Exlibrium

"Exlibrium" is a series of fantasy comics about the adventures of a young girl Lilia Romanova in the world of literary magicians, published by the Russian publishing house Bubble Comics from October 2014 to December 2018. The author of the comic, as well as the screenwriter of almost all issues of the series, is Natalia Devova. The illustrations for most of the issues were drawn alternately by Andrey Rodin and Alina Erofeeva, however, starting in November 2016, other artists began to work on the design of the comics: Konstantin Tarasov, Yulia Zhuravleva and Marina Privalova.

The comic strip is set in Moscow. The main character of the series, a teenage girl Lilia Romanova, fascinated by pop culture, who, by chance, falls into the Order of Bookmen, whose task is to protect the boundaries between our reality and the world of works of art. Lilia is trained in the Order, intending to become a bookmaker and master supernatural powers. In the Order, the girl meets other students; together they confront villains and deal with problems associated mainly with the escape of literary characters from books.

Critics greeted the Exlibrium extremely favorably, positively perceived the concept of the comic book, including its elaborate world, plot and the very idea of ​​"literary magic", as well as drawings by Andrey Rodin and Alina Erofeeva.

At the moment, "Exlibrium" has been translated into English and presented on ComiXology.

Setting

The comic takes place in modern Moscow. In the center of the plot is the Order of Bookmen - an association of magicians who guard the boundaries between reality and the world of literary works. Their main activity is to catch characters who have escaped from books, who begin to mutate in the conditions of objective reality and destroy everything in their path. Bookmen are ordinary people infected with the ink of literary characters or other objects that have escaped from books. A person who has become infected with ink is captured by the Order of Bookmen, as they begin to provoke the escape of characters from the books that are next to them. The infected must pass the test in the Bone House - an astral place where he has to fight against creatures that resemble shadows. If the shadows prevail, then the ink absorbs the person and he becomes a library - a little phantom-like creature that serves the bookkeepers. If a person wins, then he acquires the ability to control the ink within himself. During the test, the color of the ink is also determined, which affects the magical abilities that the newly-minted bookseller acquires. There are ten colors in total: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple, gray and black and white (which are special), as well as their shades. With the help of the first eight, you can influence the subjective reality of literary works in different ways, while black and white allow users (the abilities of both black and white can only be used in conjunction with the opposite color, that is, two magicians are required to activate them; by separate black and white cannot be used) to control the present reality, opening up perspectives to limitless possibilities. Therefore, the Order of Bookmen hunts for magicians of monochrome colors, whose fate if caught is execution.

The Order of Bookmen owns the Libraries, which are a kind of headquarters, as well as training sites for new magicians. In one of these Libraries, the Real Moscow Library, the main action of the Ex-librium unfolds. Each Library has its own director, like a school director, and teachers. All Libraries are subject to the advice of the Order of Bookmen called the Circle. The Circle consists of four people and an equal number of senior librarians (a special kind of librarians, more intelligent and more powerful than their smaller counterparts). At the Council of the Circle, its members solve the global problems of Libraries.

Characters

Lilia Romanova is the main character of the series. She is a first-year student with Alexander, Inga and Matvey. A somewhat reserved, shy, but very brave girl. Her ink color is yellow, which gives her the ability to emit destructive rays from her eyes and mouth.

Arthur (also known as Nightingale) is a teacher at the True Moscow Library. A lively literary character in the book written by Angelina Evgenievna. He is the only Bookman Order mage to be an animated character, and an exception to the Bookman's rules regarding characters. By nature, he is very good-natured, even towards enemies, optimistic and careless, which at times creates the wrong impression of his naivety. Being a literary character, he does not need food and water, does not experience pain, and has the ability to regenerate.

Angelina Evgenievna is the head of the Real Moscow Library. Written by Arthur at the age of nine. Strict but fair. Each time he is very worried about the students, while they are on a deadly mission, and often helps them get out of a difficult situation. Can teleport to the bookman's or character's current location using a drop of their ink. The color and associated abilities are unknown.

Kira is the main character of a parallel storyline. She is the only surviving monochromatic magician, using the power of black ink, which allows her to alter objective reality. Her goal is to find the white ink that previously belonged to her murdered brother Kai.

History of creation

In 2014, Bubble Comics, which by that time had released four original comics, decided to expand its lineup with two new series: Exlibrium and Meteora. The work on the Exlibrium was entrusted to scriptwriter Natalia Devova and artist Andrei Rodin, who was later replaced by Alina Erofeeva. At that time Natalia Devova had been working on the plot for the Inok comic series for two years, starting with the Inok versus Besoboy crossover. According to the general director of Bubble Artyom Gabrelyanov, the idea of ​​"Exlibrium" belonged to him, and it developed into a full-fledged series under the editorship of Natalia Devova and Evgeny Fedotov, another screenwriter.

For a long time, the publishing house could not decide on a name for the comic. As the editor-in-chief of Bubble Roman Kotkov wrote in one of the editions of the "Exlibrium", the name "Exlibris" was originally supposed, but it had to be abandoned, since it had already been registered earlier. Other options were from "The Bookman" to "Fleur De Lis". Ultimately, the name "Exlibrium" was approved, the idea for which belonged to Bubble designer Denis Popov. "Ex librium" is a contamination from the Latin "ex libris" (Latin Ex libris; from books) and the English "equilibrium" (English Equilibrium; balance, balance).

In the process of creation and development, the characters sometimes underwent strong changes. So, Lilya herself was originally blonde and bore the name Katya Odintsova, and her wardrobe consisted of casual clothes and accessories from her favorite video games. Despite the dramatic changes in the appearance of Lily, she still personified a geek girl, far from violence. The characteristic features of her new appearance are bushy eyebrows, a long and pointed nose, and black eyes. Devova also planned to add a gap to the girl between her front teeth, but colleagues dissuaded her. Difficulties were caused by choosing a hairstyle: since the two main characters of other series of the publishing house, Red Fury and Meteora, had long hair, Devova decided to focus on short and semi-long straight hair, but none of the options proposed by Andrei Rodin received her approval. According to Devova, the final version - curly hair - was suggested by Anastasia Kim, the main artist of the Major Thunder series. The heroine's clothes remained the way the author originally wanted to see it: a blouse with a print on the sleeves, jeans with a high waist, a black hat.

Alexander and Arthur originally had a more classic style of clothing, consisting of jackets, formal suits, which later changed to modern and casual. To a lesser extent, changes in appearance affected Alexander. His wardrobe was mostly filled with black clothes, in contrast to Arthur's lighter colors. Andrei Rodin, guided by the description given to him by Natalia Devova ("Sasha's eccentric and flamboyant partner"), made Arthur a man of about middle age, with a short mustache and unshaven hair, slicked back hair, gathered in a ponytail, before the character acquired its final appearance (blonde hair , tall and thin build). The image of Angelina Evgenievna was approved from the first sketches. Seeing them, Roman Kotkov compared the character with the American actress Jessica Lange, famous for the American Horror Story series. At first, Devova insisted on a short haircut, but her colleagues rejected her request, and the character received curly hair of medium length, but already in the 25th issue, the heroine appears with a short haircut.

Release

For the first time, "Exlibrium" series together with "Meteora", another line of the Bubble Comics publishing house, were presented at Comic-Con Russia in early October 2014.

In December 2018, along with the release of the 50th anniversary issue of the comic, the publisher announced the closure of the series. On April 21, 2019, a one-shot spin-off “Exlibrium. Blank Slate ”, which tells the backstory of some of the minor characters. The pilot issue of the continuation series “Exlibrium. Second Life” was presented at Comic-Con Russia on October 3, 2019.

On May 24, 2016, Bubble Comics launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the publication of a collection in English in print. It was planned to collect an amount of $ 10,000, but in the end it turned out to be twice as much - $ 24,554. The collection includes numbers from the first to the eighth, as well as an additional history, created especially for the English-language edition. In 2015, the Cosmodrome Games company created and released a card game based on "Exlibrium".

Reviews

"Exlibrium" received mainly positive reviews from critics. The comic was praised mainly for its original idea and interesting plot, and the series itself was repeatedly named the best work of Bubble Comics. Among other advantages, a well-developed fictional world, charismatic characters and a pleasant drawing also stood out.

Carrie McClain of BlackNerdProblems.com reviewed the first two issues favorably of the many pop culture references, artwork, interesting creatures, characters and Ex Librium setting; in the end, the first issue received 8.5 points out of 10 possible, and the second - 9.5. A reviewer from ComicBastards.com noted the availability of the comic to the American audience. There is nothing alien to American reality in it, and if it were not for one mention of the action taking place in Russia, it is difficult to guess that the events of the comic strip are not unfolding in America.

Awards

The Exlibrium was nominated for Best Original Comic Series on ComicsBoom.net every year from 2014 to 2017. He won in the nomination for two years in a row (in 2014 he won a prize-winning place along with two other Bubble lines: Inokom and Meteora), however, according to the results of the jury's vote, in 2016 he won second place.

Year	Award	Category	Nominee	Результат
2014	ComicsBoom Award	«The best original comic series»	«Exlibrium»	Victory
2015				Victory
2016				Nomination

External links

• "Exlibrium" on the official English-language page of the publisher
• The review from Denofgeek.com

This article "Exlibrium" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Exlibrium. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

This page exists already on Wikipedia.

📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• NTS-KEM
• Belgrade Assembly (1–2 January 1810)
• Rohit Srivastava
• The Falcon 147
• Feedzai
• The Epistles
• Gail Cramer

---