By Nicolas Balas, Daniel Villa Monteiro, translated by Margaret Morrison (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-355-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-356-1
This book also includes some Discriminatory Content included for dramatic and literary effect.
Sequential narrative is a nigh-universal, overwhelmingly powerful medium fluent in a host of topics and genres, but the area where it has always shone brightest is in its chimeric capacity to convey complex arguments, positions and states in a clear and compelling manner. Although daubing marks on a surface is possibly our oldest art form, the potential to ask questions, make stories and concisely communicate via that primal process remains infinitely adaptable to modern mores and as powerful as it ever was in exploring the unchanging basics of the human condition.
Narrative plus image – and the interactions such conjunctions can embrace – underpin all of our communal existence and form the primary source for how we view our distant forbears; especially as if employed by incisive, sensitive, uncompromising agents and interlocutors…
That’s never been more apparent than in this short sweet deep dive into one of the most controversial of new modern innovations.
Crafted during the Covid lockdowns and released on the continent in 2023, using the avatar of a cute and appealing young woman disaffected with the contemporary financial, governmental and environmental status quo, writer/educator Daniel Villa Monteiro and animator/illustrator Nicolas Balas jointly outline the pros & cons of cryptocurrencies, addressing the history, development, advantages and pitfalls of Bitcoin, Non Fungible Tokens, Blockchain and other trade/pecuniary artefacts of the digital age in a staggeringly accessible manner that even I could grasp.
Just before coronavirus is set to change human society forever, art student Alice receives an inheritance from her grandmother. Constantly harassed by her “breadhead” banker/financier dad on how best to invest the nest egg, self-aware, system-suspicious, rebellious Alice eventually discovers alternate currency Bitcoin and after some trepidation dives into a new world. As an artist, she thinks visually, using cartoons and graphics to enhance her understanding of this brand new world and even explain what she’s doing to her little brother. The results are so effective that soon she is sharing her images and online tutorials with other curious pre-converts, becoming well known to advocates of digital economy and is on the cusp of a promising new career.
If only she can completely convince herself that it’s all safe and secure…
Warm, beguiling and immensely straightforward Alice in Cryptoland is a charming and readily comprehensible argument for its subject that puts understanding of a bewildering subject first and foremost, not only in its context-rammed ‘Foreword’ and utterly crucial ‘Glossary of Terms’ but also on every lovely welcoming cartoon page.
Why not invest some of your actual capital resources on something that could end your dependence on it?
Originally published as Alice au pays des cryptos by Editions du Faubourg, © 2023. All rights reserved. © 2025 NBM for the English translation.
Scheduled for UK release on 13th May, Alice in Cryptoland is available for pre-order now.