The Sweet Smell of Woman

by Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Fershid Bharucha (Translator)

Hardcover, like new book.

76 pages, Hardcover

First published May 24, 2000

About the author

Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri is an Italian comic book writer and illustrator, noted for his works of highly detailed renderings of the human form, particularly erotic images of women. He is best known for his work on the Druuna erotic science fiction series.

Reviews

[Leila Anani · Rating 1 out of 5]

What I love about Druuna is the fusion of eroticism, bio-horror, philosophy and its weird post-apocalyptic nightmare setting.

The sweet smell of woman is Serpieri's Druuna sketch book - but only has one image that for me encapsulates the Druuna graphic novels (page 25) the rest are sketches of nudes with a focus on shapely bottoms which seems to be the artist's obsession. There's little variety - all the women look like Druuna whether she is a native American squaw or a futuristic hooker - Serpieri says at one point Druuna is the very essence of woman which pretty much sums this up.

The art is stunning if you like female nudes but highly repetitive and there are no art techniques or insights into the artist. The accompanying text is random erotic musings, dropping in the names of random women (models the artist has known? loved?) This seriously lacks context.

Being female has perhaps given me a more negative view of this than its male readers, but to me this reduces women into sex objects and while it may depict the essence of feminine beauty, it fails to capture the real essence of woman at all. It's disappointing for Druuna fans and disappointing for art fans giving no insight into the creative process or the mind of the artist - other than his sexual memoirs. However if you like looking at stunning nude sketches this is definitely the book for you.

[Viggo Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully drawn women. What else is there to say.