{"id":29661,"date":"2024-04-12T09:30:48","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T09:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=29661"},"modified":"2024-04-11T16:29:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T16:29:39","slug":"the-last-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/04\/12\/the-last-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Jean-Marc Rochette<\/strong>, translated by Edward Gauvin<\/strong> (SelfMadeHero)
\nISBN: 978-1-914224-19-5 (HB)<\/p>\n

In conjunction with scripters such as Jacques Lob, Matz, Oliver Bocquet, Bejamin Legrand and others, painter\/illustrator Jean-Marc Rochette (Altitude<\/strong>, Bestiaire des alpes<\/em><\/strong>, Les loup<\/em><\/strong>, Les Aventures Psychotiques de Napol\u00e9on et Bonaparte<\/strong><\/em>, Le Transperceneige<\/em>\/Snowpiercer <\/strong>sequence) rapidly became one of the key bande dessin\u00e9e artists to watch.<\/p>\n

In 2022 he confirmed that status and surmounted it with the release of La Derni\u00e8re Reine<\/em><\/strong>: a self-contained naturalist epic which quickly garnered many major awards. It was named \u201cBook of the Year\u201d by Lire Magazine Litt\u00e9raire<\/em><\/strong> and Elle Magazine<\/em><\/strong>, was radio station RTL<\/strong>\u2019s Grand Prix for Comics winner and was an Official Selection of the lauded Angoul\u00eame Festival 2023.<\/p>\n

As can be seen in this new translation from SelfMadeHero, even in English, it\u2019s a bloody good read.<\/p>\n

Rendered in moody colour washes and stark line, The Last Queen<\/strong> took Rochette three years to complete and explores all the passions of its creator: love of wilderness, scaling mountains, contemplative solitude and the balance between humanity and nature.<\/p>\n

Those fascinations are expressed here in the millennial history and last gasp of a clan of red-headed outsiders living on the Vercors Massif of the French Prealps since neolithic times. Often regarded as witches, the ancestors of doomed outcast \u00c9douard Roux<\/em> have lived with and in the wilds throughout history. His kind enjoyed a particular affinity for the great bears that were indisputable masters of the range for all of time, until as a child he witnesses the end of the last mighty monarch of the peaks.<\/p>\n

As the 19th<\/sup> century closed, a she-bear dubbed \u201cthe Last Queen\u201d is killed by a shepherd and her carcass gloatingly desecrated by villagers. The other kids cruelly call little \u00c9douard \u201cson of the bear\u201d and say vile things about his mother, but he\u2019s used to it.<\/p>\n

When war comes in 1914, Roux marches off and is a hero of the Somme trenches. All it costs is the lower part of his face\u2026<\/p>\n

In 1920, the despondent pensioned-off warrior is on his uppers: a despised, pitiable gueule cass\u00e9e<\/em> – \u201cbroken face\u201d – shrouding his disfigurement and shame beneath a sack-like hood. He is but one of thousands\u2026<\/p>\n

When Roux hears of a woman artist who helps injured soldiers, he travels to Paris and meets Jeanne Sauvage<\/em> who builds a new lower face for Roux based on the visage of a Greek god. Based on actual sculptor and proto-feminist Marie Marcelle Jane Poupelet, Sauvage has been making supple, lifelike masks for France\u2019s defaced heroes and – refusing payment he cannot afford – does the same for \u00c9douard.<\/p>\n

Soon they are lovers and she introduces him to her circle of artist friends in Montmartre \u2026more dangerously disruptive outsiders in a world increasingly governed by inconspicuous wealth, covert prestige and urbane uniformity: one that simultaneously tolerates, despises and exploits them all.<\/p>\n

When the city life grinds them down and spits them out, Roux takes Jeanne to the mountains and shows her the secrets of the massif and a long-held family secret: stone age cave paintings and a neolithic carved bear lost from human knowledge for hundreds of years. The bounty of wonders inspire her great artistic breakthrough but Jeanne\u2019s creative triumph is swindled from her by the elegant, cultured elite of modern civilisation. She and \u00c9douard retreat from the emerging world for a timeless natural idyll that is paradise on Earth, but their days of true happiness are already numbered\u2026<\/p>\n

Uncompromising, deeply poignant and painfully sad, this is a saga of love and extinction: a testament to the passing of the past, with raw nobility lost to greed, crushing conformity and rise of mass mediocrity. It\u2019s a struggle with no room for mercy or grace allowed for the unconventional or out-of-step. A paean to the fading call of the wild, uncomfortable or troublesome heritage, these lovers\u2019 loss encapsulates and symbolises so many small wonders destroyed by progress, with revenants and outsiders pushed beyond even the few oases of fringe and margins not taken from them yet\u2026<\/p>\n

In a world that has no place for so much any longer, The Last Queen<\/strong> is a powerful call to cherish and preserve what can so easily die and never be regained\u2026
\nLa Derni\u00e8re reine \u00a9 Casterman, 2022. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jean-Marc Rochette, translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero) ISBN: 978-1-914224-19-5 (HB) In conjunction with scripters such as Jacques Lob, Matz, Oliver Bocquet, Bejamin Legrand and others, painter\/illustrator Jean-Marc Rochette (Altitude, Bestiaire des alpes, Les loup, Les Aventures Psychotiques de Napol\u00e9on et Bonaparte, Le Transperceneige\/Snowpiercer sequence) rapidly became one of the key bande dessin\u00e9e artists to … <\/p>\n

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