Wordless comic of the week #6: “Anima”, by Serpieri

Anima is a recent volume of Eleuteri Serpieri’s (Italy, 1944) long-running series of graphic novels, Druuna. Starring starting the titular character, a voluptuous woman, Druuna is a sci-fi series that features elements than, depending on your mileage, might qualify as either erotic or pornographic. As opposed to other titles featured in this blog so far, Druuna is not a pantomime series, so the volume covered here, “Anima”, is an oddity in the series.

I’m not very familiar with the main Druuna series, though there is a random volume of it in my collection, but Serpieri is a master craftsman, and his talent goes beyond the beautiful women he is mostly known for. Besides the art, I was attracted to the idea of checking out a novel-length pantomime comic, since there are not many of those that I know of. Plus, it is set in a fantasy world not unlike the ones I feature in my own work, so I figured it could be interesting.

A sequence that seems to be homaging Moebius’s Arzach, a classic pantomime comic.

Gorgeously illustrated, the narrative is clear and fluid. The story is slight, as the main character wanders through a fantasy land and has a few adventures, the main one consisting of rescuing another female character from a mysterious temple. It also features a kind of oneiric connection to the main Druuna series, but I con’t explain that one very well since, as I said, I’m not that familiar with the main series.

This book is definitely for adult readers (I had trouble finding enough safe for work pictures to post here!), and some of the sexual situations might seem problematic to some sensibilities. However, as an exercise in pantomime comic, I think it works very well, and is an example of how pantomime can be used to change the pace in a long running series.