of the delights of the art form.
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