This is one of those comics that leaves you thinking "what did I just read". Reading the Ruins is set during the First World War and in its center we have a Dutch, Jan Van Meer. He's an expert on folklore and is set to find the Engineer, Hellequin, who's building weird war monsters and reading the ruins lost in war and supposedly those ruins talk of doom. But, Meer's mission is not to find Hellequin and seemingly so everyone tries to find the guy and kill each other off. For what reason? Who knows. Reading the Ruins is full of hidden meanings and images of war time. It's probably a metaphor itself, but very hard to read. It's very interesting, but very violent at the same time. For me, the constant killings and James Bond type of shenanigans were a bit too much, since I was more into the weird potato soldier things, the folklore and whatnot. The comic is too short to convey the weirdness it wants and that's a bummer.

The art is very wonky ans scary even. It's somehow very Arabic and full of black blotches. In a way it's like the weirdness has taken a form and shape in David B.'s art and it works well. When you read his comics, you know there's something profoundly wrong with them, but you cannot pinpoint what. Reading the Ruins is heavy and suffocating, but brilliant at the same time - it's just extremely hard to grasp it. If you're into Kafka like oddities, then do try this.

Although there have been translations of some of his work, it seems to me that the English speaking world haven't really caught on to the genius of David B, one of the greats of the European graphic novel scene. It took 10 years for the artist/writer's 1996 masterpiece L'Ascension du Haut Mal to be published in English as Epileptic, and since then only a few of his works have been translated and independently published in the UK or USA. Actually, I think the English speaking world have been deprived of the opportunity to read a great number of original talents in the European market, but that's something that Europe Comics are starting to quickly rectify with their eBook English translations, and finally, we've now have another marvellous little gem from David B.

Originally published in France in 2001 for Dupuis, Reading the Ruins (La Lecture des ruines) is a good choice for an audience unfamiliar with his work or style, even if it isn't typical of it. In full colour rather than his familiar heavy black-and-white line work, a dark First World War fantasy rather than an autobiographical indie comic, Reading the Ruins is nonetheless a work that comes wholly from the wild imagination of David B.

It's 1917 in Northern France and one of the French weaponry engineers has gone missing. The military authorities aren't entirely surprised as Dr Hellequin's behaviour, his ideas and his inventions have become increasingly bizarre. Among the weapons the crackpot scientist claims to have invented to mentally disorient and destroy the opposing German forces are a Dream Cannon, Killer Shadows and Barb Vamp-wires. Captain Phillimon, who has lost a few body parts in the terrible war, has asked Dutch operative Van Meer, a historian of folklore, to look for Hellequin but not to actually find him. It's hoped rather than an apparent search for the scientist will keep German spies distracted and following the trail of a lunatic.

Intrigued enough to investigate, Van Meer has no intention of finding Hellequin, but it's not long before the scientist unexpectedly turns up and introduces him to his strange world. There's no question that Hellequin is deranged, as he reveals that he has abandoned his inventions to instead read the messages that are being left behind in the ruins of the destruction. He believes that the war is speaking to him, leaving messages in the geometry of the ruins around him. "We must decipher what the shells and bombs have been saying for the last three years".

Hellequin might well be insane, but his response is actually totally in keeping with the insanity of the times Trying to come up with new ideas, new ways of fighting war and trying to rationalise and make sense of war is enough to drive anyone insane. The ruins are indeed leaving a message, but the only message they have to reveal is death and devastation.

You can perhaps detect an influence of Jacques Tardi's work in this period and in War of the Trenches works in Reading the Ruins with a little bit of Adele Blanc-Sec in its period espionage adventures, but the underlying darkness is also somewhat Kafkaesque and David B. is very much at home exploring those extreme states beyond the surface and literal. Reading the Ruins sees his style at its most surreal and phantasmagorical, but in contrast to the free-flowing Epileptic there's a colder, mechanical edge evident here that is in keeping with the subject.

Accordingly, following an absurd dream logic, Reading the Ruins hardly keeps to a rational path, and David B. is as creative and imaginative as ever. His extraordinary detailed panels blend symbols with drawings that look like illustrations from medieval texts, blending folklore and mythology into the dark brutality and nightmarish quality of total war, finding a way to get beyond the surface to try and touch on the underlying insanity, and the insanity of seeking some kind of meaning or order within it

The art in this is phenomenal, as David B.'s always is - but the plot in this one just didn't quite work for me. It's set in a sort of fantastical, WWI-esque past, where all sorts of people are working toward developing or stopping weaponry of various types, with focus on one particular inventor.

There are some historically accurate racial slurs in this title, which I was not expecting and am still thinking about, as I am not sure they really worked to further the story. The offensive words generally come out the mouths of the most villainous characters, but David B.'s art and storytelling skills are so strong that I don't think they were necessary. In fact, they are what most threw me out of the story, which is never ideal in a book.

Apart from that, however, it's an interesting, fantastical sort of tale, surreal and horrifying and just the sort of thing I would expect from this author/artist. This one just wasn't quite for me.

Perhaps interesting for some but I was not able to engage with this narrative despite myself. Perhaps improving the structure could help.

Nice illustrations but story was too weak and strange to follow. Not very compelling and kind of boring in its abstractness.

'Reading the Ruins' by David B. is a story filled with surrealistic nightmarish art. That it takes place during World War I, makes it all appropriate.

It is 1917 and Europe is at war. Jan Van Meer is a spy tasked with finding an odd engineer named Hellequin. Hellequin has invented strange weapons like a dream cannon and a barbed wire plant. Jan is really sent to not find him, as he is followed by enemy operatives. The story ends up in the muddy trenches of the Great War where we seem to see the dream cannon working it nightmares on the troops.

The story is absurdist, as many felt that war was. The art is wonderfully unique and feels like it's out of the early years of the previous century. It feels almost like early labor union posters or almost a woodcut look with heavy lines and characters that have limited depth. The story left me confused sometimes, but the story kept me going in this wonderfully illustrated story.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Personally, I didn't find that this story was for me. And even though I didn't finish reading the story ( made it about 50% of the way through ), I did scroll through to the end to look through all the illustrations. The artwork in this graphic novel was simply stunning. Full of thick lines, and bold colors, the gritty frames were what really pulled me in. I am still giving this a 4 stars because not only did I fall in love with the artwork, but because I know that others will enjoy the story... it simply wasn't my preferred genre.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I truly appreciate it!