Blast

In the early 2010s, French cartoonist Manu Larcenet crafted Blast, a four-issue series for Reprodukt that follows a massive, overweight man named Polza Mancini as he recounts his life to police after being arrested for an unknown crime. Larcenet, who both wrote and drew the series alongside co-writer Ulrich Pröfrock, uses stark, expressive black-and-white art to explore themes of alienation, violence, and the search for transcendence. The series stands as a powerful, harrowing work of European graphic literature, celebrated for its unflinching psychological depth and Larcenet's distinctive visual storytelling.