Go beyond romanticism by discovering the new comic by Thomas Cadène and Loïc Drought. In La Guerre chez Delcourt, love hurts… but especially to others.
An accident that changes everything
At night and in the rain, Alice gets out of a car in a panic. Her companion Alexandre tries to reason with her but she does not hear and causes an accident not seeing a car coming in front. Alexander finds no survivors, but Alice convinces him not to call the police. This choice will determine the rest of the life of each and their couple. Without transition, we find ourselves in the middle of summer in a marriage of the big bourgeoisie. Indeed, everything seems forgotten and the two lovers realize the project of their sailing class between family life and successful professional career. But, behind the façade of the perfect and powerful couple, the reality is quite different. During their honeymoon in a tropical country, while the husband enjoys the beach, she shackles with locals. This is the starting point for a gradual distance. She walks away from him becoming contemptuous when he wants to be close to her and go back. Back in Paris, Alice never ceases to remember the accident and is unable to live a "normal" life. She sleeps with Arabs and blacks met on the street. Believing that she lives in transgression, her vision of the world is caricatured because she is convinced that her Arab lover sells drugs. Meanwhile, Alexander drinks and insults others revealing boundless arrogance. The two drift and plunge into evil. We think of existentialism or the literature of the absurd by this idle rich couple who seek a purpose in their lives by ignoring morality.
War in the dark
The war denounces this social violence of the powerful. At the wedding, the guests only talk about investment, taxes and pharaonic works. The accident revealed to Alexandre and Alice the pleasure of causing suffering and the impunity enjoyed by the bourgeois class. Strengthened by this power, the duo can go to war against life in all areas including fighting each other. The two anti-heroes have a different relationship to their class of origin For Alexander, the bourgeoisie is an ally to go higher and realize their dream but what to do when Alice no longer dreams? Indeed, his wife sees his group as a dead world that nevertheless locks it up while she has an intense desire to live. That's why she cheats on her husband outside of her classroom. However, we can find that the authors have a questionable view of the bodies of racialized people. They serve as a counterpoint by their sweetness to the inhuman couple overflowing with privileges but they are sometimes only an object of desire. 
This march towards evil is illustrated by the darkness of the images. Loïc Drought's drawing is very charcoal. Its inking in Indian ink very present makes the book vibrating by its manual side. We certainly find throughout the pages flat colors with often the same shade per page but this colorization disappears behind this dominant black. The War demonstrates how life impulses are transformed into an irrepressible desire for death. The class struggle then becomes an intimate conflict sparing no one even if this story of blood and sweat sometimes lacks incarnation. You can find more stories about the violence of the world in the chronicles on Gun Crazy and Love Kills.
