Against the urging of his friends and his lover, Franz, a young officer in the Xhystos government, is sent on a mission to the remote and elusive city of Samaris to investigate the disappearance of several of his colleagues.

After weeks of travel, Franz reaches Samaris, to find a practically deserted city of enveloping and deceptive architecture. He is immediately bewitched by a mysterious young woman, drawing the suspicion of the other residents. Can Franz escape the impending doom of this sprawling metropolis?

The first in the Obscure Cities series, The Great Walls of Samaris was originally published in Europe in 1983 and in the US in 1987 by NBM. The story has been slightly altered to include characters who appear later in the canon, and reveal Peeter’s Kafkaesque storytelling prowess. Schuiten’s art in this edition has been reworked to be much truer to the originally intended color palette, and includes 32

additional pages of early Obscure Cities stories, comprising the Mysteries of Pâhry, never before published in English.

Benoît Peeters was born in Paris on August 28, 1956. After publishing two novels early in his career, he experimented with diverse genres: essay, biography, illustrated story, photo novel, film, television, radio theater and of course comics.

An Hergé specialist, he has written three books to date on the subject: The World of Hergé, Hergé, Son of Tintin, and Read Tintin. He is also the author of several books on comics, storyboards and biographical studies on Hitchcock, Nadar, Jacques Derrida and Paul Valéry.

François Schuiten was born in Brussels on April 26, 1956, into a family of architects.

Early in his career, he created two graphic novels with Claude Renard, Cymbiola and Rail. Then with his brother Luc, he created three graphic novels in the Hollow Grounds series. Since 1980, he has worked with Benoît Peeters on The Obscure Cities series. His graphic novels have been translated into a dozen languages and have received numerous international awards. He has also created many illustrations, posters and postage stamps across Europe.

In 2002, he received the prestigious lifetime achievement award from the Angouleme festival. He published his first solo effort, The Beauty, in 2012, and designed a train museum, Train World, which opened in Brussels in 2015. His 2014 exhibition and accompanying book, Revoir Paris, has met with international praise.