Written by: Olivier Pont
Illustrations: Olivier Pont
Coloring: Laurence Croix
Publisher: Dargaud
Ontboezemingen – Comic Book Review
Many adventures often have a male protagonist who comes by to save the day, save the beautiful maiden and live happily ever after. Of course, more and more female heroines are getting their time in the spotlight as well, but we often tend to forget certain situations that are not that frequently featured in stories. Many stories aren’t part of grand adventures or fantasy tales but are situations that happen in life, which some people might turn a blind eye towards. These situations often revolve around status, sex and what society expects us to look like, what to feel and how to live our lives. Today we meet seven women, who handle being discriminated and maltreated, but none of them backs down as they strive for a better life.
As mentioned above, this album will consist out of seven smaller stories, which all have the same topic, namely different women who want to live their life, in peace, and how they see fit. While this is a rather normal state of mind, every story starts out with a different topic, such as being overweight and less desirable, having a ‘boy-ish’ body rather than the female curves, or even having to suffer through breast cancer. All of these topics are well known in real life, but are hardly ever depicted in story version, which gives us a glimpse of how horrible situations actually are. This visual novel does so in such a beautiful, simple and short fashion that it will even intrigue those who aren’t occupying themselves with the weight this world has to carry. All that this title tries to portray is the fact that if you want to become happy you have to fight for your own life, even if it doesn’t please everybody.
Seeing the book is divided into several mini-stories, it’s only natural that the flow is rather rapid, without that much background information about the characters themselves. Rather than a complete tale, you’ll see a short situation the characters find themselves in, which is often more than enough to comprehend what is going on. Truth be told, often one or two panels are enough to understand the situation thanks to the great artwork and story value. With this album Olivier Pont proves that he is not only able to write one good story, but seven small ones as well.
Olivier Pont is also responsible for the illustrations, which are all superbly done, by the usage of a combination of strict and soft clear black lines. With this he is able to create a grand diversity of different characters of different ages, each having their distinct features, giving a unique appearance to all the different stories. Sometimes the detail level is a bit on the lower side, but the colors often tend to take over during those times. Laurence Croix opted for very soft and warm colors, which tend to become a lot colder when the situation desires it.
This album is actually being sold in a cellophane wrapper as there is a lot of nudity being depicted in it. While the nakedness doesn’t even come close to anything explicit, it’s the suggestive nature that must have caused the publisher to take this kind of decision. Nonetheless, this is an album that could even make a teenager audience think about certain topics, whilst still offering a rather enjoyable experience. Truth be told, with the beautiful artwork in this issue, we should simply let the characters in these stories show the breast of themselves!
Conclusion
Ontboezemingen is a great album that makes you ponder about different situations many women have to go through during their lives, which are often minimized by society. While some solutions in the book itself might not always be the desired ones, it tends to show that one should take the reigns over their own life, if they wish to enjoy the ride and reach their desired destination. Even though the bodies were bare in this album, the mind will surely open up after reading this one.
Ontboezemingen - Comic Book Review,
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