The identity of paris through science fiction comic books

IDENTITY OF PARIS THROUGH SCIENCE FICTION COMIC BOOKS

THE IDENTITY OF PARIS THROUGH SCIENCE FICTION COMIC BOOKS

Have you ever tried to imagine what the city would look like in, 10, 20, 30, 50 years or even more? Some people such as architects, urbanists, politicians (as seen recently with le Grand Pari(s)) have, with or without success.

Paris is probably not the first city that comes to mind when you think of science fiction.

If you create a story that takes place in a near future, the most obvious choice would certainly be a city more like New York. Why? Probably because for most people, it’s the city that defines modernity, and therefore is the most likely to evolve and yet still remain as important in the future.

Does this mean that Paris can’t evolve? Is it condemned to remain the same, to be stuck in some museumification, as a “Capitale du XIXème siècle”? Rem Koolhaas states that “Paris is becoming more and more like Paris”. More clichéd? More “truthful” to its identity? To the image most people have of it? So then, what makes its identity?

In order to respond, we will focus on the representations of Paris in the field of sciencefiction comic books. I will analyse and compare the works of Enki Bilal and Benoît Peeters and François Schuiten (their series “Les Cités Obscures”) particularly the way they reinvent/redesign Paris. Consequently, we will try to find out how the city remains recognizable and therefore what creates its identity.

Why Paris?

First, we have to understand who are the authors we are dealing with.

Enki Bilal is a comic book artist/writer, born in the fifties in Yugoslavia. His childhood there, under the dictatorship of Tito at that time, had an important influence on his work. In the early sixties, his family decided to leave to France and settle in Paris where he has been living ever since. His very distinctive graphic style and original storylines have made him very influential and respected in his discipline.

Benoît Peeters, a Parisian writer, is a former student of Roland Barthes, whose main inspiration is the work of Jorge Luis Borges. François Schuiten, the Brusselian comic book artist, who comes from a family of architects (father and brother), is influenced by artists such as Victor Horta and Jules Verne. The Franco-Belgian duo, now in their fifties, began their partnership in 1983 while working for a comic book magazine.

Paris is their home, the city that adopted Bilal and where Peeters is a native. They know it well and have affection for it, however, it’s not their only influence, their only inspiration.

They have hindsight, other cities to compare it with (Belgrade for Bilal and Brussels for Peeters and Schuiten), Paris is just one among the many they have depicted.

To create his albums, Bilal mainly uses drawing tools such as charcoal, chalk, and pastels. He developed his technique, his specific graphic style, around those elements which now play an important part in creating the special atmosphere in his albums. In his dark and disturbing, yet captivating, universes, cities are dirty, dusty and dilapidated, grey, foggy, spreading like threads. Colour is rarely used except for blue and red, in order to emphasize some details, often the characters which seem to be his main focus.

As cities are often just a setting for the action, they seem very similar. In fact, we often get the idea that, for him, city = exterior = vulnerability and ultimately danger (which may have to do with Yugoslavia, and the conflict it underwent during the ‘90s). He has depicted Paris, several times over the years, for a satyric short story (Le Plitch, 1978), as the starting point of a series (La Trilogie Nikopol, 1980-1992) or as a rendezvous point at the ending of another (La Tétralogie du Monstre, 1998-2007), always in a different way.

On the contrary, the whole concept behind Les Cités Obscures is to portray fictive cities, sometimes alternative versions of real ones set up in an undetermined time (an uchronia ), which all have strong identities, because of their specific architecture. Portrayed with a lot of details, thanks to a clear graphic style, which emphasizes their realism, they are always the main actors of the story. The character is only an observer of a place he doesn’t know, that intrigues him and that he tries to understand at the same time as we do.

It is interesting to notice that, whereas Peeters and Schuiten have created an album entitled Brüsel (Brussels), a similar venture wasn’t undertaken for Pâhry (Paris) as “the enterprise would be too overwhelming” according to them. That could be because Schuiten, being Belgian, doesn’t know Paris well enough to understand the vision that Peeters had in mind and illustrate it in his drawings. Is Paris so iconic that they can’t imagine it any differently than the way it is? Is it so dense, so rich and so full of history that any vision of it would be too simplistic, superficial and fail to do justice to what it actually is?

However, some fragments, short stories, drawings, writings have been put together, little by little, through the years from the 80’s until today. They decided to focus only on some aspects of the city, that’s why we can’t have a complete vision of Pâhry. Some images might even contradict themselves as Peeters and Schuiten‘s imagination has evolved but with the different pieces, we try to imagine the rest.

With Peteers and Schuiten there is a desire to explore the city, a character in itself, its role, its different aspects, the influence it can have on us, what creates its identity, how it has evolved, how it works, what are the mechanics of it. The notion of time is important, the city has changed, we are never quite sure of what year it is, buildings sometimes look futuristic but the way people are dressed and the vehicles they drive evoke more the first half of the XXth century.

We can also notice the strong influence of Borges, his reflections on labyrinths and the city, the passion of Italino Calvino for imaginary cities, the notion of reality, illusion, simulacrum as seen in “L’invention de Morel” by Adolfo Bioy Casares.

In this dense universe, reality and fiction are mixed to the point where we don’t know what is real and what is invented. The authors rewrite history, invent a new geography.

The characters are pure invention yet they often refer to real historical figures. The illusion that these cities actually exist, is conveyed through a lot of information given by extra “special issue” albums (number of normal albums = number of special ones). Intended to decrypt this alternative world, they actually add another layer of mystery. The reader is completely drawn into this world and starts to believe in its existence.

Pretending to use time shifting to imagine different dystopian versions of Paris in a near future (2023, 2026, 2027), Bilal actually always had a strong desire to “stick to the present” in each of his representations. The regimes driven by religion or fascist leaders he describes may not exist in France, but they are a reality in some other parts of the world. Using Paris is just a way for him to have a greater impact on his readers as the largest amount of them live there.

Since they are familiar with this environment, they identify themselves to it and are directly affected by the transformations made by the author. Therefore they are more likely to react, to question themselves: could Paris become like that? Is it already somehow? What aspect of it will still remain in the future?

How do we recognize Paris?

Unfortunately, even in science fiction, we don’t easily avoid the clichéd views of Paris, the authors always rely on landmarks to inform us where we are. Why the constant use of landmarks? Because they are universal, everyone can identify them and therefore know where the scene takes place. We play on the visual memory of the readers. In an undefined space, a landmark such as the Eiffel Tower always reminds us we are in Paris, no matter what is around. A landmark’s accuracy in terms of size, location, function, and details is not important as long as we can identify it easily.

Bilal understands this well: in “Le Sommeil du Monstre” (first album of “La Tétralogie du Monstre”) the story’s setting is New York, but when an event happens in Paris, the only exterior scenes is a bird’s eye view of the Eiffel Tower. The monument automatically informs us where the scene takes place without any other information. The image doesn’t have to look exactly like the real tower: its structure is not visible, it seems filled with black panels, like a silhouette.

Is it the way Bilal thinks it will become, or just a way for him of avoiding details?

In his albums, landmarks are often associated with political power. In one scenario, the second level of the Eiffel Tower, where the Global Security Council regularly meets, is the victim of a terrorist attack. It’s partly destroyed, but still, the highly symbolic image is strong enough to have an impact on the reader. It’s an attempt against the most iconic building of the city, the city itself, its inhabitants, political figures, the nation, the country, the world... The events depicted here could be seen as a foreshadowing of 9/11 since the album was published in 1998.

Later in the series, the tower is seen again like it was before, without any trace of the attack, as if nothing ever happened. Is the building so iconic that if it was actually destroyed we would rebuild it exactly the same way?

In a satiric short story, entitled Le Plitch, the country leader: “the presid’ordre” (resembling Valéry Giscard d’Estaing) has to deal with the strange disappearance of most of the French people since the recent apparition of an alien in Gennevilliers. His public speech, to the remaining population, is made from the roof of the only recognizable building here: the Arc de Triomphe. The monument is purposely used here for its iconic value, originally associated with the image of a successful and triumphant nation, it has become, here, a symbol of defeat, the failure of the French government. Maybe we should ask ourselves what does the Arc de Triomphe represent to the reader? A monument seen three times a year on television for memorial days and the national day? The nightmare of the average motorist? A roof with a great view over the city? The ending point of the Champs Elysées?

In La Foire aux Immortels (first album of La Trilogie Nikopol), L’Elysée is depicted, but with some transformations, as the residence of the almighty political leader of a fascist regime (inspired by Mussolini). In Quatre?, the Sacré-Coeur is seen from above with a neon sign “Catholics Only” next to a mosque “Salafists Only”. Religion has become ubiquitous in Paris.

Why did he use the Sacré Coeur as the building to represent it and not Notre-Dame instead? Is it more iconic? More recognizable?

With Bilal, landmarks can also be transformed: in 2026, the St Eustache Cathedral, has now become Crillon St Eustache, a 5 five stars hotel and a casino. They can also be invented: In La Foire aux Immortels, some checkpoints dividing the city in half (reminding us of the ones which still existed in Berlin at the time the book was published) have been installed in Montparnasse and l’Elysée, as we can notice by the writing on the sides of the buildings.

They also can have no other function than to inform us, remind us that the image in front us is, in fact, Paris: in 2023, from the windows of a spaceship travelling over the city, a part of the Eiffel Tower, between the 2nd and 3rd floor, is briefly seen covered with leeches. NotreDame is also seen from above, on several occasions, the Pompidou Centre in the background too.

Finally, the author sometimes just uses neon signs to name or to describe landmarks, instead of actually representing them and it’s enough: Paris 2027, Place des Victoires, Bato-Mush, floating over what seems to be the Seine but looking more like a concrete slab, Paris Plage, New Bridge etc. Paris as “Ville Lumière” never seemed so depressing.

Maybe the quantity of landmarks used is relevant. The more there are, the more the representation is believable, the more you are certain it’s Paris and not just some ordinary city with its Eiffel Tower.

However, they haven’t changed much compared to today, they are often the only part of the city we recognize, a testimony of the past. Does Paris rely too much on them, especially the old ones, to build its image ?

> Enki BILAL, Le Sommeil du Monstre, 1998

> Enki BILAL, Mémoires d’outre-espace, 1978

> Enki BILAL, Rendez-vous à Paris, 2006

> Benoît PEETERS/François SCHUITEN, L’étrange cas du dr Abraham, 2001

> Enki BILAL, Quatre?, 2007

> Enki BILAL, La Foire aux Immortels, 1980

With Schuiten and Peeters the approach is different. In a short story, entitled : “L’étrange cas du Dr. Abraham”, a foreign neurologist becomes sick upon arriving in Pâhry, as some coloured tubes start to grow through his head. He becomes obsessed by this tubes, starts to dig inside his house and in the streets, and finds more of them until he is arrested, judged and finally executed. After his death, a strange building, similar to the Pompidou Centre, rises from the ground.

Although all the illustrations are in colour, the city is grey, dark and the scenes take place at night. Phârysian buildings are all identical, linear, simplified, uniform, generic. The blocks are square-shaped, undifferentiated, without any soul. With its red, blue, green, yellow and white tubes, the prophetic “Abraham Center”, named after the main character, contrasts with the rest of the city. It extracts itself from the norm, the strict alignment of the façades, the rigid geometry and finally, is requestioning the identity of Paris.

Symbol of modernity, thanks to its ground-breaking design, it is one of the very few “recent” buildings which can claim to be a landmark, to be extremely popular. In fact, it’s probably the newest one used by the authors to remind us where the scene takes place. Can it be considered as an attempt to break with the “uniformity” of Paris?

Landmarks work in the way that they detach themselves from the rest of city, you can easily identify them in the skyline, from above or from the ground. But do we really need them to recognize Paris? Can regular buildings, roofs, blocks, streets be enough? Are they specific to Paris?

Strangely enough, though, the ground plan view of Paris, with its typical closed blocks, is almost never used while everyone can recognize it in a blink of an eye. The image seen in L’étrange cas du Dr. Abraham might be the exception but it should be understood more like a caricature: the Parisian block “for dummies”.

In Quatre?, the city is always seen from the sky, characters are using devices to float, but everything is blurry, we can’t see very far away. Here, Bilal takes advantage of the characteristic grey of Parisian tin roofs and plays with the different shades of it, as it fits perfectly with the atmosphere of his graphic style. Sometimes, he just paints over some real pictures of Paris, shot on a cloudy day, as they don’t need many transformations to be used in his albums. He also recycles the popular image, often seen in movies, of two people chasing each other on top of the Parisian roofs. Using images that most people are familiar with might be a good way to reinforce the credibility of the representation.

In La Foire aux Immortels, the city is divided into two arrondissements: The 1st, at the centre of the city, where rich people live, as well as the leaders of the fascist regime, and the 2nd, extending beyond sight, where a heterogeneous population lives in decomposing slums. The town is entirely grey: buildings, the Seine, the sky, the smog, the rain. The slum zone seems to be stuck in the past, few buildings have been built and the old ones, partly destroyed, are typically Parisian with their mansard roofs, chimney pots and wrought iron balconies. The streets are now filled with dirt and trash and are entirely pedestrianized.

In these representations, no landmarks can be seen, yet we can’t be fooled, we know it’s Paris. We notice that, in the way Bilal draws it, the city doesn’t seem to have evolved very much, although it’s supposed to be 2023 or 2027. It didn’t adapt to its time, it is in decomposition.

Maybe that is the risk, Paris could become the shadow of itself, stay the way it is for better or for worse, a museum where nothing can be added, transformed or destructed. Although they are completely different from Bilal’s, we also have the same impression looking at Schuiten’s drawings.

In Le Guide des Cités, published in 2001, Peeters & Schuiten are trying to define what constitutes Paris, what are the steps in its evolution. To do so, they purposely created an alternative version of it: Pâhry. They are creating a mysterious twin of Paris, we can interpret it, as a representation of what Paris could become: several possibilities, several visions of the future of the same city. In fact, we often get this strange feeling of “old future” or “modern past” as if the Paris depicted here was a mix of different times, different influences.

In the first illustration, the historic centre of Paris (Ile de la Cité) is covered by a transparent dome, reminding us of the project by Buckminster Fuller over Manhattan and Superstudio over Naples. Enclosed, bright, bathed in light (with a red tone, like at dusk or dawn) the city seems holy. The shell is here to protect the only part of it that is left, to preserve a lost paradise. In contrast, dark, black, sharp geometric towers, seemingly built afterwards, are rising high above it. A woman, leaning on her elbows on her balcony, is looking down, through the glass, contemplating with nostalgia the city at its golden age. People can also be seen boarding Zeppelins for a quick tour over it.

Can we see here a critique of the museumification of Paris? A future where the city is condemned to remain the same, preserved as an icon that no one can touch? The image is pretty explicit, could this be a solution though? Is Paris already a museum or/and is this a warning?

In the next image (#2), in the foreground, once again, the posture of people contemplating the city from a balcony, from what seems to be the top of a cathedral, is used by the authors. Thus we understand the height of the buildings rising in front of the characters, their relationship to the city is now frontality. Constructions have been built, little by little, on top of each other. At each storey, we can observe a different style, like a superposition of different periods. The last level looks like the old covered markets, made of bricks, steel, and glass on top, like the Baltard pavilions.

Given that they constitute the top of the buildings, it means they’re the latest step in the city’s evolution. How much has Paris really evolved since the end of XIXth century?

In these two drawings, however, landmarks are used, although less explicitly, to be sure we’re Paris. In the first one, can observe Notre Dame. In the second one too, we can see some shapes that might look like it as well as the Tour St Jacques but we can’t know for sure.

What erases all doubt, is, once again, the presence of the Eiffel Tower.

#1

#2

#3 > Benoît PEETERS/François SCHUITEN, Le Guide des Cités, 1996

“Maybe it’s because of its unwelcoming location, right in the middle of the Somonites’ desert, that Pâhry was one of the first cities to define a new urban art style, under the influence of the prefect: a model, admired, as well as a subject of jealousy all over the obscure world. The large “sand stone” quarries permitted to give it a unified aspect, a tonality. Among its specificities are: its large boulevards, its highly decorated bridges, its perfect alignment of the façades, its archways.

Perspectives are also one of its main characteristic, and in order to extend them, a lot of walls were painted as trompe-l’oeil. The city is very pleasant to visit, everything seems to have been made for the tourists to enjoy themselves. The inhabitants are less satisfied and many of them leave for the suburbs. The art of representation has always been one of its specialties, no wonder it was chosen twice to organize, the great inter-urban exhibitions”. > Benoît PEETERS/François SCHUITEN, Le Guide des Cités, 1996

> Enki BILAL, Quatre?, 2007

> Enki BILAL, La Foire aux Immortels, 1980

In the last image (#3), no landmarks can be identified. Pâhry is seen from above. Late XIXth century buildings, with their domes and gargoyles on top, at the angles, are stretched upwards like towers which remind us of New York. We don’t even see the bottom, the ground of the city. People dressed in the style of the fifties are seen waiting, next to their broken down car, stuck on one of the many express ways. Cars are not floating, but there is a vast amount of layers of circulation, bridges in between buildings at different heights. That evokes the futuristic representation of the city as seen in cinema: Metropolis by Fritz Lang and The Fifth Element by Luc Besson in particular. Dedicated to the automobile, everything has to go fast here. The characters seem lost in this spaghetti junction.

This picture might be the one that stands out the most of the popular idea we generally have of Paris: a city at the scale of a pedestrian. In the guide, as well, it is described as a city “designed to please strollers”. Even Bilal uses this image: according to his main character, Paris is a city for pedestrians en dérive, wandering without purpose. Could this be the futuristic image of the Parisian flâneur, floating above the roofs?

If Paris is known, and appreciated, for its human scale, one of its elements that is also very characteristic is its subway stations. The authors haven’t forgotten it, and Paris can be recognized without even seeing its exterior.

In La Foire aux Immortels, set in 2023, the subway has been deserted since 2012. The character is first seen, in bad shape, lying on the platform of the subway station Alésia.

In Paris, almost all the metro stations look the same: - Their names are always written in white, with the same font, over a blue frame.

- Bright white tiles are covering the walls as well as large panels of advertisement adjusting perfectly to the curvature of the underground’s vault.

Therefore, anyone can identify Alésia as Parisian even without knowing this particular subway station (it’s not a very famous one).

In “Les Cités Obscures”, the subway station Arts & Métiers is pictured. Why this one in particular? Because Schuiten was the designer of it in 1994. Its style is not conventional, it doesn’t look like any other Parisian metro stations. Its shape is the one of a submarine (reminiscent of the Nautilus, from Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea). If you’ve seen it, you‘ll certainly recognize it in the comic book.

It’s worth noticing that it’s used here, by the authors, as a landmark, once again, the most recent so far. The context in which it is represented is a series of short stories entitled Le Fugitif. Pâhry is seen from the eyes of a fugitive wandering, like a rat, into the (fictive) secret paths of some famous buildings (the Elysée, the Opéra Garnier, the Louvre, the subway station Arts & Métiers) trying to find his way out, while escaping the authorities. The use of black and white, with India ink, permits to emphasize the shadows and the mysterious, hidden, secret

aspect of the story and allows us not to be distracted by secondary elements. Pâhry is always seen through interior spaces, most of what is shown is not recognizable, as is it invented, but we know where we are thanks to secondary characteristics. There is a desire by the authors to reveal the depths of Paris, what is behind the façade (literally and figuratively), the walls, the mechanics, the structure, how the buildings work. There is also the intention to explore and insist on the porous, “spongelike” aspect of the city (metro lines, sewers, the catacombs, the Seine).

To choose the approach of representing the city only from the inside is quite original but does it actually work? Would we be aware we’re in Paris without the Arts & Métiers sign in the metro station or the paintings of the Louvre? Again, landmarks are the only elements reminding us that the setting is Paris.

So far, the authors have relied predominantly on architecture, on constructions, to let the reader know where a scene takes place, but do they use some other ways, less explicit ones?

What else could define Paris? Parisians? The French language? French gastronomy?

The notion of identity is important to Bilal, since he is, himself, a foreigner with a different background. His characters often have mixed cultures (Sino-Siamo-Vietnamo-Jew for instance or Croato-Serbo-Muslim) and French is almost never part of it, so there is no “100% Parisian” among them.

With Schuiten & Peeters, we could imagine that since the cities they represent each have their own identity, so would their inhabitants. In fact, as the city is the main subject, characters don’t show many differences from one another.

About the French language, it also seems important to Bilal as he often refers to Charles Baudelaire. In La Foire aux Immortels, the hero is constantly reciting, in his head, poems from Les Fleurs du Mal. In Rendez-vous à Paris, on the street, a man is seen holding a sign “Saving Baudelaire’s language. Saving French”. In an interview, Bilal states that at the time of the writing, he started to imagine the future of Paris, condemned to be an inert city, a museum city, where people no longer speak French.

Furthermore, it may be difficult to use it to remind us where we are in a comic book.

There is no sound, so we can’t observe differences in the characters’ accents or the way they speak. Even in films, it never bothered anyone to hear Nazis speak in perfect English, so we can’t rely on the language to determine the setting of the action. Finally, the French language may not be so characteristic of Paris since a large number of tourists, as well as the inhabitants from all over, makes the city rather international.

To use French gastronomy, on the other hand, might be more interesting and effective, Bilal does so several times in his albums. In La Tétralogie du Monstre, every time people are seen eating, the scene takes place in Paris, as if it’s it the only place in the world where it’s really worthwhile, where people actually take time to do so and appreciate it. Does this mean the popular image that we have of Paris is often associated with gastronomy? Probably, and Bilal, for the occasion, uses colour, red in particular, to emphasize it.

> Benoît PEETERS/François SCHUITEN, Le Fugitif, 1994

> Enki BILAL, Quatre?, 2007

In a picture, taken from Quatre?, the main character, is eating at the roof terrace of a restaurant, is seen complaining to the waiter about the tasteless, odourless food and wine. This doesn’t seem right to him, “Paris is an odourless city, what’s happening” he states, as if he was disappointed as if the city didn’t match his expectations. Later on, however, as he is leaving the restaurant, he thanks the waiter and tells him: “Thank you for this excellent insipid lunch, I enjoyed it a lot”. The oxymoron doesn’t seem to be sarcastic though. The only fact that he was able to, sit at a table on a rooftop terrace restaurant in Paris, have a meal and enjoyed a bottle of French Bordeaux, even if it wasn’t good, is satisfactory enough to him. The aura of the French Cuisine remains no matter what, a nostalgic image from the past.

The identity of Paris

So, what makes the identity of Paris? Does Paris have an identity? Through this article, we’ve seen that the authors use many different ways to help us recognize Paris: - its landmarks (The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Elysée, the Arc de Triomphe, the Sacré Coeur, Notre-Dame, the Opera Garnier, St Eustache, The Pompidou Center etc.)

- Its grey roofs, made of zinc, its chimney pots - its Haussmannian buildings, the tonality of the stone, the alignment of the façade - its streets, its large boulevards, its perspectives - its closed blocks - its museum-like qualities - its pedestrian aspect - its subway stations - the interior of its buildings - some non-architectural elements (the inhabitants, the French language, and gastronomy)

Focusing on the architecture, our main interest here, the authors often rely on landmarks to depict the city. With Bilal, it’s to differentiate it from the other cities he represents, as they often look alike. With Schuiten and Peeters they ensure that the reader will be able to identify the setting as Paris.

However, their use is often metonymical: landmarks embody the whole city and therefore requestioning them is also requestioning the identity of Paris. So what does this tell us? Is Paris a city of icons and consequently an icon itself? Is the number of landmarks so important that it overwhelms any other aspect of the city? If we don’t use an icon or any cliché to represent Paris, is the city recognizable to people outside Paris?

Sure, Bilal is a widely-published author abroad and so he has to use clichés and play with the internationally acknowledged signs and aspect of the city. However, if we consider that the largest amount of the comic book readership lives in Paris, maybe it’s not such a problem.

People seen around landmarks in Paris are most of the time tourists. No Parisian would say “My friends and I usually hang out near The Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe”. The areas of the city that one would frequent vary depending on whether you’re a local or a tourist.

For the authors as well as a large part of the readership, Paris is their city and so monuments are not necessary for recognition. Anything that happens and transforms the way it looks, the way it is perceived, the way people live in it, has an impact on the reader. Actually, the authors use Paris for this specific purpose, their only limit being their imagination, they can do anything they want to the city. The reader either can be shocked by it or enthusiastic about it, but he will always react to it and ask himself some questions about the future of his city.

If not an iconic and internationally recognized city, then what image for Paris? Paris is one of those cities that can claim: “I am as easily recognizable with my landmarks as without them”. Paris is full of history and historical architectural details such as the specific tonality of the stone and the tin roofing of its buildings. They contributed to create its overall “uniformity” and consequently the perception we have of it as a harmonious and beautiful city. More than any other city, Paris benefits from an image of perfection. It has been so constantly used in representation and maintained over the years that some people are certainly fed up with it. So, when an author has the opportunity to imagine the way Paris will look in the future, to reinvent/redesign it, as in a science fiction comic book, for instance, it is the opportunity to cause havoc to the city, picture it in ruins rather than in all of its glory.

With its specific style defined a few centuries ago, Paris is also subject to criticism, people see it as a “museum city”. It hasn’t evolved much since the XIXth century compared to New York or London for instance. As Paris’ beauty comes from its unity, the strong alignment of the façades, there is a desire not to intervene to tarnish this image and therefore the city remains the same. But how long can it stay this way?

This critique of the museumification of Paris can be seen in the work of Schuiten: Paris, the city of icons, has become a monument itself, preserved under a transparent bubble, an attraction for tourists, a “chic” Disneyland where no one lives anymore. The image is quite evocative of the Paris of 2040 as imagined by Marc Augé in The Impossible Journey. Here most of the city has been reconstituted, transformed by Disneyland to correspond the taste of the tourists, exploiting to the extreme the “artificial” nostalgia they feel for a place they’ve only seen in films. Paris has become one giant spectacle.

With Bilal, this critique can also be felt but the outcome is different: we didn’t try to preserve the city but we also didn’t do anything to change it. It has not evolved and now it is decomposing, it’s a slum.

The choice of science fictions comic books as the support for my reflection on the identity of Paris was interesting because probably more than any other types of representation of the city they play both with future and fantasy. Paris can be either utopian or dystopic, entirely invented or extremely realistic, completely changed or exactly the same. By transforming it, they reveal what makes the city unique, they challenge its identity and lead us to ask ourselves whether or not: “Paris will always be Paris”.

Geoffroy GRIVEAUD

BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Enki BILAL Mémoires d’outre-espace (Dargaud, coll. «Pilote», 1978) La Foire aux Immortels (Les Humanoïdes Associés, 1980) Le Sommeil du Monstre (Les Humanoïdes Associés, 1998) Rendez Vous à Paris (Les Humanoïdes Associés, 2006) Quatre ? (Les Humanoïdes Associés, 2007) Benoît PEETERS & François SCHUITEN “Les Mystères de Pâhry” in Les Murailles de Samaris (Casterman, 1983) L’archiviste (Casterman, 1987) Le Guide des Cités (Casterman, 1996) L’Echo des Cités (Casterman, 2001) Adolfo Bioy CASARES, L’invention de Morel (Robert Laffont, 1940) Italo CALVINO, Les Villes Invisibles (Points, 1972) Olivier JONAS & Eric LAPIERRE, Rétro-futur des villes (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques 2002) WEBSITES http://www.ebbs.net/ http://www.urbicande.be/ http://lebrunf9.free.fr/parisenbd/index.html http://mexiqueculture.pagesperso-orange.fr/nouvelles5-gasparfr.htm http://lectraymond.forumactif.com/t622-le-monde-de-francois-schuiten http://lalaliyut.forumactif.com/t67-la-bande-dessinee-et-l-architecture-utopique http://phylacterium.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/science-fiction-et-bande-dessinee-annees-1980/