The designer François Boucq and the American novelist Jérôme Charyn know that with
New York Cannibals
, they have struck a blow.
This album far above the rest, which reads at full speed, tells the story of a female bodybuilder cop, discovering a baby abandoned in a trash can in a nasty alley in New York in the 90s.
To read also: François Boucq: "On the Charlie Hebdo trial, drawing masked people is very difficult"
New York Cannibals
continue to explore the fates of the characters from their previous 2014 album,
Little Tulip
.
Charyn agreed, but he wanted the crossed destinies of their two heroes Azami and Pavel to unfold 20 years later.
The resulting thriller is simply exceptional.
The plot is stretched like an arc.
Boucq and Charyn develop around the two heroes a sort of court of miracles, cripples of life, monsters of all kinds, licensed gangsters, crooked politicians, vicious government agents ...
But above all, around the middle of the album, François Boucq stages a car chase worthy of the legend ...
THE BD BOX:
When François Boucq examines these three anthology boards, he can't help but hold his breath.
“This car chase streak took a lot of work for me
,” he admits.
It is very complicated to conceive of this type of action without good preparation. ”
“To design my own chase,” admits Boucq, “
I first took inspiration from a few famous movie chases, like the one that takes place in
William Friedkin's
French Connection
or
Bullitt's
, of course.
»The Lombard
“I was first inspired by a few famous movie chases, like the one that takes place in
William Friedkin's
French Connection
or
Bullitt's
, of course,”
Boucq recalls.
These action sequences are memorable in movies in many ways, but mostly because they are in motion.
The chase is cinema in its purest form. ”
Above all, I wanted to stage an urban car chase in the nightlife madness of an out of control New York.
Francois Boucq
This is why, after revisiting some of the great classics of the American thriller for inspiration, François Boucq sat down at his drawing board.
“I had to adapt the language of the moving image inherent in cinema to that of the still image, which is the very DNA of comics,”
explains Boucq.
In Friedkin's film released in 1971, we especially understand the obsessive side of the hero embodied by Gene Hackman in his way of never letting go.
Me, in this scene of pursuit between the bad guys and the Pavel-Azami tandem, I wanted to dive back into similar atmospheres, dark, brutal, without concessions.
I wanted to immerse the reader in the flow of the story ... And make a few boards that we would read with the heart on the edge of the lips ... "
"For this sequence,
analyzes the designer of the
Bouncer, I wanted to immerse the reader in the flow of the story ... And make a few boards that you would read with your heart on the edge of your lips ...
" Le Lombard
“I wanted above all to stage an urban car chase in the nightlife madness of an out of control New York,”
continues Boucq.
I mostly played with the science of framing.
Sometimes putting my gaze under the grilles of vehicles to achieve the effect I wanted.
On these three boards, I'm referring to my idea of a car chase.
I use the dynamic vehicle to guide the story ... I also wanted to
“
horizontalize
”
the boxes of these three boards, just to find the panoramic aspect of an Imax screen.
In short, I'm making my cinema. ”
François Boucq: “
I also wanted to
'
horizontalize
'
the boxes of these three boards, in order to find the panoramic aspect of an Imax screen.
In short, I'm making my cinema. ”
Lombard
On the cover of
New York Cannibals
, François Boucq is also inexhaustible:
“I wanted to represent a kind of testosterone Madonna,
he admits.
When he discovers the image, the reader begins by looking at the baby.
Then, the eyes go back imperceptibly to the face of the heroine following her powerful and overly muscular arms.
Everything forms a kind of spiral.
I knowingly wanted to create a dynamic between Azami and the baby.
As if I meant graphically that between her and this infant something was right.
The heroine is a somewhat atypical, almost asexual mother.
You almost only see muscle and a baby in the picture.
There is an energy in her, but also the feeling of motherhood.
There is clearly an inspiration related to Christian imagery in this image.
I wanted readers to be able to subconsciously think of a Madonna, a Virgin and Child.
In the center of the drawing, this baby is a nucleus of innocence.
An element of pure candor ... And we understand that in reality, it is he who adopts the heroine.
He's the one who chooses his mother ...
"
François Boucq:
“
There is clearly an inspiration linked to Christian imagery in this image.
I wanted readers to be able to subconsciously think of a Madonna, a Virgin and Child.
»The Lombard