TARDI - Lot 174

TARDI JACQUES TARDI Le Démon des glaces, Dargaud 1974 Original plate no. 1, chapter VII Simone Pouffiot intervenes. The phylacteries are affixed to the support. India ink and ink pen on scratch card on paper 44 × 54 cm (17.32 × 21.26 in.) Remarkable early work by Jacques Tardi, who was fascinated by the illustrators of Jules Verne - Léon Benett, Edouard Riou, Georges Roux. He decided to embark on an entire album drawn using the scratch card process, a tedious practice akin to woodcutting. The result was a series of highly aesthetic plates that impressed even the likes of Mike Mignola. In this adventure, we recognize the character of Brindavoine and the first of the mad scientists who would later populate the adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec. At the time, critics saw it only as a technical achievement by an author fascinated by the 19th century and its Art-Deco scrolls, even though it was intended as a denunciation of bacteriological warfare.