Best Surreal City

I'm not sure this this the best place to post a general question like this, but here goes:

I teach a high school comic class and am assigning a project in which students will need to create a splash page of a "surreal city," and I'd like to show some examples tomorrow: Moebius, Geoff Darrow, Tom Parkinson-Morgan from Kill 6 Billion Demons, Windsor McCay. Obviously, my students can't do something on the scale of a Moebius painting for our two-week project, but there are simple guidelines such as "At least 6 different interactions or 'stories' should be visually conveyed. Each should be simple enough to be understood, but engaging enough to make the scene stand out" and "use a fantastic sense of scale."

Does anyone have any further suggestions for examples of surreal cities, preferably conveyed in a splash page? It doesn't have to be an aerial shot or wholly zoomed out. I imagine most of the projects will end up being street scenes with about 10 figures.

Look at Enki Bilal's work (Nikopole trylogie, ....)
Look at Jean-Claude Mézières' work (Valerian)
Look at Philippe Druillet's work (Lone Sloane)

[QUOTE=jb681131;4364228]Look at Enki Bilal's work (Nikopole trylogie, ....)
Look at Jean-Claude Mézières' work (Valerian)
Look at Philippe Druillet's work (Lone Sloane)[/QUOTE]

Great suggestions! Thank you!

Kirby! look at New Genesis from New Gods, the Inhuman's Hidden Land and Asgard among many others.
Al Williamson too.
I also think looking at the art of Francois Schuiten is a must.

Dean Motter has some work which may fit into this category. His Mr X and Terminal City series seem to fit the bill.

Some other ideas:

Not a city per se, but Pérez's depiction of Olympos in Wonder Woman, inspired by MC Escher.

Bryan Talbot works a lot with similar stuff in [I]Grandville[/I] and [I]Heart of Empire[/I]. Note that these works are rather mature, so might or might not be suitable for use here.

Judge Dredd might also be a good source of material.

Not sure what the difference is between surreal and just plain fantasy but absolutely Kirby's New Genesis; Super Town

[IMG]https://live.staticflickr.com/3806/9628025679_28a966107a_b.jpg[/IMG]

Pretty much anything featuring Kirby's design "architecture" his:
Attilan, Asgard, Wakanda, Atlantis, etc, while there is similarity, he gave all these cities their own unique aesthetic.



Further, look up Kirby's design plans for ARGO city/theme park. (this should blow your students mind, as the real life story is almost as surreal as the art and concept itself).
Drawn as work for a planned film (based loosely on novel Lord of Light), to be first built as the movie sets, then after filming, turned into a Kirby themed Science Fiction Land theme park/City in Colorado.

The planed city never came to fruition, yet the Kirby art and concepts would eventually resurface in the most unexpected way; ultimately purchased and used by the CIA as part of the now famous 1979 mission to extract hostages from the American embassy in Iran.

CIA operative [B]Antonio J. Mendez[/B] was tasked with coming up with a plan to extract the six diplomats now trapped in Iran.
But he couldn't just send troops in, he needed to extract them undetected. His plan- set up a fake movie production company, establishing a team with the cover story of a film crew scouting locations in the Middle East for their film. Similar to how Star Wars had been shot in Tunisia.
He took out ads in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter announcing the production of a brand new science fiction blockbuster called Argo.

To convincingly sell it as a legit production, Mendez also needed a convincing script, to be so complex and dense that it would be incomprehensible to anyone who searched it, and concept art to match it.
And that was Kirby's designs.

Thus, Lords of Light and all the Jack Kirby production designs became Argo, a fake name for a fake movie , produced by a fake company, for the purpose of the CIA getting diplomats out of a hostage crisis.

This story was turned into a Film Argo by Ben Afleck. Although Kirby's designs for the city don't feature, it has since surfaced online.

[IMG]https://townsquare.media/site/622/files/2013/02/argo12.jpg[/IMG]


[IMG]https://townsquare.media/site/622/files/2013/02/argo08.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE]Best Surreal City[/QUOTE]

[video=youtube;jg4OCeSTL08]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg4OCeSTL08[/video]

[IMG]http://www.skynoise.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/jodorowsky-dune.jpg[/IMG]

Also recommend you share the concepts behind Jodorowsky's 1975 Dune

Not only had he cast Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, as the Emperor of the Known Universe.
Before they were household names he'd hired Jean Giraud (Moebius), Chris Foss, and H. R. Giger to design concepts for all the great "houses".

Although the film fell apart, his "group" the 1975 design team he assembled, would still go on to greatly influence the look of Sci-fi / Cyberpunk aesthetic in film for years to come.

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oykbkz_IqiI[/url]

[IMG]https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2829858/jodorowskys_dune_images19_1020.1395940255.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://490z7i45htbb1f4tty9mdpi6-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/NewWorldsWeekly_Frank_Herbert_Dune_Jodorowsky.jpg[/IMG]

Cynosure from the Grimjack series and most of First Comics from the 80's

Anything by [B]Tsutomu Nihei[/B].

Blame!, Biomega, Abara. Even Knights of Sidionia to a lesser extent.

He, I believe, initially studied architecture, so the worlds he draws are always of heavy importance to him.

I think Biomega is probably the best example, since it often resembles actual architectural city structures.
Stacked endlessly, gothic, yet reminiscent of the film Metropolis, as well as modern. It's a fascinating aesthetic.

Dystopian DIY-tech:
Akira
blade runner
Mario Bros (lol)
5th Element

[QUOTE=BroHomo;4372145]Dystopian DIY-tech:
Akira
blade runner
Mario Bros (lol)
5th Element[/QUOTE]
For your information, the 5th Element is inspired by the comic Valerian which is drawn by Jean-Claude Mézières that I mentionned above.

[QUOTE=jb681131;4374012]For your information, the 5th Element is inspired by the comic Valerian which is drawn by Jean-Claude Mézières that I mentionned above.[/QUOTE]

allegedly......

lol that's cool tho !