It's not easy to turn a man's life into a comic book. Alexandre Chenet (script) and Renaud Garreta (drawing) tackle it by sketching the life of Thomas Coville, more particularly by telling the epic story of his solo round-the-world trip. The famous 49.3, this circumnavigation of the world in less than 50 days (49 days and 3 hours).
The result is a work that I would describe as an illustrated book rather than a comic book. Indeed, the drawings, even if they are very realistic and very well documented, do not tell the story by themselves. They require a large amount of text. And as by nature Thomas is alone on his sailboat, these writings are true monologues.
Exchanges are made with the shore, with her router team, who keep an eye on the route and the morale of the skipper. These exchanges are well described and show how difficult it is for a land-based skipper to keep up with the drop in morale and fitness of the skipper.
When Thomas crossed the finish line in front of Brest, beating the record that he so coveted, he confessed that he had always wanted to reach this stage. He gave 10 years of his life to work towards this goal. In this book, we can see that the goal was further away, that Thomas Coville's desire was to take part in a crewed round-the-world race. The famous Brest Oceans race organised by the Ultimate class. A race which today has a little bit of a lead in the wing, due to a lack of participants, the crisis having passed through there
The technical explanations, mandatory in this type of work to fully understand the complexity of a record, are well done and well detailed. They appear throughout the pages accompanied by a character with a totally figurative drawing, far removed from the treatment of the rest of the work. This choice may be unpleasant, but it makes the explanations easier to understand.
Chenet and Garreta are not at their first attempt at an illustrated book on ocean racing as they have already "A Vendée Globe Story" drawn with four hands and published by the same publisher in 2012.
Thomas Coville The quest for the ultimate - Alexandre Chenet and Renaud Garreta
- Dargaud Edition
- 112 pages
- 24.2 x 32 cm
- 18.00 euros
