AUBIN

ANTOINE AUBIN BLAKE AND MORTIMER Eight Hours in Berlin (T.29), Blake Et Mortimer 2022 Cover design. Signed. Graphite and colored pencil on paper 40.5 × 29.2 cm (15.94 × 11.5 in.) On this sketch sheet for Huit Heures à Berlin, there are seven box studies for page 27, two of which were eventually replaced in the final version. I had chosen the Moskau café for the rendezvous scene between Blake and Mendoza, before realizing that in June 1963, it was still under construction. I couldn't abandon it, however: it was the perfect architectural emblem of East Berlin in the '60s! Concerned about the album cover, long before Dargaud asked me to do it, I proposed this first project. We'll remember the idea of a scene showing Blake and Mortimer trapped near the Wall. But, unfortunately, not the red title, drawn in a typeface reminiscent of 60s spy novel collections. It's the sky that will turn red. Antoine Aubin