Schuiten is a trained architect and his backgrounds are a large part of the delight inherent in his work. In a series like this, that has very little background and almost no buildings with any kind of detail, the lack is very, very noticeable. It feels like a metafictional conceit – using the desert as a metaphor for nothingness, perhaps. The way the desert is depicted makes me think of places where the detail has been erased.

(Heavy Metal issue #57, December 1981 – Page 69 At the Middle of Cymbiola by Schuiten and Renard)