Muriel a andělé (Muriel and Angels) is a comic album written by Miloš Macourek and drawn by Kája Saudek, originally created in the late 1960s and published in 1991. The album is considered one of the masterworks of Czech comics; it was voted the best Czech comic in a poll held by the newspaper Mladá fronta DNES in 2009.Muriel and Angels tells the story of a young physician Muriel Ray and her friend Ro, a winged angel who came to Earth from a distant future. The main character was inspired by the Czech film star Olga Schoberová, and the main antagonist, militant general Ian Xeron, was inspired by Saudek's twin brother, photographer Jan Saudek.
Kája Saudek met Macourek in 1960, through Olga Schoberová, a young shopgirl in a Prague's ironmongery. Their artistic collaboration began in 1966, and was initially focused on film. Saudek created special effects for the film Kdo chce zabít Jessii? (Who Wants to Kill Jessie?); Macourek was a co-author of the screenplay. Following that, both artists decided to work also in the comics genre. The cycle about the adventures of a beautiful doctor Muriel was intended to have twelve parts; however, only two parts have been created.
The cycle was initially inspired by the French comic Barbarella, later adapted to a film by Roger Vadim. The main characters of the French and Czech albums are similar—a winged man and a beautiful young woman.
The publishing of the first part of the cycle was announced in 1969 in the magazine Mladý svět, however, the tightened communist censorship following the Prague Spring considered the story potentially dangerous and banned its publishing.Muriel and Angels was eventually published in 1991, following the fall of the Czechoslovak communist régime.