GIRAUD

JEAN GIRAUD BLUEBERRY La Tribu Fantôme (T.20), Hachette 1982 Original plate no. 15, prepublished in l'Écho des Savanes no. 82, November 1981. India ink on paper 49.7 × 64.3 cm (19.57 × 25.31 in.) What a magnificent sequence this is! How do you chase down and arrest a man who's ready to kill you without shooting him? It takes an ingenious idea, and an ingenious one at that: connecting two horses to a lanyard so that the pursuing rider is thrown off balance. It had to be imagined and, above all, drawn! Gir achieves this brilliantly when, thanks to masses of black, he focuses the reader's attention on the riders surrounded by the rocky environment of the canyon - a sublime setting for this sequence - in a wide shot, allowing him to deploy the trap. Comics aren't just about well-written text and well-executed panels; they're also, and above all, about storytelling, for which Gir is at his best in this plate.