What if we talked a little about illustration? With the Italian Marco Mazzoni, who mixes the organic by recomposing the forms of life, she reaches new heights. What could be better than returning to some of this author's projects published in the form of often enjoyable hybrid stories?
If there were collections, at Soleil editions, which were marked by a strong graphic identity, it was Métamorphose and Noctambule, which, under the leadership of editors Clotilde Vu and Barbara Canepa delivered stories between daydreams, tales dark and childhood memories. Stories that left an impression on readers and encouraged rereading. While the collection was at its peak, we are in 2011, Mourad Boudjellal decided to sell his shares in Editions Soleil to the Delcourt group, to change course by heading towards the Toulon rugby club. If Métamorphose continued to deliver great titles, it perhaps lacked the desire to reach a new level. In 2023 Mourad Boudjellal returns to comics by creating Oxymore. At the same time, he took with him the entire team of authors then pampered by the two editors. Jérémy Almanza, Guillaume Bianco, Clément Lefevre, Benjamin Lacombe and many others offered titles to a catalog which was expanding not quantitatively but qualitatively. This is how one of the striking projects of the new collection was published, just a year ago: The Metamorphosiseponymous title from the flagship collection, however published under the Noctambule label. The project written by Barbara Canepa and Benjamin Lacombe on a drawing by the Italian Marco Mazzoni, is an accordion book or leporello, in other words a book which unfolds into several paintings which follow a guiding thread on the front side and another on the tails side. Both can respond to each other, which is the case here. We read there a true homage to life and death, death being only a step towards reconstruction or rebirth, in another form. The tadpole becomes a frog, then after having tasted life, it dies before giving, no longer offering animal but plant life. This metamorphosis, this mixture between flora and fauna is at the heart of the world of designer-illustrator Marco Mazzoni. The project therefore highlights an artist in the best he has to offer, and this can be seen in each painting proposed.
Illustration from Thumbelina
Since then, I admit to keeping an eye on the career of Marco Mazzoni who had delivered, before La Métamorphose, a project perhaps more demanding in terms of its theme, Troubled Journals, published with texts by Sébastien Perez. He illustrated in different graphic forms thirteen illnesses of the mind: bipolarity, paranoia, bulimia, etc. (published in 2020 by Soleil). He also illustrated the tale Thumbelina by Andersen (La petite Poucette, is the exact title of the tale) in 2018 at Albin Michel, which went a little under the radar, but which deserves to be revisited. However, I was waiting to see Marco Mazzoni on a new project. It’s done with The Witches of Venicea dark post-apocalyptic fable written by Sébastien Perez with whom he is working on a second project. The story is offered in the Papillon Noir collection by Gallimard, directed by… Benjamin Lacombe! The world is small.
Illustration from The Metamorphosis
We follow, in a Venice ravaged by a terrible pandemic, the trajectory of a twelve-year-old girl named Simone. In this post-apocalyptic context in a city already on hold which is dying more every day, the drawing of the Italian illustrator works wonders. Firstly because he is fully in his element here, and he can deal with both fragility (which involves, among other things, the frail young girl and the butterfly), the relationship with time which will lead to a return to back in the Middle Ages on one of the islands of the city of the Doges. The story, which is tinged with dreaminess, takes the reader into another universe, but it is above all the very immersive and emotionally charged drawing of Marco Mazzoni that grabs us. The designer excels in his hybrid portraits where the organic, the floral and the faunal are redrawn and enrich each other to offer a second life to his subjects. The fragile, evanescent line, made with colored pencil or ink, is totally immersive. The great strength of this project is that it can be read in at least three ways, either the text alone, or the mixture of text and image, or the images alone. Rereading the project in this order may even have some very nice surprises in store for us. If we add to this that the book object is wonderful, with superb canvas and gilding, and we will understand that the purchase is highly recommended!
The Metamorphosis by Barbara Canepa, Benjamin Lacombe and Marco Mazzoni (Soleil/Metamorphosis) – 2023
The Witches of Venice by Sébastien Perez and Marco Mazzoni (Gallimard/Papillon Noir) – 2024
