"Alleluia! Praise the Lord from above.”
Raised by a pastor, Georges recite the Bible diligently, like a good little Christian.
He is a Lakota, but like many native children, he has been cut off from his roots and lives on a reservation.
Until the day he meets the troupe of Little Knife, a Native American in search of revenge who has a bounty hunter on his trail.
Published by Rue de Sèvres under the Label 619,
Hoka Hey!
is an ambitious 224-page western directed by Romain Maufront, alias Neyef.
“I've always wanted to do a western, a very codified but malleable genre,
explains the designer
.
These very simple stories are based on the direction and the characterization of the characters, the two aspects that I like the most in comics.
Another more prosaic reason for having chosen such a universe:
“I hate drawing cars!”
Read alsoLadies with Guns: a violent and rowdy female western
This graphic novel marks a turning point in the career of Neyef who, with a few exceptions (a
Dofus Monster
in 2009,
This taste
in 2011 and
South Central Stories
in 2014), had until now been used to working with a screenwriter on series or short formats.
In 2020, when he found himself without a collaboration project, he launched into
Hoka Hey!
solo with new assurance.
"I had more confidence in my drawing, it was time."
The fine team in full: Georges, No Moon, Sully and Little Knife.
Neyef / Rue de Sevres
Graphically, the album is very successful, nourished by superb natural landscapes (inspired by Dakota and Wyoming) and populated by characters with more realistic features than in its previous productions.
“With the Covid and the confinements, I went back to the basics to try to improve my drawing and, little by little, I took more and more pleasure,
says the artist.
Before, the drawing board was not a passion but a way to lead the life I wanted, to manage my schedule, without a boss.
It was frustrating to always compromise between what I wanted to do and what I could do.
This is still the case today... but a little less!
From the introductory scene, the reader understands that he is embarking on a brutal, ruthless story, and that the hero Georges will not come out unscathed.
“When I was 10, with my parents, we visited two concentration camps,
recalls Neyef, who lived in Germany between the ages of 8 and 15, where his military father was stationed.
When we discover this kind of place, we realize in which world we really live.
A part of innocence is gone at that moment.
If I do a little psychoanalysis, so much violence in my comics – and this same pattern of the child who is confronted with it – comes from there.
The battle cry “hoka hey!”
means “forward!”.
Neyef / Rue de Sevres
For George the orphan, Little Knife takes the form of a father figure.
This ambiguous character teaches him his culture as well as his thirst for revenge.
"Little Knife is mixed-race but feels completely Indian because the only love he received was from his mother, who was a Lakota,"
says the author, who wanted to build his story around issues of parentage and sentiment. of belonging to a culture.
He found in his own mother, a Franco-Vietnamese mestizo, "
this way of evolving between two worlds",
explaining that he
"felt the need to [get] closer to this culture, to maintain a link",
at the death of his Grandmother.
“A way to bring his memory to life”.
Besides Little Knife, Georges travels with the enigmatic No Moon, a masked native, and Sully, an Irishman.
"These are two peoples oppressed by the same people, the English, because the Americans are English with bad manners,"
Neyef quipped.
This duo evokes the singular bond that still unites Amerindians and Irish.
“During the great Irish family, the Choctaws had clubbed together to help the Irish,
says Neyet
.
During Covid, the Irish returned the favor and helped the natives through it.”
Perfectly paced and devilishly effective in its staging,
Hoka Hey!
is a very beautiful road-trip interspersed with furious clashes and poignant confidences by the fireside.
The writing quality of its characters makes it an essential work beyond the restricted circle of western lovers.
Cover of
Hoka Hey!
Neyef / Rue de Sevres
Hoka Hey!
by Neyef, Rue de Sèvres / Label 619, 224 pages, 22.90 euros.