Black Paths

David B. drawing style fascinates me. His pages are tapestries full of contorting characters embraced in street fights, parades, dances, battle scenes... The main plot is a weekly defined love story set in the hard to believe but true end of WWI in Istria, in the free city of Fiume. A city disputed between the Italians and the new monarchy that will become Yugoslavia. A city surrounded by the Italian army, led by D'anunzio a dadaist militaristic poet and teaming with deserters, futurists, mafiosi, fascists, soldiers and the statue of a saint with the looks of a Mexican bandit.

It is ok, but compared to Epileptic, the story is quite weak. The art is still incredible.

I liked it, but didn't love it, the story wasn't particularly captivating. I suspect the translation wasn't the best, but difficult to say.

Set at the end of World War I, BLACK PATHS is rich with a poetic flow and subversive chaos. It brings to life the city of Fiume in Croatia as an Italian poet known as the “Pirate King” Gabriele d’Annunzio takes control, along with an army, of the city.One soldier, Lauriano, falls in love with a beautiful young singer, which is a bit trite but still offers the storyteller ample room to create a blistering love story as the couple seeks to escape the city’s overwhelming violence. The artwork and colors used throughout the book are breathtaking, and the story is gripping. The lens of history through which David B. looks in BLACK PATHS is fascinating.- John Hogan

I read “Black Paths” by David B. This is also a graphic novel with a historical bent. But this novel presented something I had never heard about - the siege of the free city of Fiume. It is less straight history but is instead more like reading a dream of someone who has done a lot of reading on the subject recently and someone who has an artistic mind.

A vibrant and dark delight, compellingly dancing between life and death.

Ich musste das Buch für die Uni lesen, fand es ziemlich verwirrend, der Handlung fehlt ein stringenter roter Faden, die Zeichnungen sind aber immerhin relativ gelungen, zumindest spiegeln sie die bedrückende Atmosphäre, die das Buch allein schon durch die Zeit in der es spielt hat, gut wider.