This week we will consider NBM ComicsLit’s collection of comics with a Louvre-inspired theme. We begin with the book that kicked it all off back in 2007, Nicolas De Crécy’s refreshingly cool look at art, “Glacial Period.” It was such a wonderfully odd duck of a book that the paperback promptly sold out and had been hard to find until now. Just released, “Glacial Period” finds a new home in a bigger hardcover edition. This little gem spurred The Louvre museum to become involved in a co-edition of a series of graphic novels, each a vision by a different artist of the great museum.
What Crécy does with our notions of art is to strip it all down to basics. In his hands, The Louvre is no longer an imposing institution. A millennia has passed, complete with new Ice Age, and The Louvre has been reduced to something akin to the Island of Misfit Toys. Forget the civilized allure of works of art. All these items have been knocked off their pedestals, so to speak. And as silly and absurd as Crécy might get, he articulates the unique position that art holds.
Great art is, in true and imagined ways, separate from as well as a vital part of humanity. It seems to recede into its own world while also resonating deep within us. Great art has a life of its own, as if independent from us, while, in reality, it is at our mercy.
In this thoroughly engaging full color 76-page graphic novel, we follow a small band of explorers on a far from focused trek. With any luck, they may find signs of life before the new glacial period. It is up to Hulk, a genetically modified dog, who fancies himself almost human, to be sensitive to his surroundings. The whole collection of The Louvre may hang in the balance.
“Glacial Period” is published by ComicsLit, an imprint of NBM. Visit our friends at NBM right here.
