By Richard Marazano & Shang Xiao, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-218-8 (Album PB/Digital edition)
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. Channelling elements of A Boy and His Dog via Terminator, here’s one that’s a cut above from French polymath (artist, critic, historian, astrophysicist, politician, comics author) Richard Marazano (The Chimpanzee Complex; Cuervos; Zarathustra and more) with Chinese artist/illustrator/animator Shang Xiao (Midsummer Park).
Told over 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 triumphs, gangs of desperate kids forage for food, vitamins and ordnance to help them fend off the autonomous robots that have all but eradicated biological life.
Terse flashbacks disclose the armed rebellion of the mechanised realm and how the mostly subterranean youngsters still alive 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 incurable 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 particular dusk raid to the surface sees Ian 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 bodywork…
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, such as 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. Ella catches him and starts yelling, but they are both targeted by a roving mech… and inexplicably saved by another killer machine: SAM!
The victorious horror is badly damaged and as Ella watches in horror, Ian starts to fix 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 strives for the entire time – and succeeds – only to pass out at the end. When he wakes and races to the site, the robot is gone. 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 much-explored 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.
Today in 1923, illustrator and cover painter Earl Norem (Savage Sword of Conan, Silver Surfer, Six Million Dollar Man, Planet of the Apes) was born, with French pioneer Claire Bretécher (Agrippine, Cellulite, Les Frustrés) arriving in 1940, American mangaka Ben Dunn (Ninja High School, Warrior Nun Areala) in 1964 and Shawn Martinborough (AngelTown, Thief of Thieves, Luke Cage Noir) in 1972.