Peplum

At the furthest edges of the Roman Empire, exiled warrior Publius Cimber leads a small band of mercenaries to free a mysterious goddess frozen in ice. As they pull their icy quarry from the cave and begin hauling her away, the group succumbs one by one to the extreme environment. At last, Publius dies, murdered by an angry, nameless youth who becomes the only survivor. Assuming the identity of the free-born Roman, this new Publius travels through the ancient world experiencing obsession, love, battle, murder, and magic. Peplum is a visual tour de force of comics language. Blutch (aka Christian Hincker) tells a surreal adventure in the manner of Petronius's Satyricon while using the emotional body language and panel styling of Will Eisner infused with the smooth, moving line work that powered Eric Drooker's Flood, giving the tale a bulging musculature that would fit in well with the best films of the peplum genre. In doing so, Blutch (So Long, Silver Screen) employs the comic form to craft a story with affecting legitimacy and unexpected visual combinations that make every page a new adventure without precedent or convention.