Jean Pleyers' Alien Comic 'The Children of Light' Gets First English Translation

Jean Pleyers' 1980s comic 'Les Êtres de Lumière' has been translated into English as 'The Children of Light' and will be reissued in July by New York Review Comics. The translation is by Luke Burns. Pleyers, a Belgian cartoonist known for his ligne claire style, began the work after witnessing UFOs in the 1970s. The comic, serialized in Métal Hurlant between 1981 and 1983, follows an alien race called the Zor whose planet is collapsing, leading them to repurpose a moon as a colony. The story explores themes of disclosure and social engineering. The reissue is timely given recent UFO disclosures by figures like Barack Obama and the Trump administration's release of Pentagon documents. The article also references Mark Pilkington's talk for the London Fortean Society, Bogna Konior's book 'The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet' (2025), and the concept of 'exocapitalism' by Marek Poliks and Roberto Trillo. C.G. Jung's 1958 analysis of flying saucers is cited, as is Jeffrey J. Kripal's 2011 book 'Mutants and Mystics', which discusses coauthored creation in works by Philip K. Dick and Barry Windsor-Smith. The article is from the Summer 2026 issue of ArtReview.