The Rodguen designer, born Rudolph Guenoden, do not give much biographical information on the Web. We imagine "thirty-something". We learn that he was the Gobelins school and it led him to work in animation, the UK and California, including DreamWorks.
One look at his website (rodguen [dot] com) or his blog (dizdatdoz [dot] blogspot [dot] fr) reveals a large number of drawings ("commissions" and other sketches) rather owls, devoted to characters ... DC and Marvel Comics!
Taking advantage of my research, I see that I appreciated me discover Rodguen in the 'Volume Six' of "Flight" series, a collective portfolio in 8 volumes (2004-2011), led by the American designer Kazu Kibuishi which offers more or less new artists to see published a short comic "one shot" or, for some (s) authors, a series of stories of the same characters.
Rodguen presents a style of high efficiency, dynamics and expressive, halfway between "Franco-Belgian-nose" (1) and étatsunienne like a Cory Walker or Ryan Ottley, with a little "Disney" in it.
This 'Ma Reverence', remained a moment in my stack "to read", has received the "Wildlife Award", category "polar" at the International Festival of Comic Strip of Angoulême. Except that "polar" evokes "detective story" and that it is not very issue of police in the "graphic novel".
This is more of a "social novel" with perhaps a philosophical aspect. The atmosphere is also a bit like a "black book" because of the appearance of establishing an inexorable but lousy mechanical turning around a project (we say "braquo" if you subscribed to Canal +) armored van. Heist for a good cause. At least that's what the designer of this project, the all-just thirty zonard Vincent tries to make believe, and his friend, a fifties rockabilly pop music, the band Lucien would never have wanted ...
It's time to talk about the writer Wilfrid Lupano, unknown to the battalion for me but a search through Gueugueule teaches me that it is 42 years old, he lives around and that Pau is the writer of rather a lot of comics I have not read, including the series ... "The Adventures of Sarkozix".
'Ma Reverence "takes place in a social universe to Renaud's' Walking Shadow' (1980) and 'The Return of Gérard Lambert' (1981), although at various indices may be perceived as the story takes place in the XXI century. Perhaps this choice it corresponds to a bias artistic, compared to the "social" side and "black" it is maintained?
Anyway, all reads with interest given the maintained suspense and the quality of "characterization" despite excessive clichés concerning mainland France (2) in the latter register.
(1) In truth, in a scale from "realistic" = 1 to "big nose" = 10 'Ma Reverence "is up to 3.
(2) This is Renaud, to me it seems, who first referred in 1975 to that awful "Hexagon" which flourished in newsrooms tired of the bulb and, unfortunately, beyond ...
