If you are completely lost in Heroes, or think that Jack Bauer’s antics are a bit too graphic for your kids, here’s a tip for you: Seuls, by Bruno Gazzotti and Fabien Vehlmann, combines all the exciting action, recognisable characters and bite-sized delivery of traditional Franco-Belgian comics, with the penchant for a broader subtext that modern-day TV drama has all but made obligatory.
(cover to the first album of Seuls by Bruno Gazzotti and Fabien Vehlmann, published Dupuis)
The idea behind ‘Seuls’ is as original as it is recognisable. One day, in an unnamed city somewhere in Europe, all the adults disappear. Only children and animals remain to roam the streets, and even then not all of them seem to have survived whatever caused this in the first place. Five children of very different ages and backgrounds (a poor little rich kid, a black orphan, a quiet nerdy girl, a spoiled brat and a girl who just so happens to be a technological wizard) join forces in order to survive and get to the bottom of this.
So far, three books have been published. The first one, Without a Trace, reads like an inventory of interesting scenes that would appear in a world without grownups. Hungry animals roam the streets (and not just dogs, as a circus happened to be in the city at that time), children pig out on candy, and the city seems like a real-life Need For Speed, with real cars but no cops. The second book, Master of the knives, elaborates on these themes, when the five children set up camp in a five-star hotel and transform it into a children’s paradise, with rooms full of toys and beautiful dresses. When a mysterious Master of the knives starts threatening their fragile equilibrium, the older kids gradually take up their responsibility and turn into mini-adults (master of knives? Children? Sounds like any British inner city these days – Joe).
(a page from the third album of Seuls, Le clan du requin, by Gazzotti Vehlmann, published Dupuis)
The most recent instalment, The Tribe of the Shark, reads like a variation on Lord of the Flies, when the gang of five come across a large group of kids who live in a pirate-themed amusement park, with a 12-year old Nazi-sympathizer as their ruler, submitting them to possibly lethal rites of passages involving a great white shark. With this third book, the dynamics driving the story seem to be set, and towards the end the subtext becomes more and more predominant. One of the children starts remembering what happened right before his parents disappeared and the story end with two creepy kids observing the group, as two pint-sized “others”.
Seuls is Gazotti’s second big comic series. He first hit stardom after Luc Warnant quit drawing the quite successful police comic Soda (after only two books), about a New York cop who leads a double life as a priest because his mother must not know he ended up in the same job as his father. Writer Tome asked Gazotti to take over, who managed to change the book from a rather static, traditional cops-and-robbers story to a very exciting, dynamic rollercoaster. Gazotti was then invited by writer Fabien Vehlmann to provide the art for Seuls. Previously Vehlmann had proven himself to be one of the better new comics writers with the horror mystery Green Manor, in which a house played the main part (now being published in English by Cinebook – Joe).
Seuls, which won the award for best youth comic at the festival of Angoulême in 2007 and is without a doubt the best comic to come out in a long time that is effectively aimed at all ages. Young children will be thrilled by the action (and by the idea of a world without adults), while older readers will pick up on the more subtle themes that run through the book (sexual stereotyping, racism, totalitarianism, ecological values…). The writing is very well paced, and divulges information at a rate that is acceptable for even the most comics-illiterate reader. The art is simply splendid – Gazotti is a master in his craft, who can draw action sequences that jump out of the page, as well as more intimate scenes that slow down the story and bring forward the more implicit themes. His characters are at once realistic and iconic, but never every bland or stereotypical.
Seuls is a book that should not be dismissed or neglected by any publisher who really wants to build up a catalogue of quality comics for children (especially with the Young Adult market being so popular). This can only become a hit.
Title: Seuls
Story by: Fabien Vehlmann
Art by: Bruno Gazotti
Published by: Dupuis
Will appeal to: readers of Bone, Chickenhare, the (real) Batman Adventures and Allison Dare.
Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium, where he’s wondering if a world run only by children would still be financially more stable than the one run by adults…; you can read more of his work on his own Ephemerist blog.
Tue, Oct 28, 2008
Comics and cartoons, From our Continental Correspondent, Translation please