comics

Stephanie Wilson of Portland, Oregon, was sitting on the curb at the Gaslamp Quarter—an area directly across from the San Diego Convention Center—waiting patiently to go grab dinner with some friends. Suddenly, a swarm of zombies emerged from around the corner. “At this point, it didn’t even matter that my friends were late because, well, zombies!” says Wilson.

Snails are slimy, sticky, and gross, yet the French are famous for loving their escargot. In one city, images of snails are even painted on the walls.Throughout Angoulême, France—a city that is more than 2,000 years old—approximately 30 wall paintings celebrate comic-book art. CitéCréation, a company that specializes in large-scale paintings, completed these paintings during a nine-month period in 1998. The artwork has been popular among locals and visitors ever since.The citywide art project is entitled Les Murs Peints, or The Painted Walls. Some of these painted walls are as large as a multistory building; others are as small as a tennis racket.