The Obscure Cities (), first published in English as, variously, Stories of the Fantastic and Cities of the Fantastic, is a bande dessinée series created by the Belgian artist François Schuiten and the French writer Benoît Peeters. First serialized in magazine format in 1982, the series has been published in album format by the Brussels-based publisher Casterman since 1983. New installments of the series were published throughout the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2020s, with full-color, partial color, or black-and-white artwork, as well as photo illustration. The artwork of the series is distinguished by Schuiten's realistic rendering of diverse contemporary, historical, and imaginary architectural styles.
The series is commonly labeled as steampunk, based on frequent appearances of anachronistic technology, storytelling and visual traditions of the scientific romance era, and its retrofuturist parallel world setting of imagined cities and cultures inspired by Jules Verne's literary depiction of Europe in the late 19th century. However, diverging from steampunk conventions as well as science fiction and fantasy in general, the setting is neither a speculative world nor an alternate history, but rather a "plausible" world for readers to "relate to", as Peeters has emphasized. The Obscure Cities has no unifying narrative, instead telling a series of unrelated stories, which have spanned genres such as pseudo-documentary, travel literature, psychological drama, and political satire.
Winning the Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Best Album in 1985 established The Obscure Cities as a prominent work of Franco-Belgian comics. The series has been analysed by literary and artistic scholars, and both authors are active in art, literature, and film projects in Belgium and France.
Background Born in Brussels to a family of architects, Schuiten had many relatives, especially his father and brothers, who were instrumental in what he has termed Bruxellisation, the demolition of historic architecture (typified by Belgian Art Nouveau architect Victor Horta, who worked in Brussels at the turn of the 20th century) in favor of anonymous, low-quality modernist office and business buildings. Bruxellisation would become an important part in Schuiten's and Peeters' 1950s childhood memories of the city, and Schuiten's artstyle would become influenced by Horta's Art Nouveau designs.
Schuiten was brought up to study architecture by his father, both in university and early on at home. Meanwhile, his older brother, Luc, introduced the young François to Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées, with René Goscinny, Morris, and André Franquin among his early favorites. Though Schuiten recalls his father's distaste for comics illustration, he was influenced by his father's evocative architectural drawing style, adding skies and figures rendered to suggest atmosphere and stories (as a sales tactic while visiting prospective clients).
In 1968, Schuiten and Peeters became friends while attending Catholic school, and the two worked together to write and illustrate a student publication. Ten years later, they reunited in Brussels and resumed their creative collaborations. Peeters, who was an aspiring novelist at this time, set aside those efforts for the comparative financial safety of the comics industry.
Around 1980, as an established graphic novel artist published in Pilote and Métal Hurlant and a number of standalone albums, Schuiten began drafting a parallel world of vintage architectural splendor reflecting his childhood memories of Brussels, a world which can be reached primarily through remaining buildings of these bygone times. In the fiction of Schuiten's setting, Bruxellisation is postulated as an ongoing effort to suppress knowledge of this parallel world.
In 1982 the first Les Cités obscures album, Les murailles de Samaris, began publication as a serial in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine À Suivre. Owned by Casterman, the monthly periodical marketed comics as literary works, serialized in complete chapters (rather than comic strips excerpted from forthcoming albums, as established by Casterman's earlier magazines). As a result, Schuiten and Peeters produced ten to twenty pages of story at a time for publication, before later parts of the story were finalized.
Styles and themes Schuiten's artstyle utilizes realistic line art, emphasizing outlines and flat colours according to the Belgian ligne claire tradition, but also incorporating tonal techniques akin to engraving, with heavy use of hatching and cross-hatching. His detailed, multi-step processes incorporate sketches, storyboards, and extensive visual research, which suited À Suivres serialization schedule. In 2019, Peeters acknowledged that such time-consuming art production no longer fit current comics publishing; subsequently, the next entry in the series was an illustrated book rather than a comic.
Peeters has defined the Obscure Cities world according to philosophical concepts: it is a spatiotemporally paradoxical world (where objects may contain themselves), where natural orders conflict with each other, which resists coherence and is defined by its internal differences. Influential ideas cited by Peeters include Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the rhizome, Jacques Lacan's theories based on Borromean rings, and Sigmund Freud's description of the uncanny.
A recurring theme of Obscure Cities stories is resistance against absolutist rules, which are often imposed by political powers. The protagonists, who are sometimes "doubtful" and "weak", are driven to search for another world or for a different way of life, though they are not always successful in their journeys. None of the stories are resolved by confrontations against villains; antagonists and characters who commit wrongdoings are not ultimately central to the plots.
Various commentators, as well as Schuiten himself, have identified visual and theme influences in Les Cités obscures from as diverse works as those by Verne, Winsor McCay, Franz Kafka, René Magritte, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Victor Horta, Henry Fuseli, and Jean-Léon Gérôme.
Books In Belgium and France, Casterman publishes all albums in the series. From 2017 to 2019, Casterman also collected all existing albums in four complete volumes. Most, but not all, albums have been published in English, some multiple times: first in serialized form in Heavy Metal and Dark Horse Comics' Cheval Noir, then as complete albums by NBM Publishing and IDW Publishing. The French Casterman standard editions and published English translations follow.
Albums English title(s) French title Printing Album published French edition(s) ISBN English edition(s) ISBN The Great Walls of Samaris (NBM)Samaris (IDW) Les murailles de Samaris Colour 1983 (expanded, 2007) (NBM) (IDW) Dispatched to investigate the distant city of Samaris, Franz Bauer is gradually driven to paranoia and fugue by the city's strange nature. Fever in Urbicand (NBM)The Fever in Urbicande (IDW) La fièvre d'Urbicande Black and whiteColour (2020) 1985 (expanded, 2009) (colour, 2020) (NBM) (colour, IDW) The architect Eugen Robick witnesses the socially stratified city of Urbicande transformed by a cubic lattice that inexorably spreads through the city. The Tower La Tour Black and white; select pages in full or partial colour 1987 (expanded, 2008) (NBM) (IDW) Giovanni Battista, a maintainer of a megastructure known only as the Tower, leaves his post for the first time and encounters its regions and people, and learns of the secret hidden at its top. – La route d'Armilia Colour 1988 (expanded, 2010) – A boy named Ferdinand travels by airship from Mylos to Armilia, showcasing aerial artwork of many of the Cities. Brüsel Brüsel Colour 1992 (expanded, 2008) (NBM) Flower shop owner Constant Abeels is caught in the comedies of errors that ensue as bureaucratic forces push to demolish and redevelop the city of Brüsel. The Leaning Girl L'enfant penchée Black and white (artwork)Greyscale (photo illustrations)Colour (2010 introduction) 1996 (expanded, 2010) (Alaxis Press) (IDW) An unprecedented celestial event causes the young heiress Mary von Rathen to stand at a permanent lean, leading to a series of misadventures far from home. Outside Paris, at the turn of the 20th century, the painter Augustin Desombres is compelled to paint images he has never seen, unaware that Mary is his inspiration. The Shadow of a Man L'ombre d'un homme Colour 1999 (expanded, 2009) (IDW) Insurance adjuster Albert Chamisso, unable to cope with first recurring nightmares and then his own shadow becoming coloured, is driven to ruin but fortuitously receives a second chance. The Invisible Frontier La frontière invisible Colour 2002 (vol. 1)2004 (vol. 2) (vol. 1) (vol. 2) (complete) (vol. 1, NBM) (vol. 2, NBM) (complete, IDW) When the Sodrovno army orders the national Center for Cartography to produce cartographic propaganda to support an expansionist war, Roland de Cremer, a cartography student, benefits from sweeping reorganizations, but fears that geographic truths will be lost. The Theory of the Grain of Sand La Théorie du grain de sable Black and grey, with white highlights 2007 (vol. 1)2008 (vol. 2) (vol. 1) (vol. 2) (complete and expanded, 2013) (complete, IDW) An ill-fated visitor to the rebuilt Brüsel barters a mysterious contraption, creating escalating misfortunes for several bystanders that soon turn catastrophic for the entire city. Constant Abeels and Mary von Rathen return as protagonists, working together with others to understand these disasters and save the city. – Souvenirs de l'Eternel présent (new edition) Colour 2009 – In the ruins of Taxandria, where knowledge of the past is forbidden, a boy discovers the events that led to the city's downfall. This is a new version of the 1993 book, entirely redrawn in comic format, now published by Casterman under the Cités obscures branding. The Return of Captain Nemo Le retour du capitaine Nemo Black and white 2023 TBA –
Other Casterman publications These works were also published by Casterman under the Cités obscures branding. They do not have conventional narratives and do not use the comic book format. All are collected in Casterman's complete Cités obscures volumes.
Title Printing Published ISBN L'archiviste Colour (recto)Black and white (verso) 1986 (expanded, 2000) Researcher Isidore Louis is assigned to review voluminous archival documents to debunk a growing fervent belief in another world called "the Obscure Cities". He finds a series of cryptic images, with little context or explanation. L'Encyclopédie des transports présents et à venir Greyscale 1988 This is an illustrated fictional encyclopedia describing imaginary and anachronistic transportation technology. Le Musée A. Desombres Colour 1990 This is a bundle of a booklet and an audio drama on CD; both describe a fictional real-world exhibit of the paintings of Augustin Desombres, which becomes a portal into the Obscure Cities world. A transcript of the audio drama is compiled in the complete Cités obscures volumes. L'Écho des cités Colour 1993 This is a collection of fictional in-universe newspapers. Mary la penchée Colour 1995 This is a picture book telling the story that would be published as The Leaning Girl. Le Guide des cités Colour 1996 (expanded, 2002) (further expanded, 2011) This is a fictional tourist guide. L'affaire Desombres Colour 2002 This is a bundle of a booklet and a 90-minute documentary film on DVD, expanding the story of Augustin Desombres. A transcript of the film, with accompanying screen captures, is compiled in the complete Cités obscures volumes.
Related works These works were not published by Casterman.
Le Mystère d'Urbicande (1985) Le passage (1989) Souvenirs de l'Eternel présent (1993), an adaptation of the film Taxandria (see below)