Druuna

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Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri at the Barcelona International Comic Convention 2016

Druuna is a heroine in the erotic - science fiction - and fantasy - Comics from Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri . She often appears in the magazines Métal hurlant and Schwermetall and is mostly the protagonist in Serpieri's works, especially in the ten volumes of the series Morbus Gravis ( Latin : serious illness ), the second volume of which bears her name, that appeared from 1985 to 2018 .

action

The story of Druuna takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that is probably several centuries in the future. The beautiful Druuna tries to survive in a crumbling city and not arouse the suspicion of the priests who rule this world, while a terrible disease turns people into horrific beasts. Druuna often uses her physical advantages to her advantage and is finally able to learn the truth: After its decline, humanity no longer lives on earth, but drifts on a spaceship a few hundred kilometers in size, which is managed by a computer, through space. When the life form responsible for the disease finally encloses the spaceship, Druuna is kept alive in a dream world until she can be saved by other space-traveling people. After a long fight against mutations, the running backwards of time and numerous dream visions, Druuna ends up on an alien planet where machines and alien-infested people fight each other and finally fight for the heroine.

Concept and artistic influences

In "Druuna - X" Serpieri claims to have been an avid reader of science fiction literature since childhood, but that the greatest inspirational influence comes from scenes of his own fears and nightmares.

The author explains the core theme of the mutation caused by a contact-transmitted disease and the resulting visible physical characteristics and alienation from the rest of society through personal experiences with a friend who died of facial bone cancer and through the great AIDS wave of the 1980s that Sexuality in the Western Christian culture was branded as a sin punished with a fatal disease. Serpieri also drew comparisons with the Nazi practices of labeling the sick as "bad" and extracting them from the rest of society in ghettos , which is a typical feature of repressive forms of society. Concern about such developments, procedures and stigmatizations led him to include these topics in an exaggerated form in his work.

Although he says he is reluctant to name particular favorites among the writers of the science fiction genre, he mentions that George Orwell 's work probably had the greatest influence on him in the development of the Druuna series. In visual style, he names the imagery of films like Alien , Blade Runner , Abyss , Terminator and Total Recall as the main inspirations.

characters

Druuna

Serpieri created Druuna as a sensual, long haired and exuberant beauty of apparently Mediterranean descent. She lives in a post-apocalyptic and often very violent end times that are populated by bizarre, often lustful monsters . Accordingly, she often becomes a victim of sexual assault - even sexually active. Your clothes are usually economical; She denies large parts of her adventures naked or only wearing a thong . In the foreword to Druuna X , Serpieri writes that Valérie Kaprisky's appearance in the feature film The Public Woman (La Femme publique) inspired him to create the character.

Shastar

Shastar is Druuna's lover, who initially suffers from an illness - called "Evil", which mutates him into a horrific creature, and only with Druuna's help and the serum she gets through her seduction can he temporarily regain his human appearance . Shastar disappears, dies, and returns to life multiple times over the entire plot period. At Druuna's side he tries to guide and protect them.

Lewis

Lewis is in command of the ship on which Druuna and the survivors of humanity (many of whom are sick with "the evil") are unwittingly. At the time of the action he is just a preserved head that has wanted death for centuries. To protect Druuna, he changes his mind and later merges with her lover Shastar.

Nameless dwarf

A small, older man in a robe-like robe who stands by Druuna in different incarnations and carries a long knife with him as a weapon. He only appears as an ally of the mutants, rescuing Druuna from a torture chamber and other dangerous situations. Towards the end of the row, he finally returns as a robot.

Want

Will is the commander of a smaller spaceship that appears from Volume 3 - Creatura. He falls into dreamlike states in which he meets Druuna and through which he later finds Druuna and brings him on board his spaceship. Up to the seventh part - The Forgotten Planet - Will plays various key roles in the ongoing story and appears in various forms - at the beginning as himself, later as a clone and at the end as a semi-cyborg. In several volumes, Will is the only figure that can be seen across several pages.

Doc

Doc is the scientist on Will's ship. He has knowledge in various fields such as medicine, technology and the realities of space and time of the unexplored universe in which the story takes place. As a universal genius, he enables various key moments in the course of the plot. Doc is a self-portrait of Serpieri.

Terry

Terry is a soldier and part of Will's crew. With her brush haircut and her soldier-like manner, she looks very masculine and aloof, but she also has a lascivious side, which among other things leads her to indulge in disfigured mutants, to have a secret relationship with her commander, Will, or with Druuna on the one hand to behave very suspiciously, but nevertheless to approach her sexually. She is one of the most common minor characters.

Publications and censorship in Germany

Publications

In Germany, most of the stories about Druuna were published by Alpha Comic Verlag . As a result of the publications, there were repeated conflicts with the Federal Inspectorate for Writings Harmful to Young People and several house searches.

In writer and reader appeared Druuna and Morbus Gravis uncensored 2015 and 2016 the total output.

censorship

Druuna and the Gravis series are available uncensored in Spain , France , Italy , Austria and other countries. The German licensee Alpha has decided to practice drastic self-censorship before the series is released . The reason lies in the fear of economic setbacks due to lengthy processes. Already in advance it was discussed in the Alphaverlag that publication in Germany without censorship is not possible. Hundreds of comics in Germany had already been censored by what was then the Federal Inspectorate for Writings Harmful to Young People. In the previous ten years, the applicants had focused on the censorship of adult comics. Indexing would be tantamount to de facto censorship due to the design of the laws. The measures were agreed with the licensee Dargaud and the artist Serpieri in order to prevent beams as much as possible . Because of the importance of the case, the comics association (ICOM) decided to make a documentary. Later, in an unprecedented seizure campaign in 1995, titles by Ralf König , Art Spiegelman , Paul Gillon , Walter Moers and Tank Girl as well as Gravis disease titles were confiscated. The Meiningen chief public prosecutor Hönninger had the Sonneberg publishing house searched with 40 police officers and the police investigated more than 1,000 bookstores.

In Morbus Gravis Volume 1 and Druuna - Morbus Gravis 2 , massive image changes were made. In the previous publications in Schwermetall von Morbus Gravis 3 - Creatura and Volume 5 Mandragora , black bars were used in each case. In Volume 2, page 9 was completely removed and in Mandragora nine pages were completely removed for preprint in the magazine trade.

Works with Druuna

Gravis disease

  • Gravis disease (1985)
  • Gravis disease II - Druuna (1987)
  • Creatura (1990)
  • Carnivora (1992)
  • Mandragora (1995)
  • Aphrodisia (1997)
  • Druuna and the forgotten planet ( La planète oubliée , 2000)
  • Clone ( clone , 2003)
  • Druuna Zero - Anima: Les Origines (Glénat BD, 2016)
  • That came with the wind ( Venuta Dal Vento , 2018)

Further

  • Exces & Extase (1996)
  • obsession
  • Druuna X
  • Druuna X 2
  • Croquis
  • Serpieri Sketchbook
  • Serpieri Sketchbook 2
  • The Sweet Smell of Woman

With the title Obsession , Serpieri published a hardcover sketchbook in addition to the Gravis disease series, which shows the story of Druuna.

Video game

Druuna is the main character in the 3D video game Druuna: Gravis disease , published on September 27, 2001 by MC2-Microïds . In Germany, PC Games awarded the game 38 points, Gamezone awarded it 35 points and GameStar awarded 9 points; 100 points would have been possible in each case.

reception

In 1995 Eleuteri Serpieri received the Harvey Award for "Druuna: Carnivora" in the category of Best American Publication of Foreign Material .

Andreas C. Knigge describes in Comics - From mass paper to multimedia adventure . Druuna as a "hyper-realistic designed erotic science fiction fairy tale" .

The books have been sold over a million times and have been translated into twelve languages.

Trivia

Because of his fondness for drawing and looking at the female buttocks and his ability to depict them, Serpieri was given the nickname "Master of Ass" by his fan base.

literature

  • Ralf Georg Czapla : Gravis disease (Druuna) . In: Lexicon of Comics. Works, people, topics, aspects . Loose-leaf edition. Founded by Heiko Langhans, continued by Marcus Czerwionka. Corian Verlag, Meitingen. 33. Supplementary delivery March 2000
  • Roland Seim , Josef Spiegel (ed.): “From 18” - censored, discussed, suppressed. Examples from the cultural history of the Federal Republic of Germany. "The third degree". A catalog book. 6. Reprint of the 3rd improved, revised and updated edition. Telos Verlag, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-933060-01-X .
  • Matthew Jones: Ecofeminist Themes in Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri's Morbus Gravis under ImageTexT (Interdisciplinary comics studies) (engl.)

swell

  1. ↑ a b Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri: Druuna - X . Editeur: Bagheera Editeur. East Rockaway, New York, ISBN 1-882931-03-3 .
  2. ^ Serpieri, Paolo Eleuteri, foreword. Druuna X. (Heavy Metal Magazine, December 1993).
  3. ↑ Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Gravis disease, documentation of the censorship, compilation and commentary: Karl Heinz Baal, published by: Association of Comics (ICOM), Wimmelsbach OJ
  4. ↑ Press release from Alpha Comics and Edition Kunst der Comics from July 30, 1995, documented in: Roland Seim and Josef Spiegel (eds.), "From 18" censored - discussed - suppressed - "The third degree" - examples from the cultural history of the Federal Republic of Germany ", Münster 1995, pp. 247f.
  5. ↑ Achim Schnurrer , Josef Spiegel , Roland Seim and Dieter Hiebing , Comic Zensiert, Sonnebger 1996, pp. 3–6
  6. ↑ Comparison of the French and German editions, in: Schnittberichte.com
  7. ↑ Comparison of old version and new edition, in: Schnittberichte.com
  8. ↑ Roland Seim and Josef Spiegel (eds.), The annotated illustrated book on "Ab 18" censored - discussed - suppressed - censorship in German cultural history, Münster 2001, p. 141.
  9. ↑ Roland Seim, Between Freedom of the Media and Censorship Interventions - A media and legal sociological investigation of the influence of censorship on West German popular culture, Münster 1997, p. 317.
  10. ↑ cf. Druuna: Gravis disease at mobygames.com .
  11. ↑ cf. Druuna: Gravis Disease - The Press Says at mobygames.com
  12. ↑ Harvey Awards 1995 ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.harveyawards.org
  13. ^ Andreas C. Knigge: Comics - Vom Massenblatt ins multimediale Abenteuer , p. 304. Rowohlt, 1996.
  14. ↑ Lambiek.net about Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri
  15. ↑ Joachim Heijndermans: Serpieri's 'Druuna'. Retrieved October 10, 2019 .

Web links