Des assassins by Chen Uen

Adapted from the Historical Memoirs of Chinese historian Sima Qian (145–86 BCE), Des assassins relates the chivalrous prowess of five ancient Chinese warriors who committed – or attempted to commit – a political assassination.

For the book title on the cover, designers deux point deux chose Min Sans Regular and Bold, designed by Tienmin Lao and available from Future Fonts. This high-contrast sans serif has sharp and clean cuts, as if cut by a sword. The texts inside are set in Bely by Roxane Gataud (TypeTogether) and text in speech bubbles uses Inkslinger BB, designed by Nate Piekos and released through his Blambot type foundry.

The Taiwanese author, Chen Uen, uses a traditional Chinese brush painting technique. We decided to erase some of the borders of the frames, to let the Chen Uen’s art breathe and blow up. The book is published within its original sense of lecture: from back to front from a western perspective.

Des assassins is the first graphic novel – “manhua” in Taiwanese – in the collection Des cases, des langues, des mondes (“cases, languages, worlds) by independent publishing house Patayo.