French espionage is in shock. There is a mole in their services but they can't find it. Why not accuse Captain Dreyfus who is also Jewish? This affair of the latenineteenth century, seems to you from another time? Not so sure unfortunately and J'accuse demonstrates it brilliantly…
J'accuse, from the typewriter to the screen
J'accuse is not a banal book but Delcourt editions, the screenwriter and cartoonist Jean Dytar offer you a dive into one of the most famous judicial and political cases, a shameful stain on the past of the France. This journey begins first with the unique form of the book. J'accuse is not in the form of a book but of a box that takes the appearance of a typewriter – the one used to make the false accusing Dreyfus – and the book is the screen of a computer. This comic is in Italian format – it reads on the width. The paper is yellowed and raw as if it had just come out of the Archives. Once the book is opened, the script is just as original as the form. In J'accuse, Jean Dytar proposes to confront this case with modern communication tools. The first few pages show the pages of a computer where continuous media make headlines for the discovery of betrayal. The texts of journalists in thenineteenth century become contemporary debates of editorialists with a shock banner at the bottom of the images. The interviews of the main protagonists of the case are done on a black set like the promo of an American film. The odious phrases of the anti-Semite Édouard Drumont become tweets and Zola takes a selfie on the forum of Rome. 
Past and present dialogue in J'accuse and this temporal shock has two effects. On the one hand, the reader understands the burning news of this case. Today, it is unfortunately just as easy to fabricate false information and use the media to turn it into truth. You have to be for or against and the arguments quickly give way to verbal or physical violence. But, behind this case, it is the dark side of the France that appears. The beautiful Republic must make crucial choices in this conflict of values and choose its identity. These are hot topics. The accusing finger on the cover can just as easily be a Facebook like. On the other hand, J'accuse denounces the media hype and the spread of rumors by individuals who can send a man to prison. A banal accusation provokes an avalanche of facts that becomes a media scandal maintained to sell paper, a military secret that must be preserved, a political affair that opposes and finally a social crisis that divides.
Behind the scenes of the case
J'accuse is also an exciting history lesson. Step by step, Jean Dytar dissects this affair which makes the headlines, provokes debates in the assembly and within the families from 1894 to 1906. For this, the author has done a lot of research. We find the testimonies of the main actors in the case – Dreyfus' brother, the Dreyfusard journalist Bernard Lazare and the author Émile Zola – and excerpts from articles. Over the pages, the stress rises as everyone lets go of Dreyfus including Jaurès and Clemenceau. Only his brother and the prison director resist the hatred. Mathieu Dreyfus launched a counter-investigation with little support. J'accuse becomes a fascinating investigation although we know the end. In addition, Dytar exhibits in J'accuse his documentation taken from nearly 300 newspapers. Everything has been said and the source appears at the top. In addition, an application of the editor allows you to find part of the original documents. This rigor is also visual. Dytar does not modernize the style but restores the fin-de-siècle aesthetic of press engravings, photographs and illustrations. 
With J'accuse, Jean Dytar is not at his first feat and his career demonstrates all his originality. In The Smile of the Puppets, he was inspired by Persian miniatures to make us reflect on religious determinism and contemporary human freedom. In 2018, with Florida, he already mixes form – a reflection on the variety of images – and substance – the attempt to colonize North America during the Wars of Religion. Finally, for each album, Jean Dytar traces the genesis of each book on his website. By J'accuse, Jean Dytar proposes a firebrand against hate and media hype but he leaves the book by finding a unique form and theme: confronting the past and the present. If you are looking for a reading adventure, this book is for you. You can find more chronicles on books in the original format with And in the End They Die and Off-season.
