MANOUACH, Ilan
Tarwar

An extensive and sophisticated exploration of a recurring theme in global comics—the black box—which Ilan Manouach has gathered and reorganized into a large-scale, collective, transtemporal and transgeographic narrative.

Tarwar expands upon the Manouach’s earlier Abrégé de bande dessinée franco-belge, but broadens its scope to explore global comics. By leveraging computer vision technologies to study thousands of comics from diverse cultures, Tarwar zeroes in on one recurring visual element: the black panel. These iconic elements, discovered in comics across genres and regions and cultural context all over the world, prompt reflection and signify narrative pauses, often evoking themes of introspection and suspense. Embracing the universality of this motif, Tarwar, entirely composed by black panels, reveals how comics serve as a shared language that transcends geographic, cultural, and stylistic boundaries, creating a collective narrative experience in a globalized world. [publishers’ note]

Ilan Manouach poursuit avec Tarwar le projet initié avec son Abrégé de bande dessinée franco-belge, mais élargit sa portée pour explorer la bande dessinée mondiale. En exploitant les technologies de vision par ordinateur pour étudier des milliers de bandes dessinées de diverses cultures, Tarwar se concentre sur un élément visuel récurrent : la case noire. [note de la maison d’édition]

4 languages EN / FR / ES / JP

Published by Nero, 2025
Comics & Illustrations / Conceptual Art / Artists' Books