The City of Belgium by Brecht Evens

The City of Belgium Reviews

• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  I think I have rated all of the Brecht Evens books I have read thus far with four stars, mainly because the stories, the narratives, don't quite match the often exhilarating artwork. So I don't know if this is his "best" work that I have read thus far, but I simply have to acknowledge the astonishing visuals in this book, which is otherwise titled/translated as The Entertainment or Amusement (help me out here?) but in English, published by the amazing Drawn & Quarterly, it has the prosaic title The City of Belgium.
  
  Thanks to Moira for posting this in her enthusiastic review, which I borrow:
  
  Brecht Evens posted an impression of his book on YouTube:
  
  https://youtu.be/3uMle0wgGPM
  
  What's it about? Color? A night in the city. Talk. Fluid movement, everywhere. If we all could afford it, this should be a very, very large oversized book format, because I had to peer in closely to read the handwritten lettering of all the talk, and to see the sometimes cramped night life-focused space, to see all that was going on. Oh, this is what it is like in a bar at night on a weekend, where we see tables of talkers, we hear snippets of conversation. Fun!
  
  The focus is on three people who have fun and also get involved in violent criminal activity and mix drugs with their excessive drinking. Then some of it feels surreal, fun, nightmarish, at turns, drug and alcohol-induced. Wonderful watercolor fantasy, moving, moving, a sense of visual noise, amidst bursts of light, crowds of people, a dream?
  
  If you like coherent narrative, if that is your standard for art/literature, you might be frustrated, as I initially was in reading this, but if you let go of the need to hold on to the railing and raise your hands in the air and ride this rollercoaster, you will admire it for the way it conveys one night with lots of noise and talk and fun and excess.
• 
  Paul Bryant

  Most beautiful and exciting book of the year so far by far. I bought this in the self-congratulatory spirit of let’s-support-our-local-comix-shop – this is the shop –
  
  
  
  and okay it did look quite colourful and jazzy and interesting but I wasn’t expecting the floor to fall away almost immediately in a very Gaspar Noe Enter the Void kind of way
  
  
  
  but it did
  
  
  
  IS THERE A STORY THOUGH?
  
  Yes. But wait!
  
  THE THREE CATEGORIES OF GREAT GRAPHIC NOVELS
  
  1) The ones where the story is the thing and the art is the quirky or endearing or just serviceable machinery to deliver it. This would be Alison Bechdel
  
  
  
  Guy DeLisle
  
  
  
  And that fun guy Derf Backderf
  
  
  
  2) Ordinary Perfection. This is where the art isn’t original at all, it’s just exquisite. Story and art in complete harmony. This would be
  
  Adrian Tomine
  
  
  
  Or Will McPhail
  
  
  
  3) The artists who it seems out of nowhere magic an original style that transforms our vision as we read. In some of these cases the story is left far behind or is twisted into unrecognisable forms
  
  Junji Ito
  
  
  
  Chris Ware
  
  
  
  
  Anna Mull in Square Eyes
  
  
  
  Richard McGuire in Here
  
  
  
  Shaun Tan in The Arrival
  
  
  
  
  So The City of Belgium is in this rarefied category.
  
  THE STORY
  
  Is about three characters who don’t know each other. They are out for a night on the tiles in the big bad city. They are young and they have problems. They have dangerous friends (one of whom is frightening – and hilarious). Although the art is OVERWHELMING this is a dialogue-crammed book and the dialogue is funny too – here is Victoria’s friend having difficulty getting Victoria to pick a club they could go to
  
  World Cafe?
  Too much drum 'n' bass. Too many hats.
  The Roosevelt Room?
  That's a cocktail bar.
  And you don't like cocktails?
  I don't like the cocktail crowd.
  The Hotsi-Totsi is open...
  Boys with scarves yelling their poetry in your ear.
  
  There’s a strong seen-too-much the world-is-my-oyster-but-it’s-only-a-shell feel to these lives. With Victoria Joni Mitchell’s People’s Parties is the soundtrack
  
  One minute she's so happy
  Then she's crying on someone's knee
  Saying laughing and crying
  You know it's the same release
  
  Or maybe the Stones, 19th Nervous Breakdown
  
  Center of a crowd, talking much too loud, running up and down the stairs
  Well, it seems to me that you have seen too much in too few years
  And though you've tried you just can't hide your eyes are edged with tears
  
  That’s just her, there are two other lovely appalling characters we are following. Round and round, in and out of taxis, through the thronged streets, elbowing the tiresome revelers to one side, clutching a bottle of Nolet’s Reserve, and fumbling for a bent credit card to try to eke out another twinkling trickle of euphoria before the horror of dawn and the new day arrives like a month in jail, our three lost souls teeter on the edge of bliss, or rage, or disintegration. Just another Saturday night in the great metropolis.
  
  
• 
  Charles

  L’un des plus beaux romans graphiques qu’il m’ait été donné de lire. C’est riche, c’est déjanté, c’est magnifiquement coloré. Que l’histoire se déroule en une seule nuit ajoute encore au charme. Je quitte ces pages avec l’impression d’avoir veillé en ville pour faire la fête, pré-pandémie. Ça faisait un bail.
  
  Je prends note de garder un œil sur ce que fait Brecht Evens, que je ne connaissais pas vraiment jusqu'à aujourd'hui, autrement que d'avoir longtemps eu l'intention de lire Les Rigoles, justement.
• 
  Oriana

  Oh my god, what a stunning, glorious, lurid immersion of a book.
  
  Here is the story of one night in an unnamed European city (according to the author: a bit of Paris, a bit of Berlin, a bit of Brussels). We follow three main characters through their various evenings and on through til sunrise — drunken debauchery, drug-fueled excess, eating and dancing and reveling and despairing through the most vivid depictions of urban nightlife I have ever seen on any page.
  
  Everyone's story begins at the same restaurant, for which Evens apparently made a
  detailed floor plan, down to each person sitting at each table and what they're talking about, even though most of them we will never see or hear. Our ensemble focuses on three strangers: Jona, a designer and lifelong Belgian who is moving to Berlin in the morning to join his beautiful bride; Rodolphe, a charismatic partier who seems to have lost his, uh, groove; and Vic, a lovely and troubled young woman out with her overprotective sister, her ex, and his new girlfriend. Each character reveals themselves slowly, as the night seethes around them, providing endless opportunities for adventures and mistakes, howling joy and overwhelming despair. Though none of the three ever quite meet, each can often be glimpsed in the background of someone else's story, the way city nightlife so often feels: no matter how expansive, it's always the same faces at the same bars and the same parties, making these dense urban centers seem like the smallest towns in the world.
  
  There is just so much that happens in these hundreds of pages — Jona accidentally running into a passel of all the friends who said they were too busy to see him on his last night in town, Rodolphe carting an economy-sized package of toilet paper throughout the city, Vic receiving perfectly timed hypnosis from a gorgeous masked stripper, Rodolphe regaining his magic on the dancefloor and transforming into a manic satyr, Jona receiving a tableside handjob, Vic disappearing under a table, Rodolphe delivering a fiery speech on the prow of a boat as his hair literally catches fire, Jona being accosted and fed drugs by clearly the worst friend he has, Vic's sister calling the cops on her, Jona's terrible friend kicking a dog and being forcibly removed from multiple establishments, Rodolphe taking an ill-advised predawn plunge into the ocean, and on and on and on and on.
  
  Each mini cast of characters careens through the city for hours and hours, through raves and dive bars and dance clubs and gritty streets. At various points, everyone takes a turn in the backseat of a Scheherazade-like gender-nonconforming cabbie, who spins them each their own yarn about the plastic skeleton hanging from the rearview mirror as they are spun through the electrifying city in pursuit of more and more adventures. When the sun comes up, no one is where they expected to be. The book ends in an all-encompassing fog, both literally and figuratively.
  
  And I haven't even come to the art itself, which is perhaps the most incredible art I've ever seen in a graphic novel. Page after page seething, brimming, bursting with light and color and gyration, as dizzying to look at as if you were careening, yourself, drunk and young and wild, through an explosively vibrant city all night long. Plus each character's speech is rendered in its own color, and the text moves just as vigorously and sinuously as the images do, yanking your eyes hither and thither across the spreads, breathless to follow every twist and turn.
  
  This is just such a stunning thrill through and through. I can't even fathom how long it must have taken to make a book like this, an overwhelmingly lush maximalist masterpiece, a delight in really every way for an urban devotée like me.
• 
  Moira Macfarlane

  Oogverblindend, verbluffend, geraakt, geëmotioneerd, mij herkend. Dat vat het wel zo'n beetje samen voor dit boek.
  
  Het Amusement, één stad - één nacht en drie mensen, verdwaald in hun eigen leven. Het hele boek is één groot kleurrijk psychedelisch stuk kunst, ik heb me vergaapt aan de beelden, de details, het is Brecht Evens in zijn overtreffende trap!
  
  Op YouTube plaatste Brecht Evens een impressie van zijn boek:
  
  https://youtu.be/3uMle0wgGPM
• 
  Paul Dembina

  Another superb graphic novel from Brecht Evens. He has a great ear for naturalistic dialogue and combines it with a pallet of various styles of art to great effect
• 
  Ryan Mandelbaum

  Wow. Just...wow. This absolutely blew me away in ways I couldn't even begin to describe, but I'll do my best. An absolute masterpiece in visual storytelling, the kind of undeniably accomplished, fully realized creation you find yourself staring at and wondering "how the fuck did a mere human being create this?!", Brecht Evens' The City of Belgium grabbed me by the collar with no warning and held me hostage in it's feverishly beautiful, terrifyingly wonderful world of nightmarish excess for four days. Yes, it took me four days to read this graphic novel, simply because I felt so overloaded by sensation in a way I have rarely felt reading, listening to, or watching anything before, that I felt it necessary to stretch this experience out for as long as I could.
  
  And how appropriate an anecdote that makes for a story taking place over the course of one drug/sex/alcohol fueled, ego driven night taken to dangerous levels of debauchery with hefty doses of severe mental health issues and deeply questionable morality. The kind of night you that leaves you endlessly chasing any and all forms of sensation, anything to keep you away from your self and your problems for just a few hours longer. But what happens when the sun rises and the world resumes itself and you find yourself covered in puke and blood, and starved of all meaning? Do you look for your shoes and admit you need to try to do better tomorrow? Or do you follow the feverish colours of the city and dance nakedly towards it's enticing mania for just one more night...
• 
  César

  Grandioso, de una belleza lunática apabullante.
• 
  Tom Vandevelde

  Een razende cocktail van beelden en stemmen die de lezer naar adem doet happen als was het een natte dweil in en over het gezicht. Centraal staan flinterdunne façades die onder invloed van drank en drugs afbladderen tot de monumentale ruïnes die erachter schuil gaan bloot komen te liggen als zenuwbanen in een oude, diepe wonde. Zelden een werk gelezen waarin vorm en inhoud elkaar zo versterken. Deze zal nog even nazinderen.
• 
  Sarah Van herck

  Ik ben in shock. Dit boek is gewoon ZO GOED. Elke pagina is een kunstwerk.
• 
  Brendan Monroe

  I dabble in graphic novels occasionally, but I'd dabble a lot more if they were all as good as "The City of Belgium."
  
  I recently read Belgian cartoonist Brecht Evens'
  The Wrong Place which didn't have a story to match the impressive visuals. That's not the case here. "The City of Belgium" is visually stunning, and the story does those visuals justice.
  
  This is a graphic novel but you can hear it as well — and it's loud. Bright colors, flashing lights, larger-than-life characters — but it's a noisy book about the importance of taking time to pause and reflect on what a privilege it is to be alive, and a reminder to tune out the noise and focus on what really matters.
  
  If you're graphic novel curious at all, I'd recommend this as a great introduction to the format. But just be warned that, unfortunately, they're not all this good.
• 
  Louise

  Un roman graphique somptueux ! Chaque page est une merveilleuse surprise où l'on peut se perdre pendant de longues minutes. Les dessins et les couleurs nous emmènent dans une nouvelle dimension propre à Brecht Evens. Le scénario est inventif, original et cohérent tout en incohérence. Un roman graphique à lire et relire afin de saisir les milliers de petits détails qu'il regorge.
• 
  Jerome

  The art is beautiful and very intricate, the artist has a way to convey motion that’s pretty original. The layout is also multilayered and not always linear
  
  However as much as I like his art this book was dense and overwhelming, I would have liked more spacing and less heaviness in the details. It also didn’t help that I didn’t like any of the characters in this book
• 
  Przemysław Skoczyński

  "Jest zabawa" to Brecht Evens w najpełniejszej, najbardziej intrygującej i najciekawszej odsłonie. Już "Pantera" była czymś niezwykłym, niejednoznacznym i szalenie niepokojącym, ale dopiero bogactwo najnowszego komiksu pokazuje jaki potencjał skrywa ta twórczość. Zaczyna się niewinnie, banalne rozmowy, stopniowe poznawanie bohaterów, luźne barowe gadki. Z czasem w kwestii dialogów wiele się nie zmieni, choć robi się coraz bardziej emocjonalnie, a w końcówce wręcz filozoficznie. "Jest zabawa" to z jednej strony afirmacja nocnego życia, zatłoczonych barów, klubów, wielkomiejskiej wrzawy i zabawy, a z drugiej świadectwo kryzysu. Żaden z bohaterów nie jest do końca sobą, każdy kogoś udaje i każdy jest na swój sposób żałosny. Plątając się między dążeniem do przyjemności, chęcią odcięcia się od przeszłości i szukaniem swojego miejsca w całym tym bałaganie, bohaterowie są całkowicie pogubieni. Pretensjonalna końcówka to celowa gra z czytelnikiem, wieńcząca groteskową i wielowymiarową całość. Komiksowi towarzyszy niezwykła oprawa graficzna. To co dzieje się w sferze wizualnej to prawdziwy majstersztyk. Wydaje się, że w operowaniu kolorami, tworzeniu niecodziennych perspektyw czy wielowątkowych kadrów Evens doszedł do perfekcji i trudno będzie to przeskoczyć nawet jemu samemu. Charakterystyczny styl przy jednoczesnej różnorodności tych grafik to niewątpliwie znak firmowy autora, a sam komiks to według mnie najlepsza rzecz wydana w Polsce w 2020.
• 
  Jara

  Le doy dos estrellas porque el libro es una pasada visualmente. Sin embargo, no es lo que esperaba. Creo que el título está mal traducido: “Amusement” no es exactamente “jolgorio”, puede serlo, pero no en este caso. Es un comic sobre las sombras y las catacumbas de la noche, con mucho color pero no ilustra exactamente algo que me apetezca mirar. Creo que “jolgorio” tiene otra connotación y “amusement” sí que encaja con el juego ácido de palabras.
• 
  Loïc Blondeel

  Heerlijke wervelwind van kleur, een roes van begin tot eind. Aanrader, je komt ogen tekort!
• 
  Javier RC

  Mind-bending multicoloured trip
• 
  Alexandra Bazhenova-Sorokina

  A sad and beautiful story that reminded me of Céline and modernist literature more than about any comic book I’ve read. With mesmerizing imagery.
• 
  Mateen Mahboubi

  The story is basically intertwined adventures of a bunch of people navigating the night and getting up to all sorts of trouble with a very friendly taxi driver but ultimately you'll be drawn in by the stunning art. Lots to pour over and enjoy and let yourself be taken away by the colours.
• 
  Inès

  Als je ooit een boek zou moeten lezen alleen al voor de graphics dan is het deze jongens xx
• 
  Sam Bourgault

  The best graphic novel I have read in a long time. Ça donne envie de nuits blanches.
• 
  Ji Le

  Une somptueuse ode au monde de la nuit lors d'une nuit qui rassemble toutes les nuits, dans une ville qui réunit toutes les villes. S'y révèlent, la faune interlope, les névroses et héroïsmes qui se révèlent, ses lieux abracadabrants, et les rencontres autant glauques que magiques.
  Brecht Evens s'est surpassé dans son inventivité graphique qui frise le sublime. Chaque planche est merveilleuse.
  Trois petits bémols cependant:
  1: l'album a du mal à démarrer;
  2: le lecteur suit plusieurs personnages dans leur errance nocturne, et l'on se sait pas trop où va le scénario (mais c'est peut-être le lot de nombreuses nuits)
  3: on aurait aimé plus de diversité sexuelle
  
  Toutefois, les rigoles est un livre envoûtant pour tous ceux qui ont gouté ou aimeraient gouter au monde de la nuit.
  
• 
  Myriame Al

  Breathtaking / époustouflant.
  Chaque page ou double page est un monde en soi. On plonge dans un monde euphorique, maximaliste de lumières, de couleurs et de bruits, d’histoires qui se chevauchent et se croisent sans interagir. Les tumultes de la ville et de ses petites vies sont mis à l’honneur, in a unique and precious way.
  Beaucoup de beauté.
• 
  François Vigneault

  I hand-lettered the English edition of this weighty tome! I can definitely recommend this book unreservedly… A moving and surprising look at party people, panic attacks, and the power of storytelling.
• 
  Alexander Lisovsky

  "
  Пантера" Брехта Эвенса — самый крутой и мощный комикс на свете, а толстенные "Полуночники" — куда более скромный, бессвязный гимн ночной жизни и клубной эстетике, которой сам автор, видимо, симпатизирует.
  
  Во всей книге можно выделить три основные сюжетные линии, которые лишь едва касаются друг друга. В первой Йонас переезжает в Берлин к молодой жене и решает закутить в последнюю ночь в городе, но все его друзья отмораживаются по разным надуманным поводам, он идёт один и встречает давнего знакомого, здоровенного громилу, только что вышедшего из тюрьмы. Во второй психически неуравновешенную девушку сестра с друзьями выводит развеяться, у неё случается очередной кризис, она сбегает с танцовщицей на шесте, и они долго ездят по городу с таксистом, рассказывающим замысловатые истории из своей жизни, почти как в "Тысяче и одной ночи". Ну и в третьей Барон Суббота, с биполярным расстройством судя по всему, встречается с подругой, а потом ухает во все тяжкие, постоянно балансируя на грани между реальностью и мифологией (и по-моему зря здесь автор не пошёл дальше в сторону мифов).
  
  В общем, с сюжетной точки зрения я скорее всю книгу скучал, потому что мне в��егда была чужда эта немного ущербная и надтреснутая субкультура жизни-в-моменте (а завтра хоть трава не расти). Но при этом нарисован комикс совершенно потрясающе — как обычно у автора без явных панелей и пузырей, с мягкой акварелью, буйством красок, изобретательными сценами и ракурсами. Очень здорово сделана и каллиграфия Ольги Лаврентьевой.
  
  Короче, если вам нравится ночная жизнь и/или вы комикс-энтузиаст/художник, то книгу прочесть однозначно стоит, в неё вложено невероятное количество труда и таланта. В противном случае скорее не рекомендую. Вот
  ознакомительная галерея.
• 
  roj

  Door het boek heen volg je verschillende personages met verschillende verhaallijnen, in wat voelt als een soort van nacht-droomwereld. Alle verhalen en afbeeldingen vallen een beetje in de “wilde nacht” categorie, met avontuurlijke, gekke gebeurtenissen en vreemde, vernieuwende personages... heel tof! Het allerbijzonderste en sterkste vond ik de soms wat gekke conversaties, die een beetje random maar toch interessant waren, en natuurlijk de meeeega mooie prenten. De kleuren zijn echt heel opvallend en fijn, veel opvallende kleuren tegen donkere achtergronden, en de tekenstijl is ook gewoon heel mooi. Erg bijzonder, denk niet dat ik ooit zo veel “wauw” momenten heb gehad in een boek.
• 
  Jason Béliveau

  J'avais lu quelques pages en septembre dernier, puis l'avais mis de côté, insatisfait malgré la beauté des illustrations (c'est — et je pèse mes mots — magnifique). Ce coup-ci j'étais plus sensible au récit, à l'approche impressionniste, à la « quête » existentielle des trois personnages principaux (qui sont parfois énervants, ceci étant dit). La vie nocturne est si bien mise en place, ça rappelle Night on Earth de Jarmusch et La grande Bellezza de Sorrentino. Un coup de cœur pour débuter l'année et me rappeler que je dois me mettre à jour pour ce qui est la BD contemporaine!
• 
  ola_hiperbola

  Wow! ależ to było cudowne! Na początku obawiałam się przerostu formy nad treścią, ale na szczęście oprócz pomysłowych, zaskakujących, psychodelicznych rysunków dostajemy też ciekawych bohaterów, a ich rozmowy, zwierzenia, sytuacje w jakich się znaleźli dają do myślenia, i nie zawsze bywa zabawnie, jakby tytuł mógł sugerować. Jak to w życiu bywa - nocne eskapady po barach różnie się kończą 😋
  I jeszcze raz muszę pochwalić stronę wizualną, nigdy nie widziałam czegoś tak oryginalnego, wielki szacun, jestem oczarowana.
  Póki co będzie to jedna z moich najukochańszych powieści graficznych ❤️
• 
  Caroline

  Visuellement magnifique, brillant d'inventivité et superbement scénarisé. Trois personnages dont les soirées s'entrecroisent dans une ville fourmillante de vie et d'excès.
  J'ai été un peu déroutée au début de ma lecture, j'ai eu du mal à rentrer dans cette myriade de couleur, de détails et de texte et puis à un moment et à l'instar des 3 héros, j'ai compris qu'il fallait lâcher prise et à partir de là je n'ai pas pu en décoller et l'ai fini d'une traite.