Hodges' meteorite, the sky fell on his thigh

In a small town in Alabama in 1954, Ann Hodges decided to lie down for a nap. She is awakened with a start because a stone has just touched her. Nothing exceptional except that this block comes from the other side of the galaxy. Ann will be for a long time the only human being affected by a meteorite and the strangeness of her situation will upset her quiet life. This event even resulted in a movie script before Fox rejected the project. Roché repairs this lack by imagining a trailer. To tell this real fact, the cartoonist uses a multitude of official documents, press clippings… He even goes so far as to transcribe a complete game show "I've got a secret". Further on, we discover the reactions (or indifference) of different people and places at the moment when the meteorite falls. Indeed, the explosion of the fall of the meteorite alerts the army convinced that it is a Soviet attack. The accident takes place in the middle of the Cold War and the author illustrates in a double page the fear of a nuclear attack by taking up an advertisement on emergency gestures. Paranoia has certainly changed the subject, but it remains relevant with terrorism. The meteorite will then travel a lot and is found in an exhibition in Paris. Was it when he saw it that the author had the inspiration for this book?

This accident is fortunately not serious and for the couple it is a divine sign. They will try to take advantage of it but from the goal we understand that the stone will be for them a curse. Indeed, a long legal conflict to recover the meteorite will be triggered between the Hodges couple, the army, the municipality and owners. The author of The Hodges Meteorite refuses the slightest narrative tension because he gives the end of this legal war before telling everything by the neighbor and owner who complains about the situation. These procedures cost the Hodges 3000 dollars but without bringing them anything because the frenzy has passed. In addition, constant media attention caused Ann Hodge to become depressed and then divorced. Everything had started well when like a romantic movie credits the very attentive Hogdes couple comes out at the drive-in. The man will continue his life, remarry twice and have a child while Ann will remain alone until her death. We feel the distress of this woman by allusions, but strangely, Fabien Roché did not want to place her in the center. She is the hidden side of much of the story.

Through the brilliant graphic proposal of The Hodges Meteorite, Fabien Roché can become Chris Ware's French correspondent. We find in Roché the passion of the American for rankings. His style also aims for sleek as the beautiful design of tiny planes and his layout goes from fairly large boxes to a very dense checkerboard. After the fall of the meteorite, the arrival of police and ambulances is done without dialogue but with icons. The drawing does not want to transcribe reality but rather an abstraction. There are several stories on the same page: on a large part of the page Ann's accident, and at the bottom a parody of a science fiction movie. When the Hodges are in the car at the drive-in, the box blocks reality by hiding part of the cinema screen. It is even more ascetic than Ware because its chromatic range is reduced and surprising. Roché, however, puts his mark because this volume is based on a real fact. He does not just tell a story but proposes a stroll through multiple short stories. We follow the path of the comet from its arrival in the solar system to its movements on Earth. The reader discovers the biography of a character of a post and then a more scientific double page analyzes the different roles of meteorites. The comic then becomes a puzzle that gives us pieces in disorder. Is it to try to find the truth or truths?