By Richard Marazano & Shang Xiao, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-218-8 (Album PB)
Wow. People really love stories about robots. Well then, here’s another you might want to peruse…
Robots are a beloved theme of fiction, and many stories seem to work on the dichotomy of their innately innocent yet potentially deadly double nature. With elements of Terminator and A Boy and His Dog, here’s one that’s a cut above from French polymath (artist, critic, historian, astrophysicist, politician, and comics author) Richard Marazano (The Chimpanzee Complex; Cuervos; Zarathustra and much more) and Chinese artist, illustrator and animator Shang Xiao (Midsummer Park).
Told in four volumes, Après l’Homme details a heady tale of trust and survival between apparent natural enemies…
It’s just been the End of the World as We Know It, and in the scattered, shattered rubble of our technological advancements gangs of desperate kids forage for food, vitamins and ordnance to help them fend off the robots that have all but eradicated biological life.
Terse flashbacks reveal the armed rebellion of the mechanised realm and how the mostly subterranean youngsters scavenge and scrounge, with roaming mechs hunting them day and night. Tensions are high and emotions fraught, so if someone is a little bit different, negligent or disobedient – like dreamer Ian – it’s a problem for everybody…
Ella looks out for him as much as possible but Ian is destined for doom unless he shapes up…
Sadly, he instead takes a step in the other direction after one dusk raid to the surface sees him instants from annihilation when cornered by a towering killer robot.
Thankfully Russ disables it with his bazooka, but just for a moment there, Ian was sure he had experienced an emotional connection with the droid. It was like it chose not to kill him…
Increasingly obsessed, Ian cannot let the notion go and eventually breaks security to sneak out and examine the remains. They will be easy to find, with the letters SAM boldly painted on the carapace…
When he comes back, it’s all Ella can do to stop the others killing him. Ultimately, though, tempers subside, but Ian has not learned his lesson. After sharing his earliest memories of his father, fleeing and the lucky escape that saved him, the troubled boy seems to buckle down to the basics of survival, but he’s still gripped by crazy notions, like abandoning their tunnels and heading out to the fabled suburbs…
With defiance growing and rebellion brewing, the kids head out on another daylight hunt, but again Ian goes looking for “his†robot. When Ella catches him and starts yelling, they are both targeted by a roving mech, but inexplicably saved by another killer machine: “SAMâ€!
The victorious monster is badly damaged and as Ella watches in horror, Ian starts repairing it…
When the others find them, more arguing results in Ian getting a deadline: if he can’t make SAM fully operable in two days, he must let them destroy it. The frantic boy stives for the entire time and succeeds, only to pass out at the end. When he wakes and races to the site, the robot has vanished. Bereft and furious, Ian allows Ella to drag him away, but both are unaware that coldly-calculating optic systems are watching them from hiding…
Beguiling and powerfully engaging, this vivid take on an old plot is surprisingly compelling and promises a big payoff in volumes to come.
© Dargaud Paris 2011 by Marazano & Shang. All rights reserved. English translation © 2014 Cinebook Ltd.