The diversity of authors book a variety of atmospheres

Like many readers, Jean Wacquet, editions Soleil publishing Director, was overwhelmed by emotion in discovering, in 1998, the letters of Veterans of the great war, compiled by Jean-Pierre Guéno for Radio France. Struck by the strength of these writings, which revealed the tragic fate of an entire generation in horror, Jean Wacquet had the idea to propose them to another public confident adaptation of twenty of these missives to a Pleiad of writers of comic strip. The emotion is intact: the son of merchant, worker or farmer, infantrymen, non-commissioned officers, liaison officers, still almost children men or fathers... All render with simplicity, their fears, their hopes, their disincentives, their gaps. To the horror of the fighting, the letters go to essence, with a great economy of words and little effects of style.

The drawings bring additional emotion. The diversity of authors book a variety of atmospheres. History without floor where appears a soldier full of distress and solitude for adaptation by Thierry Martin of a letter from Henri Aimé Gauthé depicted in "Knight of the poor figure". For the letter of Maurice Drans, which describes a field of dead bodies, Juanjo Guarnido left his animal characters of Blacksad to stage a new "raft of the Medusa" kind, with its body packed, twisted and sick, earthy colours and its birds of misfortune. Only emerges a survivor, wild-eyed. "Oh my Georgette, I should talk to you love and I you talk about it", laments the soldier. Franck Biancarelli translated into sepia color the horror of the combatant in the battle. "The machine gun scans the field, bullets pass me over the head," writes Désiré Edmond Renault, wounded, "dare not move his hole" and back to the sweetness of his mother. Horror culminates in adaptation of the letter from René Jacob by Juan Giménez where death invades everything. The atmosphere becomes twilight.

A few episodes come to lighten the atmosphere, with a bit of merriment ephemeral as in "The ball", illustrated by Emmanuel Lepage, or nostalgia as in the very moving "Hun helmet", put in images by Joël Parnotte and Vincent Mallié. The absurd is emerging under the brush of Farid Boudjellal who chose to adapt the very caustic response sent by Louis Bloch at the company's gas in Paris that claimed 31.75 francs to counter charges that itself is located at the front and that his wife has committed as a military nurse. These adaptations, where one feels enthusiastic designers, but also sometimes intimidated by the strength of the subject, make want to be back in the collection of simple letters, where the spelling is sometimes risky, or summary, but where the human truth is often exposed. A duty of memory all the more necessary as the survivors of the trenches are more than a handful...

Comic album is unfortunately the impasse on the letters of the German soldiers who were included in the compendium published at Librio and showed the proximity of the perception of share situations and of the front. It is a shame for have preferred them opening and closing of the album history of pure fiction around the figure of Marshal Pétain and the unknown soldier that appears somewhat Manichean.