This graphic novel pushes the boundaries

Marc-Antoine Mathieu constantly rethinks graphic novels with “Deep It”: while “Deep Me” had almost no drawings for long periods and was in black, “Deep It” is mostly in white and is no less extreme.

In “Deep Me,” the French painter creates Adam as a free radical, the last of the species and at the same time the first “human” of the new generation. Humanity has disappeared from the face of the earth. Adam travels in a spaceship, but he has no fixed form, and the most ambiguous image that emerges when reading is that the protagonist resembles a hybrid creature: half human, half machine. All the knowledge in the world flies into his spaceship (if there is one) to dare to make a new beginning. Matteo paints swirls reminiscent of clouds, hinting and never drawing everything in order to keep the story mysterious until the end. Adam talks to a kind of computer, which is also himself, and thinks about the world: for example, the 21st century and artificial intelligence.

So Deep: Extremes in the Series

“deep” It is an intellectual delight, full of quotes and experimentalism and not easy to understand. A graphic novel you can read over and over again to discover again and again. This time the ending turns out to be completely different than you think. A graphic novel not written to be understood immediately: encrypted and branching, as mysterious as the depths of the universe (within ourselves).

Marc Antoine Mathieu. Deep It, 120 pages, €25.50

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