Damned!
We can never say it enough, comic book heroes always survive their creator when they have been endowed - like the ancient heroes - with extraordinary qualities.
This is precisely the case for the Blake and Mortimer tandem, imagined in 1946 by the brilliant Edgar P.Jacobs.
Seventy-six years later, our dear "so British" adventurers are more than ever at the top of sales.
Read alsoOur review of Eight hours in Berlin, the new album by Blake and Mortimer
But we must also remember that since 1996, the many buyers of the adventures of Blake and Mortimer have exhausted many ideas and scenarios to maintain the flame and the quality of their adventures.
Jean-Luc Fromental, Antoine Aubin, and José Louis Bocquet, the three new authors of the next Blake and Mortimer.
© Blake & Mortimer 2022
With
Eight hours in Berlin
, the 29th volume is very strong, while renewing the codes of the series in a beautiful way.
Signed by a new tandem of screenwriters, José-Louis Bocquet and Jean-Luc Fromental, not exactly partridges of the year, supported by the virtuoso draftsman Antoine Aubin, this new album is, dare we write it, a frank success.
The cocktail is perfect.
All the ingredients are there, well dosed.
It was at the bar of the Hôtel Raphaël, with its cozy atmosphere and dimmed lights reminiscent of the famous Centaur Club, that we met Bocquet and Fromental.
Relaxed, smiling, accomplices, they are aware of having hit the bullseye, but they prefer to laugh about it, in all modesty... Like real gentlemen.
In these two intermediate stages of the cover, Mortimer first appears with a sleeveless sweater, a tank top which will be replaced by a Columbo-style raincoat in the final version.
© Blake & Mortimer 2022
LE FIGARO. - Do you remember precisely the genesis of this project?
Jose-Louis BOCQUET. -
It all started in Brussels, in 2014, not far from the Gare du Midi!
I was returning to Paris.
I came across the publisher of Blake and Mortimer,
Yves Schlirf ,
by chance .
He called out to me out of the blue:
"Hey, José-Louis, wouldn't you like to give us a
Blake and Mortimer
?"
I did not think.
I answered immediately:
“Of course!”
I didn't even know what I was getting into.
But the mere prospect of working on a series that rocked my youth electrified me.
Afterwards, I immediately called my friend Jean-Luc Fromental to offer to accompany me on this long journey.
Jean-Luc FROMENTAL.
- I remember it very well.
José-Louis and I have been on a rope since 1981. At the time, a man named Stan Barets commissioned me for a book with the invigorating title:
L'année de la BD
.
Seeing that there would be a lot of work ahead, I asked him for a favor.
Hire a little young comic book enthusiast that I had met in a bookstore.
Since then, we haven't left each other.
Between
Métal Aventure
, the adventures of Spaghetti for Dino Attanasio or other designers like Frantz.
Our bestseller to date remains
The Adventures of Hergé
, with cartoonist Stanislas published in 1999, and now in its fifth French reissue.
What were the specific requests on this album
Eight Hours in Berlin
?
JL.B
- Indeed, seven years ago, we received a fairly precise "brief" from the publisher.
We had to get away from the 1950s, which our predecessors had taken a bit too far.
We were also asked to return to espionage.
We were finally encouraged to find a new designer.
There was no issue.
Nothing other than the pleasure of making a good comic.
JL.F. -
I remember that in 1996 when Ted Benoît and Jean Van Hamme relaunched the series with
L'Affaire Francis Blake
, Van Hamme had the immense merit of returning to the sources of inspiration for Edgar P. Jacobs.
He re-read John Buchan's famous novel
The 39 Steps
, adapted in 1935 by Alfred Hitchcock.
For us,
Blake and Mortimer
is like an incredible madeleine.
We first brought to the publisher a cartoonist whom we greatly appreciate, Christian Cailleaux.
But through an editorial sleight of hand worthy of Harry Houdini, Christian Cailleaux first produced
Le Cri du Moloch
with Jean Dufaux and Étienne Schréder .
And this dear Antoine Aubin, has joined our team.
We were delighted.
Where exactly did the idea for the album come from?
JL.B
- As at the beginning, it was only a question of making only one album, immediately, we made the decision to embark on the adventure of the infamous and seductive Olrik!
It was imperative that this glorified gangster be in the game.
It was non-negotiable!
(
Laughs
).
And then, I remembered an interview during which Jean Van Hamme had said to me:
"As a screenwriter, if one has to foment a plot, as much as it is directed against the most powerful of the planet, the president of the United States for example, rather than against your janitor!
So we had espionage, an American president, the 1960s: it all fell into place quickly.
Our choice fell on Berlin at the time of the cold war.
With its infamous wall.
This city divided into two Germanys had become a veritable hub of the world of espionage.
And President Kennedy just came to deliver a speech that remained famous in the spring of 1963. In short, there was everything!
JL.F. -
What's more, Blake and Mortimer never went to Berlin.
This is how we started our writing sessions...
Exactly, how did your collaboration go?
JL.F.
- Over the years, we have developed a free chat system.
We sit in my living room, and we chat casually about everything and nothing.
From these general conversations ideas are born all the time.
The method is now quite proven.
Then, José-Louis, who has an architect's handwriting, takes all his notes and clears them up on the computer.
We progress step by step.
From a “pitch” of 10 lines, we move on to a treatment of several pages, before moving on to the sequencing of the plates.
We are quite close to the cinema method.
This is a very stimulating verbal ping-pong.
How was the work with the designer Antoine Aubin?
JL.B
- Antoine Aubin is a miniaturist.
It is for this reason that we were not afraid to design boards of ten to twelve squares.
He was heroic on this album.
Especially for end pages.
The whole crossing of Berlin with this compact crowd is dazzling on the graphic level, extraordinary in precision.
With his line, we are never in a servile copy, nor in a parody.
He has this ability to stay true to the spirit of Jacobs while modernizing it.
It's quite stunning.
Especially since there is not, strictly speaking, a well-established or defined Jacobs style.
That's to say?
JL.F.
- The Jacobs dogma does not exist!
As a draftsman, Edgar P.Jacobs never stopped evolving in his style.
Almost no album is drawn the same way.
In terms of plots too, he tackled all genres: from crime fiction to science fiction through war stories, those that are similar to fantasy or suspense investigations.
He leaves us with a great game box in terms of scriptwriting.
Based on the novel by Len Deighton, featuring the character of Harry Palmer, played by Michael Caine,
Our Funeral in Berlin
was released in 1966. This English spy film completely captures the atmosphere of that time.
DR
What are the main references present in
Eight Hours in Berlin
?
JL.B
- First of all, there is the film
Nos funérailles à Berlin
which was our reference work.
Based on the novel by Len Deighton, featuring the character of Harry Palmer, played by Michael Caine, the film by Guy Hamilton, who was the director of four James Bonds including
Goldfinger
, was released in 1966. It completely captures the atmosphere of that time.
A long quote to
Our Funeral in Berlin
is also in the album and pays tribute to this brilliant spy film that has remained far too little known.
JL.F.
- There is also a good reference to A
Clockwork Orange
or
L'Affaire Tournesol
, with the sequence of the taxi falling into the river.
We even gave an affectionate nod to the cult British series
The Prisoner
by and starring Patrick McGoohan... And yes, we are children of pop culture... and of the Cold War.
Didn't this first foray into Jacobian land make you want to continue the adventure? Is there another Blake and Mortimer in the making?
JL.F.
- But yes !
It is made, drawn and colored.
JL.B
- It was Jean-Luc who had the idea of contacting Floc'h.
A brilliant intuition, but a rather arduous task.
Of course, Floc'h is one of the great contemporary proponents of this stylized, elegant and legible trait known as the "clear line".
He is an exceptional artist.
We wrote a totally different plot.
The 120-page album is scheduled for the end of 2023. The story will take place in New York and will again involve Olrik… But that's another story.
“Wait and see”
, as Blake and Mortimer would say!
Le Rendez-vous de Sevenoaks
, an album written by François Rivière and designed by Floc'h, was published in 1977. It remains a perfect example of Jacobsian comics... © Dargaud