Comics Adventure stories, political satire and non-fiction comics at the Cartoonmuseum Basel
His oeuvre includes abstruse and funny adventure stories, political satire and even a non-fiction comic about climate change: the Cartoonmuseum Basel is showing a retrospective of the work of the celebrated French comic artist Christophe Blain.
06.11.2025, 14:44
SDA
Beautiful women, smoking guns and gloomy saloons: all of this can be found in the witty western parody "Gus" by Christophe Blain. The title hero, or rather anti-hero, of the stories is the brash mail robber Gus, whose absurdly long nose is reminiscent of Pinocchio and who is also a distorted image of the well-known comic book gunslinger Lucky Luke.
These and other over-the-top adventure and fantasy stories are just one side of Blain's oeuvre, which is now on display at the Cartoonmuseum Basel with comic excerpts, original drawings and sketches. He is an artist who is not easy to grasp in the diversity of his work, said museum director Anette Gehrig at a media tour on Thursday.
The artist, who was born in 1970, attracted a great deal of attention in 2010 with his political satire "Quai d'Orsay", in which he turned the recollections of an advisor to the controversial French minister Dominique de Villepin into a biting satire. The graphic novel was even made into a film by Bertrand Tarvenier.
Non-fiction comic on climate change
In 2021, Blain surprised us with a non-fiction comic on climate change. In "Le Monde sans fin" ("World without end"), he turned a dialog with energy and climate expert Jean-Marc Janovici into a comic strip. However, France's less critical approach to nuclear energy as a way out of the CO2 crisis is likely to be met with greater skepticism here than in Blain's home country.
What Blain's multifaceted graphic work has in common is the artistic virtuosity that characterizes the work of this trained artist. He knows how to playfully jump from realistically depicted scenes to caricature and back again.
The exhibition "Cristophe Blain - Paradis perdus" at the Cartoonmuseum Basel can be seen until March 15, 2026.
