Antoine Orand's How We Met is a poignant abstract tale told in poppy, graphic illustrations

On first glance, the comic-style panels of Antoine Orand’s illustrations are poppy and fun; but their black outlines and bright colours belie a rather sadder message. A gorgeous new zine published by Nieves, How We Met, distils the Brussels-based artist’s knack for conveying a lot in a little section of a page, conveying a narrative that forces the reader’s imagination into jolting across the page and into the things left unsaid.

“Sometimes it seems very impossible to avoid something happening. Even, if we try to avoid it, we just go faster into it. The causes and effects we are surrounded by are limitless,” says Antoine. “Consequently our lives, often, look like a slot machine. This is the point of the present publication.”

On Antoine’s Tumblr, panelled images show abstracted everyday scenes with flair, making something beguiling out of things as mundane as a tap or a petrol pump.