Didier Comès. The Ardennes Ink Volume 1

Didier Comès. Ardennes Ink. Volume 1

Witchcraft and Magical-Religious Beliefs

by Albert Moxhet

In his early albums and subsequently in his graphic novels, Didier Comès has depicted – sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly – practices relating to witchcraft or magical-religious beliefs. The Ardennes setting of *Silence* and *La Belette*, in particular, thus reveals remnants of prehistoric cults and shamanism that are also found in distant cultures. Throughout Didier Comès’s entire body of work, Albert Moxhet – a friend of the author and an expert on Ardennes traditions and indigenous peoples – has sought out the elements that bear witness to the extensive knowledge which guided Didier Comès in the creation of his comic books. An insight into witchcraft in the Ardennes and the parallels with ancient cults—some of which are still practised in contemporary cultures—form the basis of this first, richly illustrated volume, devoted to Ardennes ethnology as reflected in the work of Didier Comès.