SHE. – You adapted a best-seller of American literature. Why him ?
Manu Larcenet. – Initially, I was going for a novel by Mitch Cullin, “Tideland”, but I was unable to obtain the rights. And one day when I was hanging out near the graphic designers’ studio at Dargaud, the boss said to me, “Read this!” » while handing me “The Road”. At that time, I was complaining about the normalization of narratives, these stories constructed with a narrative arc that we now demand in all fiction. In “The Road”, there was none. It was an impressionist painting, a juxtaposition of windows that end up forming a story, without the Hollywood gimmicks. When I read a book, there are always images that come up. Sometimes they stay. Like this time, for a very long time. So we had to give it a try.
I first drew around forty pages to see if I could do it
SHE. – Were the rights easy to negotiate?
M.L. – I first drew around forty pages to see if I could do it. Then, for the first time in my life, I had to write a cover letter. I said there that I replaced his words with lines. For me, it’s not much different. When I wrote this letter, I had no idea that it was a bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize winner… It added enormous pressure, especially since Cormac McCarthy died a few months later. I then told myself that no one would be able to tell me if I was wrong from now on.
SHE. – When we adapt, should we be faithful to the original?
ML – I was very loyal to him. Except for two scenes that I drew, before removing them. These were scenes with a hint of hope. Now, for me, it was impossible in such despair. When the pain is severe, it is absolute.
SHE. – Which reader are you?
M.L. – Very, very slow. I have major problems concentrating. I have to go little by little. I hardly read novels anymore. I immersed myself headlong, for two years, in Céline’s “Voyage au bout de la nuit”. It had such an impact on me that, since then, I have struggled to regain that intensity.
I have serious problems concentrating
SHE. – Do you reread books?
M.L. – “The Stranger”, by Camus. I’ve been reading it all my life. It started as a schoolboy, then I reread it at 30 and 40, and I’ve just reread it again. Each time I discover another way of understanding it. I love being splashed by the intelligence of another human being.
SHE. – What else are you reading?
M.L. – Lots of stuff about art and art history. Recently, as I am passionate about Polynesian tattoos, I devoured a series of three books on “The Marquesans and their art” (In the Wind of the Islands): they allowed me to understand a language that had previously eluded me. there.
SHE. – And the comics in all this?
ML – I only read that for so many years. And I stopped because I couldn’t not compare myself. It parasitizes creation to read too many good books. Today, I return in a surprising way to the authors of my youth, Franquin, Morris, all these classic cartoonists on whom I began to work by copying their vocabulary and who taught me so many things.
“The road”, by Manu Larcenet, based on the work of Cormac McCarthy (Dargaud). © Press
