Los 6 viajes de Lone Sloane

Lone Sloane #2

by Philippe Druillet

Lone Sloan es un neoterrestre de ojos rojos y poderes fuera de lo común, un rebelde que desafía a Emperador del Universo, a las fierzas oscuras del Cosmos, e incluso a los mismos dioses. Viaja con sus acólitos a bordo de la nave galática O Sidarta , visitando extraños planetas y corriendo un sinfín de aventuras.
Esta serie, inédita hasta ahora en nuestro país, nos ofrece la oportunidad de sumergirnos en el universo galáctico y psicodélico creado por Philippe Druillet, consagrado autor que con esta obra se muestra aún más rompedor y alejado de los anquilosados conceptos de la historieta clásica.
Con este volumen EDT inicia la publicación de la obra de Philippe Druillet, autor rupturista, que con sus páginas enloquecidas y barrocamente cargadas, atacó en su misma base el estilo de cómic imperante en Europa, la llamada línea clara, influencia de la entonces preponderante escuela franco-belga. Publicado inicialmente por Eric Losfeld, quien con Barbarella inició el boom del cómic adulto en Francia y en el mundo, Druillet tardó en ser aceptado por el mundo de la historieta, logrando finalmente publicar en la revista Pilote las historietas recopiladas en este volumen, primeras aventuras de su héroe favorito, Lone Sloane. El cómic viene complementado por un prólogo de René Goscinny y una carta de reconocimiento de Hergé.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Comic Book, Bande Dessinée

80 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

see https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp...

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

the weird malcontent known as Lone Sloane travels the galaxy in 6 bizarre adventures full of hallucinatory vistas, mind-boggling transformations, dreadful plot twists, and lovecraftian horror. he turns into a god-like thing; he turns back into a man. he is the wrong person to hire or to suborn because whoever crosses his path comes to a very bad end. he's a death-magnet. avoid Lone Sloane at all costs!

I found his journeys to be pretty entertaining. and definitely over the top. Druillet's intense style reminded me a lot of various vividly colorful and psychedelic posters and album covers from the 1960s. unfortunately, that is far from my favorite sort of style. I'm glad I didn't live through that era; what a headache! still, that said, overall this is an impressive and certainly eye-opening enterprise.

I loved the story where Lone Sloane has to battle a villain's champion - a villain that looks like a floating green rag and a champion that looks like multiple circles within circles. imagine having to deal with that. fortunately his sexy computer Rose saves the day - by dividing him in two! the good Lone Sloane and Mr. Negativity. and Mr. Negativity doesn't fight battles - apparently he just blows shit up. as far as that battle goes, done and done.





my favorite image:



that's the Power of the Universe, visiting Lone Sloane in order to give him a secret password that will bend space and time and make LS transcend our reality because reasons.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 6 Voyages reprints stories first published in Pilote in the early seventies. First published as a collection in 1972. In September 2015 we get this oversized hardcover version which is kind of overwhelming or disorienting, in a few ways. I found it more interesting than actually pleasurable/fun, but it's impressive, especially if we consider the time it was first being published.

It's this trippy sci fi fantasy about a guy, Sloane, who is a space explorer with mystical powers, encountering star dragons, insane robots. The back cover says Lovecraftian, which kind of fits. Won the Grand Prize of Angouleme for comics way back then. Herge called it"sensational," which I guess could also fit, especially as there wasn't much of anything like it visually at the time. Dreamlike.

Because of the time, I associate it with the romanticizing of space travel that seemed heightened for the general public around then. David Bowie's Space Oddity, released 1969. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddity, 1968. But not space as scientific endeavor. Space as the ultimate imaginative adventure. Cosmic is a word used about space around this time. Applies to this comic and that music, that movie.

Operatic. Lots of dark color. Kind of like a space Ulysses, but more operatic than grounded in any real world. The disorienting part is that he breaks out of the comics panel arrangement in a variety of ways: full page images, double page images, no panels at all, op art mixed with classical images. I found the story hard to follow, the least interesting aspect of it, actually. It's just a kind of visual feast. Inventive. Original. Trippy is the principal word I associate with this project.

[Forrest · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Hawkwind, circa the same time these were originally published, but without Lemmy.

The absolutely stunning artwork in this volume more than makes up for flat characterization and the presence of more gods in the machines (I mean this literally!) than ancient Greece could have conceived. Druillet was no storyteller, but, wow, what an artist! The line between organic and mechanical is effectively erased, while the immense scale of the structures, space, and spaceships through which and with which Sloane travels overwhelms the viewer, further adding to the sense of awe that sweeps out from the pages.

Not my favorite graphic novel in recent memory, but well worth a gander. I'll be very curious to read the further volumes to see if the storytelling improves or if it retains it's too-short and under-impressive plott(dd)ing. In any case, I shall absolutely be back for more brain-cracking artwork.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

141019: whoa. now this is what i mean when i say the best art is that which expresses itself in the right medium. short stories, the six voyages are not connected, plot, theme, world, not much story- but the art! this is before my time but is maybe how i think visually of the '60s/early '70s. no borders, no panels, just splash, disorientation, overlaps, over-size, neon, abstract etc. who needs drugs for other-worldly experience when you have these images...

[Ill D · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be completely honest, the mind-stretching qualities amped up to 11 here don’t exactly make for a single lick of sense. And the cohesion doesn’t exist internally nor externally betwixt the 6 voyages since they’re totally unconnected (sans our titular protagonist). However, the art is just so phenomenal it overpowers pretty much everything. Reveling in its immense applications of details, its other-worldly vision is meant to be quaffed as quickly as your third eye can handle it.

[Bob Fish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Druillexcellent !

Video review of my Druillet collection :
https://youtu.be/tEFxDw6UBc4

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning illustrations. Even if you try, you won't find even the tiniest flaw on "the 6 voyages of lone sloane". It's pure art. There is not doubt Druillet truly is the priest of the lovecraftian mythos. Can't imagine anyone else that could transport Lovecraft's nightmarish text into images in such a perfect way.

Do yourself a favor, buy it and read it.

[Derek Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Druillet's trippy, baroque art is on full display here. I'm glad Titan has chosen to reprint this series for English readers. We review this book on the podcast, http://comicsalternative.com/episode-....

[Jesse A · Rating 3 out of 5]

The whole book has a very 70s European vibe to it. With an odd story and the sometimes disjointed layout, I didn't find this overly enjoyable. Still impressive.

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great art, trippy story. I'd be lying if I said I understood even half of what was happening, but I still enjoyed it purely for the sake of the fantasy visions and alien vistas opening to me.

[Jesús · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Comics Canon Review]

I’m still wrapping my head around this one. I had known of Philippe Druillet’s work for a long time, but I hadn’t spent time with any of it until now. Wow.

Somewhere between cosmic horror, pulp sci-fi, and Jack Kirby, Druillet’s work is visually stunning. It’s mostly pointless to talk about things like “character” or “plot” in his work since the captions and character dialogue are mostly just set-dressing for the visuals on display.

There’s so much I could say here about the nexus of influences Druillet draws from (and the huge ripple effects outward into subsequent dark sci-fi worlds), but simply on its own merits this work is awe-inspiring and utterly hypnotic.

[Ademption · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art is trippy and dated in a 1970s LSD future-past, prog rock style that I enjoy. The stories are so thin that they barely qualify as such.

[Mateus Braz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A alma é maior do que o universo.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing design and ideas, just wished we got a little more from each story

[Keith W · Rating 4 out of 5]

French comic artists were built different. Philippe Druillet was drawing comics in the early 70’s which remain outstanding for their imaginative visuals and highly unconventional pages and panel layouts.

I am glad to see more of these older books getting nice English translation releases. If crazy detailed sci-fi/fantasy art over a loosely strung fever dream narrative through the cosmos sounds like your thing, this book is an easy recommendation.

[drown_like_its_1999 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Six short stories that construct the legend of Lone Sloane, Terran traveler of the stars who becomes blessed by galactic gods and finds himself embroiled in one cosmic conflict after another.

This feels like the pinnacle of bitchin' science fantasy van art. The exhaustive depictions of vast interstellar monuments, massive spaceships, and godly cosmic powers are truly something to behold.

It's all so gloriously rendered that the narratives are largely sideshows, which is good as they're often clumsily told and opaque. That being said, each of the six stories are epic in scope and the settings feel genuinely far flung, alien, and immersive. The often difficult to parse dialogue actually helps to heighten the unfamiliarity, even if the sloppy plotting and clunkily narrated exposition relinquishes those gains.

But again, the stories could be utterly impenetrable and I would have loved this as the art establishes an absurdly high floor for overall entertainment.

[Your_Average_Magical_Girls_Fan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Look at it as an art portfolio and don't even bother to read the words in the baloons or try to see some kind of plot/characters behind this because there's clearly none of that. The art is 10 stars worthy anyway.

[Andrew Sztehlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man, I really wanted to like this. The artwork is incredible, Druillet is a master illustrator. But the story is bonkers and makes no narrative sense, designed simply to link the pages. I found it very tiring and I had to force myself to finish reading this. If you like Lovecraftian horror space fantasy, maybe this will be for you, but for me I just really struggled. I needed more of a story. Lone Sloane is a cardboard cut out of a character. After reading this graphic novel I couldn’t tell you anything about him.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous layouts and intricately-designed art held together by the thinnest of sci-fi plots — but that’s perfectly fine, because anything more than that would’ve made this ever so literal and tedious. Recommended

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the narrative isn’t the strongest, let’s be real that’s like going to a steakhouse and ordering a salad… You “read” this for Druillet’s exceptional art. Otherworldy, grand in scale, and painstakingly detailed. A treat for the eyes.

[Bo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind blowingly good art and mind bogglingly strange stories, I love it.

[ComicNerdSam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some good sci-fo writing and the art is absolutely god tier. I’ll be looking to this for inspiration for a while.

[Phoenix Scholz-Krishna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't expect plot (or plot which makes sense). Read this for the artwork, which is stunning (and of cosmic proportions and amazing detail).

[Roman Stadtler · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Baroque art was great, cosmically trippy in that great psychedelic way that only the stuff created in the original psychedelic years can be, but the story is a mess. Maybe it's just clunky translating, or maybe Druillet simply isn't a writer, but things happen for no reason and out of the blue. This isn't a real *spoiler* but, for instance, at one point Sloane's shipboard sentient computer becomes a woman, the reason being, far as I could tell, so Druillet could render a beautiful drawing of a nude woman with cool esoteric patterns/tattoos on her skin. Nice, but that drawing's in one sequence at top of a page, and we never see her again, Sloane doesn't even note the change, the computer's never hinted at a desire to become a woman (neither has the narration); there's no payoff to her becoming a woman. There's much more ridiculous things that exist, simply because they're cosmically cool, like the Bridge Over the Stars, that I can accept because they're so preposterous, so wild and goofy, you think "that's stupidly impossible, but freakin' cool!" and go with it, but the number of small, unimportant "Hey, isn't this cool!?" tossed in moments started to get to me.

Other things happen because, suddenly, the plot needed them to. Sloane regains a ship and crew we didn't know he'd lost, as it had never been mentioned before. There's more, but I don't want to spoil anything. Lets just say, without Deus ex Machinas, a few times over, ol' Lone wouldn't have gotten far.

The other main problem I have is Sloane himself. The story's sloppiness, the psychedelic chaos, I could be fine with, if we had a good character as our anchor through the chaos, but we don't. Sloane is an uninteresting, empty red-eyed pin to hang some story ideas off of, an excuse to go on a cosmic trip, which is beautifully portrayed, but he's such an boring, angry non-character! His red eyes are the coolest thing about him. Oh, and he, apparently, had two souls, because that's something else that comes up as a way out of something, which hadn't been mentioned before and has no consequences after it's served a quick purpose. AH! I spoke too soon! There is an easy to miss reference on page 63 that piqued my interest, that's got me more curious about Sloane than I expected to be. Have to research that.

The art makes the book worth reading, for sure. Don't skip Sloane because of the negatives! The art is cool, Cosmic, weird, space opera (as my friend David mentioned in his review) style. It's derivative, since Druillet's art, at least in the Lone Sloane books (not familiar with his other work), is entirely based on Jim Steranko's 1960's work for Marvel Comics, which itself was inspired by Jack Kirby and the earlier comic strip artists like Burne Hogarth. I don't know if it's in homage to those artists or more of a rip off, and it doesn't matter to me, 'cause it looks great, but there's body positions, layouts, etc that are pure Steranko. Check out page 42, for example. If I didn't know it wasn't, I'd think that was Steranko art, just rougher. Druillet has a scratchier style. The alien faces and headgear/ornamentation look like Jim Starlin's (another Marvel artist known for his cosmic work, especially Thanos) aliens and headgear, actually, but he didn't start working for Marvel until '72, so maybe he was inspired by Druillet. That'd be cool, it all comes around, a cosmic comic journey!

Along with Steranko, Kirby was obviously a heavy influence. In the first few pages, I was surprised to see a cosmic device that's very close to an important cosmic device in Kirby's New Gods that had first appeared that same year in DC Comics. Writing this, I'm starting to think while Lone Sloane is certainly worth checking out for the art, if you want better written Cosmic far out stuff, check out the SF arcs of Steranko's Nick Fury series or Kirby's New Gods. They aren't quite as psychedelic, since they were published by a mainstream American publisher, but the stories are better. Loan Sloane is good for an hour of Cosmic Fluff, but it's not very meaty.

[Paul Spence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in 1991 I bought a copy of Philippe Druillet's Nosferatu, a black-and-white one-shot published by Dark Horse in the days when they were still putting out Cheval Noir. In line with the production values of that Euro anthology, it was a piece of crap; square binding and the premium price tag gave the illusion that it was related to the then popular "prestige format" but in reality, it was just about the worst way possible to experience Druillet's extravagant work.

I was too young to have purchased Heavy Metal in its heyday but I knew that Druillet was a major figure in French comics, and that there was no way the tiny black-and-white panels in Nosferatu could represent him at his best. I'll check him out again later, I thought. Once somebody produces a decent edition.

Flash forward to 2025 and that day has finally arrived, with Titan Comics' recent reissuing of Druillet's seminal work The 6 Voyages of Lone Sloane in full-size European album format, which allows Druillet's artwork to glory in all of its berserk early '70s progginess. How berserk? Very berserk.

Yes, Moebius was trippy, and Kirby was cosmic, but Druillet's art is trippy and cosmic and more. It combines meticulous detail with an almost manic, visionary force. His vision of the cosmos contains flying black thrones and ancient alien temples and giant space bridges and robot spaceships that mutate into beautiful women who declare their passionate love for the hero. It doesn't make a lot of sense but that doesn't really matter: Lone Sloane is grandiose and ambitious and preposterous, and it looks fantastic and fresh, more than fifty years after it was first published.

The first story, "The Throne of the Black God", sets the tone for the rest of the book. The splash page depicts Sloane, a sickly yellow solitary space traveler sitting inside the baroque, metallic interior of a spaceship, his hand on a giant lever. (This was the '70s and spaceships were going to have giant levers.) Beneath this image Druillet has drawn the ship itself, which looks like a flying cosmic cathedral; however, he does not use panel borders to suggest the passage of time or a change of scene, so it is as if we are staring at the interior and exterior simultaneously. Against this already expansive imagery Druillet provides an ultra-compressed set-up, as arch and over the top as anything churned out by a Weird Tales pulp writer:


The year 804 of the new era. After the great scare, men decided to spread their power over the universe. The infinite sea of stars wore the seal of the human empire. Great caravans of iron were launched to conquer the skies. Time passed and few came back. The universe was keeping its secrets. But a terran, a rogue among his kin, a loner sails to the outer reaches of the great cosmic ocean.

A swirling blood-red nebula guides the eye through these images towards the bottom of the page, where in three quick panels everything goes horribly wrong. At the top of page two the ship explodes in a mix of green, blue, red, and yellow, and within eight panels total Sloane is roaming through the cosmos on a mysterious black throne, which we are helpfully informed is known as "Iotai, he who seeks." The chair defies the laws of physics and biology as Sloane has no space helmet, no oxygen, not even a seat belt. Nor does he have much in the way of characterization, for that matter: but what he does have is destiny. Iotai's goal, Druillet tells us, is "to bring the living one to its masters."

The rest of the story features sideways panels, tiny panels, and several full-page spreads featuring impossible machines, an alien citadel, colossal mummies, a cosmic dungeon, a three faced god, and an intense psychedelic sequence in which Sloane falls into a delirium and acquires hundreds of bodies, some of which are upside down, each of which Druillet drew individually, as this was long before Photoshop made it easy for artists to pull off these effects.

Fortunately, our hero manages to utter a cosmic word from his thousand identical mouths, destroying his foes and then returning to space on his magic chair. Eight pages of arch cosmic terror, and you're done. Until the next eight pages of arch cosmic terror, that is.

As a youthful reader of 2000AD in its early '80s heyday I grew up with compressed narratives, but this is something else: Druillet achieves almost Book of Genesis levels of symbolic density. Lone Sloane is a tripped-out attempt at creating cosmic myths, psychedelic visions, an assault on the fabric of reality on paper. The pages seethe with depictions of impossible machines, fantastic architecture, cosmic destruction, and ultra-absurd deus ex machina plot interventions.

There is so much going on that the ideas and imagery cannot be contained in a traditional panel grid, so Druillet continues throughout to assault the reader/viewer with splash pages, jagged panels, pages without borders. It is the use of layouts in service of disorientation, breaking down the order of page to scramble the senses. And yet at the same time, Druillet "sees" these images with incredible clarity; the precision and meticulous detail of his imagery gives it an intense solidity.

The 6 Voyages of Lone Sloane is nuts in ways similar to only a handful of cultural products from the same era. It is difficult to think of comparative works in comics. It's demented like the LPs of French jazz-progsters Magma, who made epic, intricate concept albums about an alien civilization sung in the language of that alien civilization.

It's out of control like Alejandro Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain- an onslaught of images and symbolism with little regard for such bourgeois trivialities as plot or character. Operating at the highest level of weirdness from a weird era, Druillet declares: Fuck your bourgeois notions of "sense"- I've got a head full of cosmos and I'm going to rip your eyes open, man. In other words: The 6 Voyages of Lone Sloane was worth the wait.

[Luis Diaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

It felt like a 70's or 80's animated cartoon. It was fun and I can see some people really liking this book. It has that inspirational quality with a closed can of potential (something I call that feeling). I still think it was hard to read and it felt like a very talented young artist perhaps if I was in high school this would be pretty amazing. As an adult it just lacks something. Artistically it had some nicely renderings of vehicles. Some exciting stuff. I did feel there is something lost in the translation and some disjointed sequences. Overall pretty fun stuff.

[Nuno R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An ever surprizing trip of grandiose cosmic psychedelia.
Incredibly intricate ilustrations, that tell a great deal of the story. This author really seems to me alike a precursor of Caza, and like him, Moebius and Bilal benefits a lot from being both the writer and the ilustrator. His sci-fi story-telling is not the translation of a script but a holistic creation of the same mind. And, being a creation from the 70's, this is quite the psychedelic voyage. It was by first peek into his work. I'm eager to plunge into the rest.

[Relstuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is reminiscent of old school sci-fi stories I read as a teen. The art is impressive, the oversized dimensions of the books just barely do it justice. It was clearly written for large pages. The coloring is ok, however, there are a few text areas with purple backgrounds that were a little hard to read.

This story is being divided into three volumes. These are thin enough I wish they combined them into one.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cosmic spectacular! The stories are only a few pages long each, telling the tale of a man ripped from his own dimension and seeking a way home. Panels are large and busy, but only a few colors are used on each page so as not to overwhelm the viewer, and most of the detail can safely be ignored. It's a quick read, as most pages are composed of only a few panels and similarly few text blocks.

[The Kekistani · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was such a psychedelic trip... I dont have words to describe it