two comics come out at the same time on the subject, but do not tell the same thing

BOOKS – This is without a doubt one of the news stories that has caused the most ink to flow in the French press. On October 16, 1984, the body of little Grégory Villemin, aged 4, was found tied up in Vologne, a few kilometers from his home in Lépanges in the Vosges. A mysterious raven claimed responsibility for the murder under the pretext of revenge. On the occasion of this sad anniversary, two comics are released in bookstores a few hours apart, including one to which the child’s father contributed. They are not redundant, but on the contrary complementary.

The first is soberly titled Gregory. It is published by Les Arènes this Thursday, October 3 and has the specificity of having been prefaced by Jean-Marie Villemin, the father of the little boy murdered forty years earlier.

Screenwriter Pat Perna spoke to Release on the very particular genesis of this project which took two years to see the light of day. Two years of exchanges with Jean-Marie Villemin and immersion in the Vosges region where the family lived. In the preface, which the daily read, Grégory’s father speaks for the first time in 18 years and an interview with the newspaper The Cross. « I wonder how we survived. We were lost, at the bottom of the abyss, without any support, tossed around by reversals and erratic justice. he writes.

The voice of little Grégory’s father

The point of view is that of the loving father and husband who saw his life turned upside down overnight. That of a victim therefore, but also of an executioner who wanted to take justice into his own hands by killing his cousin Bernard Laroche, five months after the tragedy, convinced that he had murdered his son. “I broke down, I took my cousin’s life, I will forever remain a murderer. I regret it so much”he confides. The plot, moreover, takes place during the trial of Jean-Marie Villemin in 1993, offering moments of the life of Villemin and Grégory preceding the drama, through flashbacks that the accused has behind bars and in the accused box.

This story is the designer Christophe Gaultier who put it into images, drawing inspiration from family portraits and photographs from the period, to reproduce the features of the different protagonists but also the settings, the colors, the clothes . A comic strip which, the screenwriter assures him, is very faithful to reality and has a clear objective: not to return to the news item, but “ tell about love » between Jean-Marie and Christine Villemin, and their missing son.

A “true crime” style comic

A different approach from that of the other comic, The Raven, published on October 2 by Petit à Petit editions, which recounts the affair. Like a documentary, it starts with the discovery of the little boy’s body in the river and unfolds the investigation in all its complexity. From the first phone calls and letters from the raven in 1981 to the arrest of Murielle Bolle, including the murder of Bernard Laroche and the suicide of judge Jean-Michel Lambert. Constructed as a “true crime”, the comic strip that we read, scripted by Tristan Houllemare and Béatrice Merdrignac and drawn by Grégory Lé, precisely dissects the news item to lay out, factually, all the elements.

The chapters, like episodes, mark out the work of the investigators by key dates. Between the chapters, tools are offered to readers: geographical maps of the area, family trees presenting all the protagonists, chronological timelines, reproduction of anonymous letters and transcription of the crow’s calls, zoom on decisive elements of the investigation. The Raven compiles, in an attempt to offer an overall vision of this labyrinthine investigation.

An investigation which, 40 years after the events, is not yet closed. In March, the courts ordered new expertise at the request of Christine and Jean-Marie Villemin to try to authenticate the voice of the crow on certain recordings.

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