What would you do if you were imprisoned in the middle of a desert region? The first volume of Hurlevent is a very beautiful answer to this question more complex than it seems.
Making men suffer for water
Alceste de Hurlevent was a noble physician. However, he did not enjoy a glorious career at court but was a prisoner in the lands of Helios. Banished, he may well end his life there. It is he who carries the series by his current humanity and his past secrets. Unlike all the others, Alceste de Hurlement does not judge on appearances but on deeds. His sense of justice has led to his being condemned to exile and he continues to want to leave this region. The splendid first pages of Hurlevent also take you back to an arid land. The reader feels the warmth through the talent of the cartoonist Stéphane Créty. He avoids the simple flat areas of rocky landscapes but multiplies the lines making this landscape realistic. In the beautiful setting of a palace, ribbed crossings are so detailed that it looks like the branches of a tree. Its implementation is simple but it is just as good in the scenes of revelation as in a beautiful hunting scene. In addition, Jérôme Maffre's beautiful colors enchant the reader's eyes on every page. Convicts dig a canal in the middle of a landscape without vegetation and trees. This work is the only way to make the region liveable. Indeed, the scarce water resources are located in a few high-altitude lakes and do not supply the vast plain with water. This task is so exhausting that convicts often die in less than five years, but their lives are still complicated due to an inhospitable nature. We discover during an accident that lava comes out if we dig too deep. Alceste Hurlevent is called in following this accident. In total rupture, the reader discovers a luxurious fort where the Duke of Batz and his two advisors arrive. His daughter comes to hunt a rare animal to obtain the office of royal gamekeeper. These two groups belonging to two worlds so dissimilar will nevertheless find each other.
Francis I vs. Sauron
With Hurlevent, Fred Duval blends into the codes of heroic fantasy. The screenwriter composes a very plausible universe. Far from a contemporary multicultural society, racism is constant. This area is a killing place of the last known orca. As in many heroic fantasy stories, magic is present. A legend announces a threat if the fauna is destroyed and the lands of the Helios awaken pouring their lava that threatens those who cut the rock. Reveners are mages who have remote visions while wearing an animal mask. Hurlevent is not a banal transposition of The Lord of the Rings in the desert but Fred Duval offers a baroque fantasy heroic by mixing renaissance costumes and invented animals. The beautiful designs are by Armel Gaulme and Fred Blanchard. We also discover their sketches at the end of the volume. It seems that Fred Blanchard created the animals and Armel Gaulme the architecture, the giants and the fauna. Dazzled by the magnificent drawings, the reader then discovers through a clever scenario that Hurlevent masks a funereal atmosphere behind a ray of sunshine. Delcourt offers a rough diamond that is just waiting to be cut and set in the next volumes to become a splendid jewel. You can find on these links the chronicles to other heroic fantasy series from the same publisher with Dungeon and Rose & Claw.
