Tardi - Lot 186

Tardi JACQUES TARDI ADÈLE BLANC-SEC Le Mystère des profondeurs (T.8), Casterman 1998 Original plate no. 16. India ink on paper 30 × 42 cm (11.81 × 16.54 in.) All Tardi is in this plate. Seventeen years after Le Secret de la Salamandre (1981), Tardi resurrects his heroine, awakened from a long cryogenic sleep. She discovers a Paris transformed by the 1914 war and the first excesses of the 20th century: military conspiracies and the misuse of science, leading to the emergence of these horseshoe crabs in the sewers. The tone is both mocking and revolting. Satire, disenchantment with what human nature can produce, and "Vernian" fantasy, Jacques Tardi's return to Adèle proves masterful. With his expressive drawing, effective narrative and cynical black humor (see that cigar cutter in the shape of a guillotine), he brings the saga of Adèle to a close (provisionally, as two final albums will be released in 2007 and 2022) on a note that is both bitter and visionary, as the worst is yet to come.