The Dormant Beast by Enki Bilal

This week when we decided to take a look at various European comics, The Dormant Beast, by Enki Bilal, seemed like a very excellent work, and reviews that I saw seemed favorable, so I was excited to read it. Sadly, I was wrong. The Dormant Beast takes place in the dystopian future of New York in the year 2023, plagued by radical terrorist attacks. The main character is a man named Nike Hatzfield, who has the ability to perfectly recall everything from his past since before the day he was born. Throughout the novel he recalls the events from the first 18 days of his life, with him being orphaned and sharing a crib with the other main characters, a man named Amir and a woman named Leyla. There is also the main antagonist, Dr. Warhole, who leads the radical religious terrorist group, the Eradicators. Their goal seems to be the destruction of anything from thought, culture, science, and memories, and they brainwash and/or kill people with a series of flies. Warhole's master plan is to use Nike as a human bomb to destroy a site known as the Eagle Site. Enki Bilal also uses a very interesting and cool art style using an almost surreal, chalk like art.

While this sounds very interesting, I found the end result to be a confusing mess, which barely kept my interest. I felt that there were so many missed opportunities to make this great.

In the book, Nike recounts events/moments from the first 18 days of his life. However, these are shown as small, simple text boxes scattered at random sections of the story. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if the panels that they were paired with were, at least subjectively, related to the topic being discussed. But, for the most part, they are completely unrelated to each other. This really disappointed me as this could have created and shown the reader some very interesting imagery, especially with the fun and unique art style, but instead the text box and panels clash with each other. This kept confusing me and had me forgetting what was supposed to be going on or any message that was supposed to be conveyed, which I find ironic since this is supposed to be about memories and remembering. I whole heartily believe that when it come to both film and comics, that one needs to "Show, Not Tell", and I think this piece is a prime example of what not to do.

While I said that a work should "Show, Not Tell", surprisingly, the opposite also applies to it as well. This piece has a lot of dialogue, but most of the time I found that there were numerous inconsistencies or parts and goals that are never explained at all. For instance, it is safe to say that the main antagonist's main goal in this book is to find and destroy a site known as the Eagle Site. It's never really mentioned as to why he wants to destroy it. The book implies that the site is related to extraterrestrial life and the possibility of disproving the existence of a single deity. Now, this wouldn't be so bad, however, all of these facts on the Eagle Site are a part of a small single panel of a computer file. Basically everything other than the two parts I mentioned are locked, classified, and never explained further than that, and we never come back to it. Even Dr. Warhole, who leads the Religious Eradicators, surprisingly isn't portrayed being shown with any religious factors or ideologies. It is more like that he is just using the Eradicators for his own goals. In fact, he never really goes into any depth on why he wants to destroy the Eagle Site. He just suddenly announces in one panel that he will find it and destroy it, with no real context given or thoroughly explained.

I could go on forever detailing all of the issues that I found, such as the fact that all of the characters were boring and, for the most part, emotionless, and that two of the three main characters are barely in this comic. The three never interact with each other except for a quick meeting with two of them in the very last panel. Now I understand that this is only the first part of a trilogy of books in this story, and I am sure that things are explained and revealed further, as well as improved development with it's characters as the story goes on. But, I found this piece to be such a failure, it leaves me to wonder if anyone would want to continue the series.

In television and books, both regular and comics, the beginning is one of the most important parts as it is supposed to create interest of the world and its characters with viewers in its own way. I found that The Dormant Beast to not have any of its establishing aspects, or at least they were not done well. Enki Bilal is known to be a very great and successful artist and author, and I look forward to reading some of his better work such as The Nikopol Trilogy and The Hunting Party. There is no doubt in my mind that The Dormant Beast is perhaps his weakest work and, unlike the others, I have absolutely no desire to continue the stories from  The Beast Trilogy.