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"I did not think of releasing 1984 in a comic book when the resonance with the news would be so strong"

2021-01-10T06:16:45.422Z


INTERVIEW - Xavier Coste, the 31-year-old author, spent three years adapting the novel by Georges Orwell. The realization of a dream he has cherished since his adolescence. Breathtaking!


The enlightened suggestions of a plastic arts teacher were at the origin of the superb comic adaptation of the novel

1984

by Xavier Coste.

“At the time, my drawings evoked a dehumanized world that reminded her of the George Orwell novel, which she suggested I read,”

says the author.

Xavier Coste was fifteen years old at the time and since then had the idea of ​​making a comic strip.

After having distinguished himself in different registers, between a biography of Egon Schiele and Arthur Rimbaud, the story of a heist of the century or the exploration of the drifts of science, Xavier Coste, now in his thirties, can be boast of having successfully completed this project of a lifetime.

Read also: The comic box:

The day after the world

or the good soul of artificial intelligence

Rich in 220 pages, the album with virtuoso graphics skilfully illustrates the words and world of the British novelist.

An alchemy of the word and the image tinged with a passion maintained for fifteen years which offers the reader a breathtaking version of the visionary work.

Immersed for three years in the anxiety-provoking world of Big Brother, Xavier Coste returns, not without emotion, to the mysteries of his work.

LE FIGARO.

- Why did

1984

have such an impact on you, when you discovered the novel at 15?

It was a shock to read it.

I immediately had the impression that I had found the text that was missing in my drawings.

I have always been drawn to dystopian universes that are both dark and melancholic.

I had a whole graphic universe in mind, without the slightest idea of ​​what I was going to be able to tell and

1984

was obvious.

Orwell has a way of understanding political systems and their excesses, like no one else.

It is timeless, since the release of the novel, everyone has the feeling of recognizing themselves.

The accuracy of his gaze makes him universal.

Even if the cursor is taken to the extreme, the novel questions us about what we are ready to accept.

Even today, we are faced with this problem.

A Prime Minister and a President of the Republic deciding almost overnight, almost in a small committee, to prohibit people from leaving their homes, would have seemed unimaginable a year ago and yet we accept this decision with resignation.

And I am terrified by this tendency to make people feel guilty about these decisions because they are motivated by health reasons.

I am not throwing stones at the government, no one would like to be in his place, but I think we should have more debate on the implementation of restrictions.

We imagine dark futures to ward off fate hoping that they do not come true

Xavier Coste

With the pandemic, George Orwell's thinking has never been so influential and comic book adaptations are proliferating.

Are you not afraid of being accused of opportunism?

I've been working on this album for three years, after fifteen years of maturation.

I did not expect to release the book when the resonance with the news would be so strong.

If I had to do it again today, I couldn't do it.

To immerse myself in a universe as anxiety-provoking as reality would have been unlivable for me.

I have this need to escape from my daily life to carry out my work, from a world all to me.

When I was working on

1984

, I was escaping from a reality, certainly pink at the time, to join a dark fiction.

We imagine dark futures to ward off fate in the hope that they do not come true.

There are no masked people in

1984!

After fifteen years, how did you approach this adaptation?

With unwavering fidelity to George Orwell's text which I retranslated with the help of my editor.

The only touch of modernity lies in the behavior of the characters: I dressed them in costume while in the novel they are in overalls.

I mainly worked on the drawing and the staging but not on the language.

How did you graphically transcribe the thought of the writer?

I relied on totalitarian architectures to underline the oppressive dimension of the novel.

I was able to play on scales where huge monolithic buildings crush the characters reduced to the state of ants.

One of the big difficulties in adapting this novel is to give rhythm to the story of expressionless characters who spend most of their time sitting in a chair.

And thanks to the architecture I was able to create surprise effects at the level of the staging, by drawing great perspectives on full pages for example in which the characters scramble to survive and escape the surveillance imposed by the diet.

I also segmented the book with four colored ranges to clearly identify the different atmospheres, between the ministry, the proletarian quarters, the prison and the Big Brother apparitions.

"I was able to play on relationships of scale where enormous monolithic buildings crush characters reduced to ants" Xavier Coste / Sarbacane editions

The majority of the characters are sketched, devoid of faces.

Why?

Apart from the protagonists, the characters are almost silhouettes because they evolve in the world of anonymity.

A world where they are constantly watched and at the same time invisible.

The characters are almost silhouettes because they evolve in the world of anonymity.

Xavier Coste / blowpipe editions

After this long-term work, what are your projects?

After these three years spent in my cave immersed in the anxiety-inducing universe of Orwell, I embarked on two new lighter projects.

Which makes me happy and reassures me.

For me

1984

will remain the most important book, I realized it by telling myself that it would perhaps be my last comic, having the feeling of having given everything.

1984,

Xavier Coste, Sarbacane editions, 35 euros.

Xavier Coste: "I spent three years in my cave immersed in the anxiety-inducing world of Orwell" Xavier Coste / Sarbacane editions

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-01-10

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