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Uncover the strange magic of The Obscure Cities and be awed by the beautiful art and incredible storytelling! Features a new English translation of the classic graphic novel. Roland de Cremer is a young man who has just been assigned to the Center of Cartography in Sodrovno-Voldachia. It's a secluded place that is usually insulated from the outside world. But something is happening out there. Rumors swirl of attacks, assassinations, war, and rebellions bloodily put down. Meanwhile, Roland has fallen in love with a young woman named Shkodra, who the authorities have also shown an increased interest in. She has mysterious markings on her back, tattoos that look like a map. As the threat to her increases, the two flee through deserts, mountains, and swamps. They have only one option for escape: to cross the border. But will they be able to find their way through this land that bears no resemblance to the maps Roland is familiar with and will his desire to save her get them both killed? First published in English in 2002, this new edition of the classic European graphic novel makes the critically acclaimed series accessible to a new generation of readers!… (more)
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In the story, an aspiring cartographer finds himself in the elite
The hardcover volume has four chapters, and does not conclude its plot.
Our young, Tintinesque hero is a newly-qualified cartographer who has just landed a job at the vast Cartography Centre in the middle of the desert, deep in Sodrovno-Voldachia (an Obscure City which we haven't got a good look at in any of the previous books). He arrives to find things in a state of flux: the old interpretive methods of creating maps are being replaced by modern machinery, while at the same time, hawkish politicians are taking a sudden interest in the Centre's work and how it might support their plans for military expansion…
In this fraught atmosphere, he becomes entangled with a girl whose body is covered with some strange markings – tattoo, birthmark, figment of his imagination? – which resemble a map of the country's disputed border and which could place her in terrible danger.
In some ways, the book reads like a spiritual sequel to Brüsel, the sixth volume of the series. Here again we have a tension between traditional skills and modern industrialisation; here again there is a playful curiosity about scale (the model city from Brüsel is matched in La Frontière invisible by a vast 3D map, where people step over mountain ranges and place boulders in river-valleys) – it reminded me a little of some of Will Self's stories. The concern about how the size of a human being determines the way we react to our surroundings is very much in keeping with the focus on architecture which has run throughout the series – though here, environments are not so much architectural as geological, or, for that matter, corporal.
Originally published in two volumes, modern editions usually collect it all together into one, bumper-sized BD treat. I found the ending disappointing, but it seems so ungenerous to complain in the face of all this goodness that I won't bother. A beautiful fantasy of people, and places, and how they come together, and a special place to visit that you won't find on any map.