Pachyderme

The French edition of Pachyderme was nominated for the Grand Prix at the Angouleme International Comics Festival 2010.; Peeters is the bestselling author of Blue Pills, and Sandcastle (published by SelfMadeHero, 2011) won Sci-Fi Graphic Novel of the Year 2011, at Utopiales; Appealing to fans of popular, existential cinema [Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, American Beauty, Being John Malkovich, Groundhog Day; Appealing to readers of surreal, existential literature [Fight Club - Palahniuk, Nausea - Satre, The Stranger - Camus, The Unbearable Lightness of Being-Kundera,; UK author appearance: November 2012 - Thought Bubble Festival (Leeds); Creator features: 2 pages - Art Review (November), 2 pages Sci-Fi Now "Must Read" (October), 2 pages Comics Heroes (September); Widespread review coverage; Limited edition art print offer for retailers; Flash animated video trailer.

A sci-fi tale which has all the echoes of a David Lynch film.

Almost cinematic in style, in the breathless opening to this graphic novel we get a traffic jam due to a wounded elephant; a blind pigkeeper; an alien-looking grey baby; a cavalier and alcoholic skirt-chasing surgeon; and a beanpole of a Swiss secret policeman.

Our heroine, Carice, walks from her car through the woods, as if in a trance, to a hospital to visit her diplomat husband, indisposed from a car accident. Her goodbye note, which she intends to deliver in person, is in her purse. The hospital is vast, remote, and foreboding, filled with suitable loonies.

The book’s first third ends with Carice waking an apparently dead body in the morgue with her whistling. Chopin? the body asks. Carice nods. We learn of her too-early marriage, her dashed dreams as a concert pianist, and in the course of conversation realize that the aged cadaver she’s talking to is her future self.