Everything is extraordinary around The hunting accident. First, their two authors had never written a book and they released a masterpiece, very rightly rewarded, this Friday evening, by the Fauve d’or 2021 d’Angoulême, among 43 other comics. This is the first time that a comic has received the prize for best album in the two most important French comic strip festivals, Angoulême and Saint-Malo.
[Cérémonie des Fauves – Angoulême] : Fauve d’or – Prize for the best is awarded to The hunting accident by Landis Blair and David L. Carlson (Translation Julie Sibony) by Sonatine editions#BD #FIBD #FIBD2021 #FIBD21 #angoulême @SonatineEdition @LandisBlair @RAJA_Packaging pic.twitter.com/fS6RCd2x6p
– Angoulême Festival (@bdangouleme) January 29, 2021
Last November, a jury selected by the Saint-Malo Quai des Bulles festival and West France, awarded “The hunting accident”, with rave reviews. “We all agreed to say that it was a total work, a whole universe that we soaked up and that we had trouble leaving before the end, said one of the jurors, Auriane. The characters are intriguing, disturbing even, but fascinating. And then there is a lot of illustration work, with hatching, different ways of arranging the boards, boxes becoming illustrations in their own right. We are caught up. “
Another member of the jury, Laure emphasized having liked “The originality of this comic, including its square format. And the themes addressed: confinement, escape through literature … but also the shadow and light side which illustrates the characters’ descent into hell and makes the link with Dante. I was blown away when I realized it was a true story. “
In 1959 in Chicago, after the death of his mother, a young boy arrives at his blind father’s, whom he will get to know. Everything goes well for years until Charlie has a problem with the police. Frightened, his father confesses to him that his blindness was not due to a hunting accident but, while he was playing the thugs, to a burglary that went wrong and sent him, blind, to prison. There, this young man, thrown from his home at 16, on the verge of suicide, will open up to life thanks to literature and poetry.
“Light in the Dark”
This story, the author of The hunting accident, David L. Carlson, discovered it during a lunch with his friend Charlie who started to tell him the story of Matt Rizzo, his father, as he tells in this video.
” What struck me, explains David, is that this 22 year old kid, blind, locked in a cell of 9 m2 manages, despite everything, to find light in the darkness. And what I find even more remarkable is that this light came to him from his cellmate. (Nathan Léopold, a murderer) who learned to read braille to teach it himself to Matt, giving him access to the great literature that would save his life. “
We are then in 2010 and the idea of David L. Carlson, director and musician, who has never written any book, is a transmedia project around this story. Then a film, whose storyboard would take the form of a graphic novel … “I then understood that a graphic novel would be sufficient on its own …”.
David then discovered the work of Landis Blair, who had never produced a graphic novel. Their work will last three years and span 450 pages. Landis only uses black is white. He draws then applies a dense, intense inking by hatching.
“The main character is blind, underlines Landis Blair, which implies black in his life. I believe the coldness of the black and white amplifies the harshness of his new life in prison. “
The story is interspersed with writings by Matt Rizzo, like poetic parentheses. “The reader is free to follow these additions or to read the plot in a straight line”, says David L. Carlson, who sees this narrative as a parallel to the health crisis.
“Change our lives”
“We are in forced isolation. We need to rise above the current situation. It’s up to us to use our imagination to make this world more beautiful. I believe that our imagination allows us to change our lives. “
The hunting accident could never have been published in France. It was Sonatine, a young publisher who made a name for himself in the thriller, but had never published a comic book, who spotted him.
Its director, Arnaud Hofmarcher, had read a book devoted to the Leopold-Loeb affair, two wealthy students killing a teenager for free for fun. “I wanted to know more and I came across this graphic novel, quite by chance. I was spellbound by the power of the book and by its themes which corresponded to Sonatine’s DNA, namely a noir novel written in a remarkable style, with the emphasis on the characters. A story all the more hallucinating because it is true, with exceptional work by the designer. This book was published by a small New York publisher. He had thus escaped literary agents. “
We told you, everything is extraordinary around The hunting accident, very rightly awarded the Fauve d’or d’Angoulême.
The hunting accident, Éditions Sonatine, 472 pages, € 29.
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