Have you ever wondered how a land can be colonized? Laurent-Frédéric Bollée and Philippe Nicloux answer them with Terra Doloris published by Glénat.
The other side of the world
After Terra Australis, here is the second volume by Laurent-Frédéric Bollée and Philippe Nicloux on the beginnings of the colonization of Australia by the British in the eighteenth century. Australia is then an end of the world and it is still a white on the maps as shown in the introduction the geographer Brice Gruet.
The end of illusion
The story tells us a lot about this continent and this little-known period in France. Indeed, there are different characters highlighted in the five chapters. Australia was then populated by convicts and political exiles – one chapter begins with the happiness of a couple just after a birth, but we discover that they are prisoners. Bollée does not forget the aborigines. It tells the life of an anonymous person as long as his name does not appear in the European archives. We see his face only with reports of justice.
Colonization has long been presented as a space for adventure and exploration, but not here. Australia becomes the dumping ground of the United Kingdom, a relegation space for the marginalized.A convict shows the reality of Australia against the speech of a botanist dreaming of a possible new life. The new colony is not the space of adventure and struggle against the savages but the continuation of the social relations of domination under another climate.
A committed book
Bollée engages in a deep scenario and uses very diverse techniques depending on the chapter. By faces on a box or allusions, we find the same characters from one story to another. The epilogue connects the characters of the five chapters in their sad fate by telling the rest of their lives. Through these progressive links, a fresco of early Australia sometimes appears with historical figures – Admiral Nelson, the painter David but especially Thomas Muir of Huntershill, Scottish separatist sentenced to deportation. This story allows the reader to follow his impossible return to Scotland through tribulations in Australia and then in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Spain and France. The bibliography in English at the end shows the importance of the screenwriter's research.
Bollée rebelled against the cruelty of the English admiralty who refused to let the rebels of the Bounty escape. In this chapter, he mixes two stories of shipwreck including convicts ready to flee fifteen on a small boat. This inhuman treatment of the weakest has very contemporary echoes.
A collection of authors
Terra Doloris is part of Glénat's 1000 leaves collection. In very luxurious volumes – a rigid round back and a fabric bookmark – Glénat brings together comics by authors with an original graphic style.
Nicloux opts for a black and white drawing with a black tip. The boxes have a fairly classic and cinematic framing like the first pages where the drawing goes from Australia seen from the sky to the coast, then the bay, like an aerial camera. For this dark tale, there is a lot of gray, which is quite original. We expect a fine and economical line to highlight black and white but in fact, the lines are numerous, bumped. We do not understand the choice of black and white. This gives a realistic drawing but sometimes a little anonymous and irregular.
Terra Doloris is therefore a magnificent scenario that gives a totally different picture of Australia's European origins.
