The Town that Didn't Exist
By Enki Bilal and Pierre Christin
Translated by Justin Kelly
Published by Humanoids Publishing
A lovely, lyrical tale about a town where a strike against a factory has threatened to destroy the lives of both the workers and management of the company. The elderly owner dies, leaving it to his crippled granddaughter to return to the town and somehow salvage a dire situation. Her solution is unconventional, and though it is a success, a few aren't so sure they want the paradise she manages to create.
The opening pages of this stunning graphic novel recalled strongly a local strike that took place where I live in 2001. A 100-year old family-owned paper mill was in contract negotiations with its workers, and when the mill demanded too many concessions, the union called a strike. It lasted for months, and in the middle of it, September 11th happened. At that point, all public sentiment was focused elsewhere, the strike failed, and the union was broken.
We see such a thing here, as the factory's workers continue their strike while the board of directors plans to crush them. Bilal and Christin humanize both sides, though, and the spanner in the works is the unexpected death of the owner and the arrival of his granddaughter, whose solution to the ongoing standoff is unique and surprising. The way she plows through any problem she can't go around is appealing, and very often funny as hell. She may not be able to walk, but she runs roughshod over anyone who tries to stand in her way.
Christin's story is human and touching, focusing on the way the events of the story play out for one young boy, and beginning and ending the story with his dreams, and how they play into his hopes for the future. I found the ending ironic: Even Paradise has its detractors. It's a theme as old as religion, and as fresh as the young boy here, tired of perfection.
Bilal's art is subtle and profoundly lifelike, for all its stylization. The colours are muted but beautiful in depicting the everyday life of the town, but turn grand and gorgeous when an idealized new home is constructed for all the residents to share. There's a three-dimensionality to the artwork that lends a startling approximation of the real world, one that you'd be more than happy to fall in to and have a look around.
This 54-page hardcover graphic album is beautiful to look at, and its story is a timeless parable that feels for all the world like an old, old tale made new again in this striking presentation.