For the hundredth anniversary of the death of Joseph Conrad, Maël is writing and drawing a very beautiful adaptation of the famous novel.
After a cycle inspired by his life as a sailor, Joseph Conrad offers with Boatswain a fiction set in Costaguana, an imaginary South American state. This rich, ambitious and bitter novel was published in 1904.
The first part sets the scene by multiplying the characters and the focal points. Since its independence, the country has experienced a succession of coups d'état. Sulaco could be a peaceful and remote province, if the silver mine of Don Carlos, a settler of English origin, were not the object of all covetousness. The business belongs to Californian financiers, Anglo-Saxon imperialism succeeds distant Spanish tutelage. However, the deposed president and the putschist generals need money, the war is getting closer. After a jump in time, the second part will focus on Nostromo and the treasure.
Conrad alternates epic scenes and internal battles. Tormented, his characters are led to make unfortunate or tragic choices. Objectively pessimistic, the moral could be that money makes you mad and corrupts everything.
Forced to prune the intrigues, the scenario of Mael focuses on life in Sulaco, its mine and its main characters. “El capataz de cardadores”, literally the foreman of the dockers, Nostromo is a bit boastful and, at least initially, honest and courageous. A popular hero, this simple Italian sailor was able to gain the trust of the masters of the city, without losing the respect of the peones. Don Carlos chose it to shelter his treasure.
Maël is a classic designer who combines a fine, precise and elegant line in Indian ink with soft washes enhanced with watercolors. His country is poor, its heat oppressive, its land harsh and its peasants poverty-stricken. Dishonest and violent, its generals and governors show off. Rich and handsome, Don Carlos, his wife and young Martin seem spared from the decomposition of the country. Nostromo, the most complex character, combines the nonchalance of Blueberry, the arrogance of Henry Fonda in Once upon a time in the West, to the pride of a penniless hidalgo.
The nocturnal lock-up in the barge, the turning point of the novel, is admirably rendered. Lost on the water with Nostromo and Martin, we feverishly try to interpret the noises and shadows. Looking forward to the sequel and the end.
Stéphane de Boysson
