A small house with its feet in the water, a convertible green 2 CV, a cloudless sky ... The first sheet of
Lost Letters
gives off a sweet scent of holidays.
With a suspicion the strangeness all the same, because a pelican is perched on the head of the boy, named Iodine.
On the next page, a postman clownfish even visits him.
Damn, not the slightest mail, while he has been waiting for news from his mother for ages!
It's decided, our hero will go to town tomorrow, to the post office, to try to find his famous lost letter.
On the road, he hitchhikes a certain Sister, in charge of a mysterious delivery ...
Read also
René aux bois dormants,
the psychedelic dream catcher
In
Lost Letters,
talking fish coexist with the humans of Sunville, a charming seaside resort with canals and an aerial tramway.
Some live in a jar mounted on prostheses, others are the same size as us and can breathe in the open air.
A technological feat developed by Salin Sea, the father of Iode, when human pollution made the ocean unliveable.
"Ecology is the main subject of our century ... We are ruining our place of life!",
Moved Jim Bishop (Julien Bicheux, of his real name), who thus made it the backdrop to his work.
Cycy tries to intervene in a top-flight backcombing.
Jim Bishop / Glénat
Despite this context of very dystopian environmental disaster, the comic book offers an extremely pleasant adventure to follow, with scriptwriting twists and a hell of a dose of humor. The most obvious comic spring concerns the duo Iode-Frangine, the first being a great naive with very strong language, the second a tornado of physical and verbal violence.
The most hilarious character remains Cycy, a police fish with ambition inversely proportional to his skill in the field.
Its expressiveness also commands respect.
“
SpongeBob SquarePants
helped me a lot, it's a big influence,
confesses Jim Bishop.
This is one of my favorite cartoons, for its sense of the absurd but also the intelligence of its purpose, which reminds us that we all have our neuroses, our tics, our TOPs ... and that we can laugh about it. ”
The author makes the pencil sketch on an A5 notebook before drawing the pages clean digitally: first all the characters, then the decorations and finally the colors.
"It allows me to stay in the same energy, without diluting the emotion."
Jim Bishop / Glénat
The action is not to be outdone because the Mafiosi quickly launch themselves in the heels of Iodine, Frangine and Cycy.
What set a scene a memorable shootout and a fight in the sky reminiscent of
Porco Rosso
by Hayao Miyazaki.
The influence of the great Japanese masters runs through the whole story, from Akira Toriyama (
Dragon Ball
) to Eiichiro Oda (
One Piece
) passing Osamu Tezuka whose author admires the meaning of the narration.
Under its enchanting pastel surroundings,
Lost Letters
hides a harshness, which we will not detail here to preserve the intrigue.
Let us just say that a deep melancholy inhabits the work and that it would be necessary to be damn hardened to remain insensitive to its epilogue.
The author's nickname is a double nod to Jim Morrison of The Doors and Bishop of
Aliens
.
Jim Bishop / Glénat
The 36-year-old artist drew heavily on his personal journey, marked by the premature death of his mother and his decision to stop comic books at the end of 2018 after only three publications on the counter (two self-published volumes by
Nubo
and
Jill & Sherlock
at Ankama , with YO-one).
“I had really lost my self-confidence,”
recalls Jim Bishop, who came to hate his drawing when viewed through the
“prism of many rejections”
from publishers.
Fortunately for us, the flame of Jim Bishop was rekindled after Julien Neel, the father of the best-selling comic book
Lou!
, offered to accompany him to the Angoulême festival in 2019, which resulted in a contract with Glénat and the publication of
Lost Letters.
A second start and the start, hopefully, of a long and successful career.
BD box
Action!
Emotion!
Of the gag!
Jim Bishop / Glénat
It's hard to choose a board that would synthesize the spirit of a comic book as atypical as
Lettres perdues.
Let's try anyway.
"This page fits the world of comics well," unlike the cover, "
confirms Jim Bishop.
We are in the middle of a shootout.
The mafia fish are out of view but we can see the bullet holes and four “bang” onomatopoeias provide the soundtrack.
Although Iodine was not injured, tears rolled down his cheeks ... because Sis allegedly lied to him.
In the second box, time seems suspended as a glimmer of understanding (empathy?) Passes in the eyes of the young woman.
Their relationship, so far superficial and humorous, gains an unexpected depth.
“I like this kind of mix between an emotion focused on human relationships and something more Hollywood,”
explains the author.
Sister is the sister I dreamed of, I who only have brothers.
She has this side “I protect you, I'm going to beat everyone up”, badass but not sexualized
Jim bishop
Iode's bow tie and blondness are taken from a childhood photo of its author, as are some elements of his naive and literal personality: “
Not understanding a second-degree joke is the kind of thing that can happen to me again today, ”
smiles Jim Bishop.
And Sister, suddenly?
“It's a different side of me that's angry,” said
Jim Bishop.
She is also the sister I dreamed of, I who only have brothers.
She has this side "I protect you, I'm going to beat everyone up", badass but not sexualized. "
On the look side, she looks like Louise Bourgoin and it is no coincidence:
"I like the charm of this actress".
The lower half of the plate shows Police Officer Cycy about to intervene at the scene of the shooting.
"He's an ambitious person
(he only thinks of his future promotion, editor's note)
but who can't do it ... A part of me there too",
comments the artist, who worked in construction before embarking on comics without experiencing the expected success.
"I was rocked in a world of success and competitiveness and I did not realize it," he
analyzes, adding that shônen manga may have reinforced this state of mind:
"This side “I have to be the strongest” could limit my creativity and my way of approaching art. ”
Today he follows his own sensibility.
The fish mounted on prostheses constantly tries to convince himself that he has the makings of a police officer, while he connects the balls and goes around in circles, in every sense of the word.
"Gunshots?! Cycy, it's your time! Don't panic! Impose your authority, be firm, and everything will be fine
,
”he
encourages himself in the last box, tilting the board in the register of muscular comedy. This funny cop probably stems from the cathodic childhood of its author, rocked to
“
buddy movies
which sent heavy in terms of
punchlines
and action”,
like the
Die Hard
saga
with Bruce Willis or the films of Schwarzenegger
.
The scene announces the start of the fortuitous collaboration between Iode, Frangine and Cycy.
Three characters confronted with their own suffering but united in adversity ... How far will this take them?
Lost letters
of Jim Bishop, Glénat, 200 pages, 22 euros.
As a bonus, Jim Bishop agreed to send us the "prototype" of
Lost Letters,
partially inked with felt.
Here is the first sheet, not finalized, of what would become
Lost Letter.
The jacket, the motorbike and the rebellious hair will not be kept in the comics, unlike the house and the pelican.
Jim bishop
