Aldana represents a significant change of mood in Noé’s erotic comics, moving into a darker world of fantasy and power. Its setting is an invented, quasi-feudal society governed by oppressive rules and archaic rituals, where sexuality is inseparable from hierarchy, coercion and survival.

At the centre of the story is Aldana, a woman attempting to navigate this hostile environment while negotiating the demands placed upon her by the men and institutions around her. The world she inhabits is deliberately stylised – it resembles an imagined medieval or feudal society rather than a specific historical period. Ritual, social hierarchy and sexual control combine to create a world in which personal freedom is severely restricted.

Aldana was serialised in Kiss Comix in 2006 and was written and illustrated by Noé himself. The English-language Aldana was published by NBM/Eurotica in 2009, and a French-Belgian edition was also published around 2009. The English edition places Aldana among the later group of Noé’s erotic works to receive a dedicated Eurotica volume, alongside the second volume of The Piano Tuner and the later Pin-Up Artist.

Here we bring you three of the original Kiss episodes of Aldana.