Villers-lès-Nancy. Jean-François Charles Exhibition in Graffigny: Virtuosity in Comics

He had dreamed of writing a Western for decades. Ever since he traveled the great American West in the 1970s, longing to explore this fascinating America with his pencil upon his return. But Jean-François Charles couldn't find a publisher at the time to follow him on this adventure.

It was not until the 1920s that he was given the opportunity to do so. And so the artist gave free rein to his taste for pioneer lands, adapting, in a Western style, one of the myths of literature, the novel Heart of Darkness , by Conrad. Title: Heart of the Desert (The Lombard) .

A very free adaptation, even more so than the brilliant one by filmmaker Coppola in Apocalypse Now .

An adaptation that shifts the story from African lands to the canyons and plains of the Wild West, a few years after the Civil War. One of the most successful releases of the first half of the comic book year.

It is therefore with the joy of having finally been able to realize his dream of a paper western, and crowned with this success, that Jean-François Charles will stay in Nancy and Villers-lès-Nancy on May 16, 17 and 18.

First, for a signing on the 16th at the La Parenthèse bookstore (full). But also, and above all, for his participation in the Villers'BD festival, for which he also created a magnificent bookplate.

But even before then, the artist will be making his presence felt, in the form of an exhibition dedicated to his work on the walls of the Château de Graffigny, open since May 3. It will be largely based on original plates from his latest work.

To be confronted with the originals is to be assured of wonder. The gap between the original and the printed version being sometimes great, going back to the sources makes the jubilation even greater.

But with Charles, the pleasure is redoubled, the hanging not only shows the plates intended for his albums, but also full-page drawings, and even paintings. Sometimes large format, to boot!

It is therefore an odyssey into the land of virtuosity to which we are invited. A classical virtuosity in a realistic style, animated however by a vibration crossing as much the palpable bodies as the dull atmospheres, or the stifling air of a white-hot American West desert.

Speaking of bodies, let's note that the artist does not hesitate to frequently undress the ladies, to unabashedly deliver their sensuality to the reader's gaze. Objectification in good and undue form. In this, he betrays his origins in a 20th century where comics, however feminine they may be from a semantic point of view, were nonetheless a man's world...

Fortunately, he also knows how to celebrate the beauty of women in clothing, notably composing superb portraits of China Li, heroine of the eponymous series, as fascinating as a disciple of Mao Zedong as in traditional Chinese dress.

Sumptuous, too, are his watercolors flooded with Tuscan light, or bathed in an intense marine blue clinging to the reefs.

Whether we travel across India in the wake of his brushes and pencils, follow in the footsteps of the lame buccaneer, linger in a sheriff's office or at a saloon bar in the company of a belle-de-nuit, our imagination runs wild, following the far-flung drifts of Jean-François Charles. Here we are given the opportunity to admire one of the greats of comics, who knows how to push the limits of small panels.

Until May 27, 2025, Madame de Graffigny gallery, Villers-lès-Nancy, Wednesday to Sunday, 2 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Free admission.