The Cycle of Cyann IV

About one year ago I first wrote about the Cycle of Cyann (here, here and here). This is a French series of graphic novel about a young woman travelling through worlds and time using an ancient portal system. It is definitely a series for those with patience, as the series started in the magazine "À Suivre" in March 1993, and now there are still only four albums. Unfortunately, there still does not seem to be a version in English. In the course of the story told in the first two albums a party searching for the cure of a dangerous disease travel to the planet Ilo. After getting down they have to make their way across a continent, encountering a variety of climates and biotopes as they go along. At one point, the party travels through a wintery place. The image is taken from a Dutch version, so now you know that what they are saying is largely not an alien language. The party is travelling in an enormous vehicle, here shown in the background. The characters discuss the 'funny animals' in the foreground, called 'ziglones'. The following images shows how the ziglones huddle together, no doubt to conserve heat. Mind you, the ziglones play no part in the story. They are just there to make the background, the world of Ilo, more interesting. It works for me...

Click to enlarge; copyright Casterman

Shortly afterwards the protagonists spot the vehicle they are following and wish to catch up with make a detour around a small valley. With the commander (Cyann) in bed, the crew charged with steering their enormous vehicle decides to cut some corners and head straight through the valley, dotted with snow-covered domes. The following page shows what happens when the vehicle crashes into the domes.

Click to enlarge; copyright Casterman

Some of you may be distracted by the appearance of Cyann on the command post. The home planet of these people is hot and humid, and they dress accordingly. Something that may also play a role is that the French regard such matters in a rather more relaxed manner than people in some other countries do. Vive la différence... Anyway, those not distracted or post-distraction will notice that the domes are filled with animals, called 'albarans'. The crew protests that they could not know that the domes were hollow and do not allow travel, but Cyann says that she did know. Knowing details about the planet and its dangers is a recurring theme throughout the book, along with how some people have knowledge they were not supposed to have. But back to the domes. The crew still thinks the albarans are kind of cute, but the lesson that is is better to be careful in an ecosystem foreign to you is rammed home by what happens next:

Click to enlarge; copyright Casterman

And that is all we ever get to see of the albarans in the story. A considerable amount of work must have gone into the design of these ecosystems. Luckily, there is an accompanying book that offers a glimpse of all the work the authors (François Bourgeon and Claude Lacroix). That one (La clé des confins) hasn't been published in English either, nor in any language other than French as far as I know. The book contains more information on the universe of Cyann. There is a double page on the albaran dome system. Not wishing to ruin my copy, I left a grey band running through the page. Basically, the dome is the result of a collaboration between a plant and a fungus, creating a home for albarans, 'lagades' (a species of bird, shown on the right), insects and even fish.

Click to enlarge; copyright Casterman

As you can see, the drawing is dotted with little asides describing elements of life in the dome. Still, much is left unsaid, such as how the dome generates enough heat to prevent freezing, or how this complex system evolved. But perhaps that would be asking too much: I can understand that the authors wish to show some details, but not all. Few things get boring quicker than an over-abundance of explanations; always leave enough unsaid to keep the reader hungry for more.

The Cycle of Cyann 3: the last of the rings...

I did mention that I thought some small errors had crept into the way Bourgeon and Lacroix had depicted the shape of the terminator (that's the edge between the lit and dark halves of a planet). How do I know?

Well, the terminator is supposed to be a great circle on a globe; it just looks distorted on a flat map, but is a circle in 3D. But if we take that flat map and drape it around a globe and have a look, the terminator ought to show up as a perfect circle again. I did just that with an image taken from the book 'La clé des confins', and here it is. The flat image is shown alongside the sphere it is draped around.

Click to enlarge

The thin latitude and longitude lines are drawn by the program I used to depict the globes (Matlab); the vaguer lines were in the original image. You can see the two equators line up nicely, so the map isn't too inaccurate. However, the terminator at the pole does not form a smooth circle, but has a distinct 'peak' there. Anyone who has tried to draw flat maps for the purpose of having them look good on a globe knows that polar areas are very difficult to get right. The map by Bourgeon and Lacroix shows some 'pinching' there.

To be fair, I also did the same trick with my own projection. Here we go:

Click to enlarge

It does work better, but I am not making this point to gloat. The opposite, in fact: I am astonished how accurate this was all done by Bourgeon and Lacroix. Remember that the album 'Six saisons sur Ilo' appeared in 1996 or 1997. I first worked out the mathematics of the terminator shape in 1985, and in 1996 this was the best printer output I could obtain:

Not exactly impressive, is it? So, no doubt, to produce good drawings, Bourgeon had to redraw the image by hand, and I guess a small error crept in. I am curious to hear whether this explanation is correct, though, so if anyone knows how to reach the authors, please let me know.

I also promised you animations of the ring and its shadows. They're done, and as I cannot post them here, I decided to incorporate them in the Furaha website. Simply go to the site, choose the planet icon and then 'some more examples'. If that sound too complicated, go there directly by clicking here (but you will lose the context).

The Cycle of Cyann

The title should more properly be 'Le Cycle de Cyann', as this is a series of 'bandes dessinées' (the word 'comics' does not seem appropriate) by Bourgeon and Lacroix that does not seem to have been published in English. I have no idea why, but there have been arguments with the first publisher, Casterman. The series started in 1993 in a magazine called 'A Suivre' ('To be continued'). Strangely, I did not find any good websites to direct you to, not even at the two different publishers responsible for the albums: Casterman and Glénat. Amazon in the UK and the USA only have entries for French and German versions, but amazon.fr will at least show you all the album covers. The series revolves around a rather attractive headstrong young woman called Cyann. Driven by the hope to find a cure for a disease ravaging her home planet she discovers that the priest class on the planet have kept a portal system hidden from the population, that allows travel through space. The system is largely derelict, and many worlds have been out of touch for so long that they have forgotten their common ancestry, and developed their own customs, architecture, etc. The reason to mention the series here is that the authors are rather good at making up entire planets, with ecologies, etc, along with peculiarities of their human inhabitants that really seem to belong in that ecology. Cyann's home environment is humid and tropical, and the inhabitants are accordingly dressed scantily. Except that this makes sense, it allows Bourgeon to draw attractive women, something he seems unable or unwilling to forgo anyway. There are lots of plants and animals in the series, and you can tell that much attention has gone into their design. Anyone interested in the background of the series should pick up a copy of 'La Clé des Confins', that is not a story by itself, but a companion volume explaining the worlds Cyann travels on. Here I will introduce just a little sideshow from the first album (La Source et la Sonde). The two main protagonists have camped outside and are waking up. The next page starts as follows:

Click the image to enlarge it

We are treated to part of a food web in just a few frames: there are floating seed heads, that are of coarse ballonts (see earlier entries in this blog to learn more about ballooning animals). The balloon sac is opened by some avian to get at the seeds, while a ground-living animal has another way of getting at them: it jumps up to get at them, and its hind legs seem specifically well-developed for this purpose. But make sure you look at the background as well: there are interesting plants, there is a city with intriguing architecture, the heroine is lying on the ground, etc. And all this is just a sideshow for the main action. I think I will post some more morsels of this marvelous universe every now and then.