Comic Art Museum - Brussels

The graphic designer cum reporter Nicolas Wild takes immense pleasure in travelling around the world to investigate and report on locations of global interest in order to gain a greater understanding. On location he takes photographs and feverishly fills up his sketchpads and notebooks with all his impressions. Upon his return, the author compiles a digital reportage and finalises his comic book. This is how Mondo Disco provides us with a graphical report of his missions to eight different destinations and miscellaneous stories. By exhibiting a selection of digital reproductions of his drawings, the Comics Art Museum pays tribute to his original and carefully documented work, which is a skilful mix of humour, the author’s impressions, as well as powerful statements collected from the people he happens to meet. This effective and exciting approach reminds us, if we need reminding at all, that comic strip art is such a good way to heighten awareness among the readership and to keep us abreast with what is happening in the world…

Mélanie Andrieu, Belgian Comics Art Museum

Travel the world with the author of Kabul Disco, Kabul Requiem and Silent Was Zarathustra!

Much to our delight, Nicolas Wild, keen globetrotter cum graphic designer and reporter, has once again put on his adventurer’s hat. Despatched by Arte, the French Army or simply travelling as a reporter on his own initiative, each one of his missions gives rise to a short story that is both highly topical and unconventional and imbued with his impressions. Travelling from France to Nepal, and passing through the Ukraine, Turkey and Lebanon, his journey leads him to the capharnaum that is Phnom Penh, in search of airplane debris on an Alpine glacier and among the refugee camps located on the top of the world. Nicolas Wild’s deceptively naive insight and his instantly identifiable drawings once again provide us with his fascinating observations on the scantily known geopolitical realities that have ramifications across the globe.

In June 2000, Nicolas Wild graduated from the Strasbourg School of Decorative Arts, and left for the United States to pursue his education, after which he found a ‘proper’ job in Kabul. He said to himself: “I must tell my life story because it is just too crazy.” This then resulted in Kabul Disco. His interest in the geopolitical situation of Central Asia prompted him to hop across the border from Afghanistan into Iran where he explored Zoroastrianism and investigated the assassination of the humanist and civil activist Cyrus Yazdani with the approval of the latter’s daughter. This research has resulted in Silent Was Zarathustra, a clever and humorous comic strip that is not only a detective novel, but also gives us a glimpse into Zoroastrianism. In February 2014, Nicolas Wild encountered Sean Langan with whom he co-produced Kabul Requiem, which is the sequel to Kabul Disco. Nicolas is widely travelled and has produced graphical reportages from across the world, which have now been compiled into the brilliant work of Mondo Disco.

Éditions La Boîte à Bulles

With the Support of the Brussels-Capital Region