Euro Comics: Reviews of Soft City and The World of Edena - a podcast by Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal

Time Codes:

• 00:00:27 - Introduction
• 00:03:03 - Listener mail!
• 00:07:29 - Soft City
• 00:39:12 - The World of Edena
• 01:18:12 - Wrap up
• 01:19:09 - Contact us

For the November episode in the Euro Comics series, Edward and Derek take a look at two new releases of older titles. They begin with Hariton Pushwagner's Soft City (New York Review Comics). Began in 1969 and completed in 1975, the book was lost for a number of years but then rediscovered in 2002. Since then, the original art from Soft City has been exhibited in the Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art and the Sydney Biennial, both in 2008. In fact, part of the guys' coverage of the book revolves around the topic of comic art as exhibition. But most of their discussion involves the text's symmetrical construction, its poetic imagery, and its mixed futuristic tone.

After that, Edward and Derek turn to a new collected edition work from one of comics' legends. The World of Edena is the first in Dark Horse Book's new Moebius Library, and it brings together Jean Giraud's (or Moebius's) five-volume series. The guys discuss the book's origins, beginning as promotional comic for the French car manufacturer Citroën in 1983 and then ending as a full-fledged, philosophical, and very trippy series in 2001. There is a lot to explore of the book's many narrative facets, and the Two Guys spend much of their time looking at the themes of exploration and sexuality, the dream-infused nature of the story, its comedic undertones, and the clean-line style and lush colors that define its art.

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