La Ville

Frans Masereel’s La Ville, first published by Éditions Albert Morancé in 1925, is a wordless novel in woodcuts—a stark, expressionist portrait of urban life in the early 20th century. Through a sequence of 100 powerful, black-and-white images, Masereel captures the energy, anonymity, and moral contradictions of the modern city, from its bustling streets and factories to its lonely rooftops and crowded tenements. Though it consists of only a single issue, this pioneering work stands as a landmark of the graphic novel’s prehistory, influencing generations of artists with its raw, cinematic storytelling without a single word.