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Getekend #17
Des Lendemains sans Nuage
Vous voulez savoir ce que nous réserve l'avenir ? Demandez donc à Nolan Ska ce qu'il en pense, il vient justement du futur. Et il sait de quoi demain sera fait. Il vous annoncera une humanité tombée sous la domination d'une seule et unique firme : TechnoLab. Mais il vous dira aussi qu'il est encore possible de changer tout cela, et que c'est précisément pour cette raison qu'il a remonté le temps : pour retrouver l'homme par qui tout va commencer, F.U. Wilson, le futur patron de TechnoLab... et pour modifier à jamais le cours de son destin.
64 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 1, 2023
Excellent!
November 2, 2016
The future is a terrible place, where a global corporation called TechnoLab holds the upperhand in everyone’s lives. Dissent is impossible due to a side-effect of cerebral implants that boost mental ability, so the status quo is secure, so one man, Nolan Ska, builds a time machine to travel back to when F.G. Wilson, TechnoLab’s CEO, is a young man with his heart set on different things. According to Wilson’s biography he was literally robbed of a future as an author when his manuscript was stolen. Supposedly a great work of literature, Ska arrives at the moment of the theft and tackles the robber, only to discover that Wilson’s writing is terrible and that the tale had been blown out of all proportion. Fearing Wilson would still follow the same path to TechnoLab, Ska persuades Wilson to submit a short story to a publisher instead - anything to keep him as a writer and away from TechnoLab. However, Wilson is as dreadful as ever so Ska offers to help, plucking memories of his own life and history from the future and turning them into sci-fi tales. Taking no credit himself, Ska begins to feed Wilson’s ego and his success.
Each time Ska writes a story we get to see that tale as a brief vignette, then drop back into the main tale to see Wilson once again reaping the reward of Ska’s graft. As a story device it’s a great way to explore small narrative ideas and still drive the main story forward. The small tales themselves have suitable twists and dark humour and my only grumble is that it all seemed to be over so quickly. It’s not as if it’s a thin volume either, it’s just that it rattles along nicely with the smaller interludes disguising this.
Two of the three creators work on the wonderful Alone series, so if you’ve come across that you’ll appreciate the standard of this book. As far as I’m aware this is a standalone book, so no previous books to find out first, nor no requirement to continue reading a series afterwards, so if you fancy dipping a toe into European comics and seeing what they’re like then this isn’t a bad place to start.
Each time Ska writes a story we get to see that tale as a brief vignette, then drop back into the main tale to see Wilson once again reaping the reward of Ska’s graft. As a story device it’s a great way to explore small narrative ideas and still drive the main story forward. The small tales themselves have suitable twists and dark humour and my only grumble is that it all seemed to be over so quickly. It’s not as if it’s a thin volume either, it’s just that it rattles along nicely with the smaller interludes disguising this.
Two of the three creators work on the wonderful Alone series, so if you’ve come across that you’ll appreciate the standard of this book. As far as I’m aware this is a standalone book, so no previous books to find out first, nor no requirement to continue reading a series afterwards, so if you fancy dipping a toe into European comics and seeing what they’re like then this isn’t a bad place to start.
August 21, 2017
The art is very nice, and the color is neatly done. I'm kind of a sucker for the little title drawings before every new short story [I am also a sucker for short stories].
Nolan Ska lives in a future where a man named Wilson has taken over the entire world through synthetic organs and specialized brain and spine upgrades, these upgrades unfortunately prevent people from harming Wilson, and thus humanity walked into it's own entrapment with a smile.
Nolan travels back in time in an attempt from assuading Wilson from a job at TechnoLab [not a very creative name but eh, we'll deal]. Nolan's attempts are focused on getting Wilson the original career he dreamed of; being a writer. This attempt is our main story line, which is then interrupted by the short stories that Nolan writes as Wilson's ghost writer to keep Wilson away from Technolab.
Each short story is actually a memory from Nolan's lifetime, and one ghost story the kids used to tell each other. I found the short stories very interesting and that it was a pretty smart idea to add them as actual fleshed out narratives in between the main story. I also found Nolan very easy to identify with, not the whole traveling back in time bit but who hasn't day-dreamed of doing that at least once, but the whole being stuck dealing with someone as dim witted and annoying as Wilson for the greater good. I felt Nolan's pain on a spiritual level.
It's plenty fun and short enough that even if you're not the biggest fan you'll still find yourself going "that's all???!" when you reach the end.
Nolan Ska lives in a future where a man named Wilson has taken over the entire world through synthetic organs and specialized brain and spine upgrades, these upgrades unfortunately prevent people from harming Wilson, and thus humanity walked into it's own entrapment with a smile.
Nolan travels back in time in an attempt from assuading Wilson from a job at TechnoLab [not a very creative name but eh, we'll deal]. Nolan's attempts are focused on getting Wilson the original career he dreamed of; being a writer. This attempt is our main story line, which is then interrupted by the short stories that Nolan writes as Wilson's ghost writer to keep Wilson away from Technolab.
Each short story is actually a memory from Nolan's lifetime, and one ghost story the kids used to tell each other. I found the short stories very interesting and that it was a pretty smart idea to add them as actual fleshed out narratives in between the main story. I also found Nolan very easy to identify with, not the whole traveling back in time bit but who hasn't day-dreamed of doing that at least once, but the whole being stuck dealing with someone as dim witted and annoying as Wilson for the greater good. I felt Nolan's pain on a spiritual level.
It's plenty fun and short enough that even if you're not the biggest fan you'll still find yourself going "that's all???!" when you reach the end.
January 15, 2017
I enjoyed this book, more of a collection of short stories than a cohesive novelistic work. In many ways, it's an example of a graphic cycle, what I've elsewhere (in various scholarly essays) described as the equivalent of a prose story-story cycle. The binding element in this text is the outer narrative frame of a time-traveling ghost writer having to continue to write sci-fi scripts for a man whose future self could create a technological dystopia. The individual stories themselves are the highlight of this book, each one reading as if it could fit right in on Serling's classic Twilight Zone series.
June 11, 2018
I can't help but feel that the framing story of this comic - a man travels back in time to assist the supreme dictator of the future in becoming successful in his first career of science fiction writer, thus avoiding that pesky dictatorship altogether, and does this by ghost writing stories for him, drawing inspiration from, well, the actual future - is undermined by how none of the stories we are then told feel particularly dystopic. They are mostly slice-of-life sf set in a pretty cyberpunkish universe, and they are perfectly fine and sometimes amusing, but - the framing story feels entirely out of place with them.
July 10, 2017
Twist in the tale anthology that offers nothing new.
April 15, 2018
I am lost in this future and is so good !!!!
August 27, 2018
Ondergewaardeerde klassieker
January 5, 2022
Gripping from the first page
November 25, 2018
Having previously enjoyed comics writer Fabien Vehlmann on the series
The Marquis of Anaon
(with artist Matthieu Bonhomme) and
Alone
(with artist Bruno Gazzotti), as well as on the graphic novel
Beautiful Darkness
(with artist Kerascoët) and the two collections of linked stories in
Green Manor I: Assassins and Gentlemen
and
Green Manor II: The Inconvenience of Being Dead
(with artist Denis Bodart), I could not resist checking out this collaboration with the aforementioned Gazzotti and Ralph Meyer.
The basic premise of Clear Blue Tomorrows rests on a frame narrative depicting a future in which a certain F. G. Wilson has managed to enslave the world, and an inventor, Nolan Ska, turns toward time travelling to stop Wilson before he comes to power (but without harming him, as Ska, like everyone else, has an implant which makes it impossible for him to hurt Wilson). However, Ska figures he can undo Wilson's influence over the world if he can steer him away from the career which brought him into power, and the easiest way would be simply to help him realise his dream of becoming a successful science fiction writer (now with a "little" assistance from Ska.
The six short pieces then told in the volume are the pieces Ska "helps" Wilson write and actually get published, and they are interpolated with the ongoing frame narrative and its development. The stories are "The 100% Method", an eerie prison escape story set in a future society (or just the past, from Ska's perspective), "The Big Flush", which deals with sewer management in the future, "The Day of the Dead", which is a space ghost story, "Hurried Man", which deals with physical improvement through scientific means, "The Judgement of Solomon", a courtroom drama of sorts, set in the future but drawing upon the old Bible story, and finally "Night of the Samurai", a tale of online gaming and real life.
Each of the stories has its own value in the collection, but part of the volume's brilliance lies in what the ongoing frame narrative achieves, both in terms of these stories serving to give us a view of the future which Ska is so desperately trying to change and in how (or whether) his literary work with (or for) Wilson will actually lead to a successful change of future events.
All in all, I enjoyed it a lot.
The basic premise of Clear Blue Tomorrows rests on a frame narrative depicting a future in which a certain F. G. Wilson has managed to enslave the world, and an inventor, Nolan Ska, turns toward time travelling to stop Wilson before he comes to power (but without harming him, as Ska, like everyone else, has an implant which makes it impossible for him to hurt Wilson). However, Ska figures he can undo Wilson's influence over the world if he can steer him away from the career which brought him into power, and the easiest way would be simply to help him realise his dream of becoming a successful science fiction writer (now with a "little" assistance from Ska.
The six short pieces then told in the volume are the pieces Ska "helps" Wilson write and actually get published, and they are interpolated with the ongoing frame narrative and its development. The stories are "The 100% Method", an eerie prison escape story set in a future society (or just the past, from Ska's perspective), "The Big Flush", which deals with sewer management in the future, "The Day of the Dead", which is a space ghost story, "Hurried Man", which deals with physical improvement through scientific means, "The Judgement of Solomon", a courtroom drama of sorts, set in the future but drawing upon the old Bible story, and finally "Night of the Samurai", a tale of online gaming and real life.
Each of the stories has its own value in the collection, but part of the volume's brilliance lies in what the ongoing frame narrative achieves, both in terms of these stories serving to give us a view of the future which Ska is so desperately trying to change and in how (or whether) his literary work with (or for) Wilson will actually lead to a successful change of future events.
All in all, I enjoyed it a lot.
October 23, 2015
Une sorte de Bill Gates, de Steve Jobs ou de Marc Zuckerberg — au choix — a pris le contrôle de l'humanité. Comme nos célèbres héros des temps modernes, F.G. Wilson n'a pas employé la force mais est parvenu à embrigader les gens de leur plein gré, simplement en vendant des produits. Il ne s'agit pas ici d'ordinateurs, de téléphones, de tablettes ou d'amis virtuels mais de prothèses biomécaniques, d'organes synthétiques et d'implants cérébraux. Le problème est que les implants cérébraux, posés parfois dès la naissance, contiennent une clause interdisant à leur porteur de nuire à leur créateur le puissant vendeur.
Pour tenter malgré tout d'arrêter ce maître du monde, un ingénieur va revenir dans le passé afin de changer le destin du jeune prodige. Pour cela, il a l'idée d'exploiter un élément biographique peu connu. Avant de se consacrer à la technologie, le jeune F.G. Wilson avait tenté sa chance en tant qu'écrivain. Convaincu qu'il engendrera moins de nuissance en tant qu'écrivain qu'en tant que fournisseur d'implants, il va essayer de faire décoller sa carrière en l'aidant, fort de son expérience du futur, à rédiger des nouvelles d'anticipation. Ecrire pour sauver l'avenir de l'humanité.
On suit donc la tentative de l'ingénieur pour infléchir le destin au travers des nouvelles qu'il rédige pour le compte du jeune F.G. Wilson. Celles-ci sont variées, inventives et originales. Nous suivrons, par exemple, la mission d'égoutiers sur-entraînés chargés de récupérer une clé tombée malencontreusement dans les égouts. La mission est risquée car il faut agir vite, juste avant le "Big Flush" correspondant à la pause pipi consécutive à la première coupure pub du Super Bowl !
Les dessins classiques mais de très bonne facture ajoutent un charme à ce récit très habilement construit. Si vous cherchez un bonne histoire de science-fiction accessible et intelligente, ce one shot est fait pour vous. Cette bande dessinée a déjà quelques années mais vient d'être rééditée dans la collection "Signé" des éditions Le Lombard. http://www.aubonroman.com/2010/12/des-lendemains-sans-nuage-par-meyer.html
Pour tenter malgré tout d'arrêter ce maître du monde, un ingénieur va revenir dans le passé afin de changer le destin du jeune prodige. Pour cela, il a l'idée d'exploiter un élément biographique peu connu. Avant de se consacrer à la technologie, le jeune F.G. Wilson avait tenté sa chance en tant qu'écrivain. Convaincu qu'il engendrera moins de nuissance en tant qu'écrivain qu'en tant que fournisseur d'implants, il va essayer de faire décoller sa carrière en l'aidant, fort de son expérience du futur, à rédiger des nouvelles d'anticipation. Ecrire pour sauver l'avenir de l'humanité.
On suit donc la tentative de l'ingénieur pour infléchir le destin au travers des nouvelles qu'il rédige pour le compte du jeune F.G. Wilson. Celles-ci sont variées, inventives et originales. Nous suivrons, par exemple, la mission d'égoutiers sur-entraînés chargés de récupérer une clé tombée malencontreusement dans les égouts. La mission est risquée car il faut agir vite, juste avant le "Big Flush" correspondant à la pause pipi consécutive à la première coupure pub du Super Bowl !
Les dessins classiques mais de très bonne facture ajoutent un charme à ce récit très habilement construit. Si vous cherchez un bonne histoire de science-fiction accessible et intelligente, ce one shot est fait pour vous. Cette bande dessinée a déjà quelques années mais vient d'être rééditée dans la collection "Signé" des éditions Le Lombard. http://www.aubonroman.com/2010/12/des-lendemains-sans-nuage-par-meyer.html
July 27, 2014
Kurt was right :-) Excellent story, great drawings, one of the best comics I've ever read. Are things so deterministic? May be so globally, but each of us probably still have the power to chose his own life. At least, I want to believe it ;-)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews