New York stories. In Kansas, in 1938, Diana could no longer bear her cramped life between her mother and her brothers and sisters whom she had to take care of. Unlike the Dorothy of Wizard of Oz who longs for her native state, Diana wants to flee it. His trick for escaping is pulps and thrillers. To realize her dream of becoming a writer, she sees only one solution, going to New York. But what to do in this huge city when you are alone and inexperienced? By chance, Diana, who changed her name to Roberta, is taken in upon her arrival by Agnès, a good militant soul who works in a communist newspaper and introduces her to the struggles of the proletariat. While waiting to find work, Roberta helps out with the editorial staff. And in his free time, invents stories while sighing hopelessly in front of the beautiful Fanny. Her meeting with Frank, a big-mouthed Italian, flirtatious and involved with the mafia, but above all a comic book artist, will change the life of this determined young lady.
Young people on the margins, social concerns and literature are frequent motifs in the work of the Italian Alessandro Tota, notably chronicler of a certain idle youth (Brothers, Charles, One summer, Cornelius, 2011, 2018, 2021). These elements are brought together again in The magnificent illusion, a true fresco which combines the initiatory story with the adventure of the beginnings of comics and the history of the 20th century. Cleverly playing on both substance and form, Tota makes the original choice of letting the heroes invented by Roberta and Frank − the cynical Ghost Writer, the cruel Infarcta and the superhero Dogman − narrate the first part of the album, offering immediately at The magnificent illusion the dynamism of golden age comics. The drawing, elastic, woven, is inspired by this elsewhere, before giving way to a clear line of beautiful readability. To give substance to the context (communism, the position of the United States in the face of war, the invention of comics and its industry…), Alessandro Tota skillfully incorporates real characters into his story, such as the authors Will Eisner and Bob Kane, or the photographer Weegee. Roberta and Frank turn out to be complex, neither good nor bad, human. Inventive, ambitious, The magnificent illusion is, beyond a tribute to comics, an ode to reading, writing, and imagination.
Alessandro Tota
The magnificent illusion. Flight. 1. New York, 1938 Translated from Italian by Marc Lesage
Gallimard
Edition: 5,000 copies.
Price: €29.90; 248 pp.
ISBN: 9782075116695
2023-10-17 12:00:00
#Alessandro #Tota #magnificent #illusion #Vol #York #Gallimard #Livres #Hebdo