The Man Who Shot Chris Kyle - Part 1

The Man Who Shot Chris Kyle #1

by Fabien Nury

A former Navy SEAL and Iraq War veteran, Chris Kyle is the most lethal sniper in American military history. His autobiography, American Sniper, was a best-seller in the US. On February 2, 2013, Chris Kyle is killed by another veteran, Eddie Ray Routh. The murder takes place on a shooting range in Stephenville, Texas. But that’s only the beginning of their story.

74 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 29, 2020

About the author

Born in 1976, Fabien Nury began his career by co-writing with Xavier Dorison the script of W.E.S.T (Dargaud), a hit series illustrated by Christian Rossi (six volumes between 2003 and 2011). Nury independently wrote Je suis Légion (2004-2007, Humanoids Associés), a trilogy illustrated by the American John Cassaday. Translated into eight languages, the series continues with several other illustrators under the title Les chroniques de Légion (Glénat). In 2007 he also started working on Le maître de Benson Gate (Dargaud) with Renaud Garreta. From 2007 to 2012, Nury wrote the script for the six volumes of Il était une fois en France (Glénat). The historical series, illustrated by Sylvain Vallée, received wide critical and public acclaim (850,000 copies sold). Amongst other achievements, in 2011 he received an award for best international series at the Angoulême Comics Festival. Since then Fabien Nury has been gaining success in various genres: Mort de Staline (The Death of Stalin, Dargaud/Europe Comics, forthcoming), in historical narrative; Steve Rowland, volume 5 of the XIII Mystery series (Dargaud, art by Richard Guérineau) in thriller; Corey Silas ( Glénat, art by Pierre Alary) in detective series; and Atar Gull (Dargaud, art by Brüno) in literary adaptation, based on the novel by Eugène Sue. In 2013, he created Tyler Cross with Brüno, (Tyler Cross, Dargaud/Europe Comics, 2015) a noir graphic novel. The album was praised by both critics and readers (over 50,000 copies sold) with volume two in August 2015. In 2014, Fabien Nury published the fourth and final volume of L'or et le sang (Glénat), the script by Maurin Defrance and art by Merwan and Fabien Bedouel. With Tierry Robin he created the two-part series Mort au Tsar (Death to the Tsar, Dargaud/Europe Comics, 2015). In 2014, with Eric Henninot he also published Fils du soleil (Dargaud), an adventure album adapted from two novels by Jack London. As for audiovisual, Fabien Nury co-wrote with Dorison the scripts to a feature film Les brigades du Tigre (directed by Jérôme Cornuau, 2006) and a TV movie Pour toi, j'ai tué (directed by Laurent Heynemann, 2012).

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fabien Nury's speculation on what happened to Chris Kyle. Bruno's art is overly cartoony and simple for the subject matter. He also reuses a lot of panels. Interviews typically consist of the same two panels repeated for pages and pages.

[Václav · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4,3 of 5 for well-written biography and analysis of American hero)
I saw the movie American Sniper. I like it, the theme, Bradley's acting, it was an excellent movie. So when I stumbled upon this comic, I was wondering what it would be. And it is great. It focuses on Chris Kyle as a person, bringing in the context, introduces all other characters (like Chris' wife Laya and friend Chad Littlefield) and then finally brings Eddie Ray Routh in. Then it depicts the mournful events when Chris, Chad and Eddie met.
I must say I'm surprised how well is the comics written. Storytelling, usage of panels, text - all of it works perfectly and creates an excellent piece of comics book. And I'm also surprised how the comics, unlike the movie, shows that Chris was also a flawed person. He was a good guy, but very introvertive, probably with some lower level of empathy. He was very "texas-like", patriotic, republican, gun-loving. He was the perfect material to become the most successful American sniper and at the same time, this was his way to channel his flaws. And his "helpful initiative" was probably only a continuation of that. But he managed to turn something, let me say, dark into something good. In was and after that.
But Eddie was a different story. Deprived with deep psychical problems, which the stationing in Iraq just escalated. A perfect picture example of how the American health care system is failing. Both on individuals and society.
This first book introduced all that perfectly and ended with that tragic moment. I really enjoyed reading it and got a bit more perspective on the whole case.