In number 16 (Oct-Dec 2021) of ‘Les Cahiers de la BD’, you can find a ‘Cahier Héroïque’ about Jonathan, on the occasion – of course – the final album of the series.
The Cahier has 20 pages, richly illustrated with images taken from Jonathan. Readers who don’t want to know anything about the new album can be reassured: the articles do not disclose any secrets about Jonathan 17.
The main part of the Cahier is an article about the character of Jonathan, written by Nicolas Tellop. Tellop describes why Jonathan is a uncommon character in comics history. He is not a western hero that solves a problem or brings order in a bad situation in an exotic environment – imposing a western view on different cultures – but he is a character that aborbs the different cultures in which he moves around. Also, he is not a very active character, he is mostly an observer. Jonathan is open to different enviroments and people, he has the open mind of a young child. Through all this, Tellop emphasises te importance of the way of working of Cosey, using documentation, photos en sketches made on location as a foundation for his stories. At least: this my my very short summary of an intelligent article.
The Cahier has also some more or less original side-articles: one about the music of Jonathan (a short playlist) and another about some locations through which Jonathan has travelled. More interesting is a short article about the book that will be published by Daniel Maghen later this month: ‘À l’heure où les dieux dorment encore’ – book filled with sketches that Cosey made over the years during his travels.
Many thanks to Olivier Bézy