The Man from Nowhere is a full story written by Ted Benoît and designed by Pierre Nedjar , published in 1989 by Casterman. *
Born in 1947, when the school of "bright line" of Hergé rivaled "the school of Marcinelle" of Jijé , Thierry " Ted " Benedict became famous in the late 70's rival in the first way through his iconic character: private detective Ray Banana .
It appears in "The Echo of Savannah" in 78 and will be the hero of two volumes, Electric Lullaby in 1980 and City Light in 84 , comics that made me so appreciate this " clear line "that I disdained, preferring disciples as Jijé Morris and Franquin .
Character secondary adventures of Ray Banana, Thelma Ritter , the cleaning lady to the detective Ray-Ban, was directly inspired by the actress of the same name seen in the films of Hitchcock . It is that in 1989, Ted Benedict chooses as narrator of "The Man nowhere, this complete story he wrote for Peter Nedjar.
When I read this story for the first time in its first edition, with an album cover to the superb panoramic four-part, credits included the name of the authors without specifying who was doing what I thought then that Nedjar had written this story and that Benedict had drawn. This reissue of 2004 corrects but this will deprive readers of the famous "tetra-coverage".
This is a strange comic, both mesmerizing and frustrating. The argument evokes the film noir classics of the 50s, although the action is supposed to happen in the 80's, and this impression is reinforced by the design of the album: cars, clothes, decorations, everything looks like the America's post-war period.
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Who is the "Nowhere Man"? An amnesiac whose will fall in love the beautiful Laura Linnell, daughter daddy rich and idle, unaware that she is Delgado's beloved detective. But the unknown is sought by a detective from the FBI and army men, desperate to retrieve it otherwise, in any case to see what he remembers.
Fleeing across the United States, stationed in corn with the improbable names that give them the title of the book chapters (Santa Ines, Downtown Metropolis, Anaconda, Thompson Falls, Yucca Flats, Consequences), he guesses that he was involved in a military operation, which has many victims, perhaps in connection with nuclear testing ...
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Ted Benedict used voluntarily ellipses, to disappoint the reader who expects the revelations and an ending to explain why and how. It would be an exaggeration to say you finished reading this story without being frustrated, but at the same time keeps the narrative element of mystery that gives it a powerful and enduring charm, and several years after reading it for the first time this man from nowhere retains its appeal - which is not true of all the albums of Benedict, who did not equally aged well.
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illustrations of Peter Nedjar change significantly between the beginning (where the influence Benedict is obvious) and end (closest to the stylized realism of Jacobs, finished with more carefully) is rather confusing, but still very beautiful. The decorations are executed with such extraordinary care and the cars are beautifully reproduced from models of the 50s.
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This reissue has been embellished with a foreword by film critic Michel Boujut , one of the feathers of "Cahiers du Cinema", and especially two bonus written and drawn by Ted Benoit: Fuel exhaustion and In the Mojave Desert, where we witness the meeting between Ray and Thelma Ritter Banana, narrated in voiceover and successively illustrated in color and black and white.
* A "small" neo-classical line clear.
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