By Rodolphe & Léo with colour by Marie-Paule Alluard, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-836-4 (Album PB)
I’m thinking about relationships and romance at the moment, and comics have always explored pair-bonds as a fundamental aspect of any genre they exploit. It’s not always about simple attainment of a dream either. Sometimes, failure and the loss of love is more powerful, rewarding and/or entertaining than “True Love Waysâ€. The attendant emotion certainly has generated some astoundingly moving fiction…
European comics audiences have long been fascinated with the mythologised American experience, whether it be the Big Sky Wild West or later eras of crime-riddled, gangster-fuelled dramas. They also have a vested historical interest in the northernmost parts of the New World which has resulted in some pretty cool graphic extravaganzas.
Léo is actually Brazilian artist and storymaker Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira Filho: born in Rio de Janeiro on December 13th, 1944. Attaining a degree in mechanical engineering from Puerto Alegre in 1968, he was a government employee for three years, until forced to flee the country because of his political views. While a military dictatorship ran Brazil, he lived in Chile and Argentina before illegally returning to his homeland in 1974. To survive, he worked as a designer/graphic artist in Sao Paulo and created his first comics art for O Bicho magazine.
In 1981 he migrated to Paris, seeking to pursue a career in Bande Dessinée, and found work with Pilote and L’Echo des Savanes as well as more advertising and graphics fare. The big break came when Jean-Claude Forest invited him to draw stories for Okapi which led to regular illustration work for Bayard Presse. In 1988 Léo began his long association with scripter and scenarist Rodolphe D. Jacquette – AKA Rodolphe.
His prolific, celebrated writing partner has been a giant of comics since the 1970s: a Literature graduate who transitioned from teaching and running libraries to creating poetry and writing criticism, novels, biographies, children’s stories and music journalism. In 1975, after meeting Jacques Lob, he expanded his portfolio to write for a vast number of artists and strip illustrators in magazines ranging from Pilote and Circus to À Suivre and Métal Hurlant. Amongst his most successful endeavours are Raffini (with Ferrandez) and L’Autre Monde (Florence Magnin) but his collaborations in all genres and age ranges are too numerous to list here.
In 1991 he began working with Léo on a period adventure series of the far north. Taciturn, introspective and fiercely driven Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant Philip Trent premiered in L’Homme Mort, forging a lonely path through the 19th century Dominion over eight tempestuous, hard-bitten albums between then and 2000. He also prompted the collaborators’ later fantasy classics Kenya (and its spin-offs), Centaurus and Porte de Brazenac.
Cast very much in the classic adventure mould perfected by Jack London and John Buchan, Trent is a man of few words, deep thoughts and unyielding principles who gets the job done whilst stifling emotional turmoil boiling deep within him, but is the very embodiment of the phrase “still waters run deepâ€â€¦
As ‘Quand S’allument Les Lampes’, this third adventure comes from 1993, with the solitary man and his faithful hound “Dog†trudging into and through another snow-wrapped town (stunning rendered as always by Leo) to eventually make camp alone in the frozen woods beyond. His thoughts dwell on the warm loving families therein, and wander back, as they always will, to Agnes.
He had saved her – but not her brother – and was given a clear invitation that he had never acted upon. Now, under the cold stars, he makes a decision. Applying for leave, he travels to Providence with marriage in mind, but on arrival finds a dilapidated, empty house and learns that his Miss St. Yves had reached the same conclusion years ago… and with another man…
Shaken and crushed, he finds a saloon and picks up a whisky glass…
Weeks later, a penniless broken staggering shambles, he plagues the barkeeps of a nameless frontier railtown, pitied and despised by residents as they go about their business and try to avoid the rummy in the gutter.
Howling constantly with desolated loss, Trent’s only human connection is bar girl Mary Lou, but he is blind to her more than Christian interest. Wendley City is all bustle and terror. The railway will bring wealth – and is already reaping dividends – but it’s also drawn out human wolves. Seemingly invisible outlaws dubbed “the Coalmen†have targeted elderly residents for months, cruelly torturing and killing to extract the savings of the weakest townsfolk…
After another night of atrocity, an outraged posse manages to wound a suspect before losing him. The fugitive hides under the stoop drunken sot Trent is slumped on, and in gratitude offers the despised reprobate a job if he has the stomach for bad business and can sober up…
The final act contains a brutal denouement and reveals a cunning and extended undercover scheme to catch the Coalmen, but one that turned on the implacable Mountie’s honest despair and deadly near all-consuming brush with loss and loneliness…
Mission accomplished, the quiet man returns to duty and the wastelands he patrols to preserve the safety of the families he cannot find a way to join…
Another beguiling and introspective voyage of internal discovery, where environment and locales are as much lead characters as hero and foe, When the Lamps are Lit offers suspense, action, drama and poignant evocation in a compelling confection that will appeal to any fan of widescreen cinematic crime fiction or epic western drama.
Original edition © Dargaud Editeur Paris 1993 by Rodolphe & Léo. All rights reserved. English translation © 2017 Cinebook Ltd.