Enki Bilal (artist)
Humanoids Publishing
The town of Jadencourt has fallen on hard times. The people are poor, the workers at the factory are on strike, and the aristocrat who was keeping the factory open has passed away. Just when things seem like they can't get any worse, the town learns that the factory has been left in the hands of the aristocrat's estranged granddaughter. When she tells the townspeople her vision for their future, it is something that they never would have thought possible.
So, what happens when you get what you want and what happens when you only want to please someone. These are the two questions at the heart of this tale by these two masters.
Taking over the family business from her dead uncle, Madeleine strives to create a town where all are equal and where the self important and self obsessed bosses are on a par with the communist and utopianist workers.
Based on conversations with her carer (for lack of a better term) she reinvests the time, money, and energy of her newly acquired company into creating a utopian domed town where all are equal and nobody wants for anything. What she gets is a town where all are bored but some accept it as the price of equality whilst some see it as a price not worth paying.
The book ends on a poignant note overlooking the town in it's bubble as though it was a specimen on a slide or a preserved view, remote and exclusive and untouchable. A dream worth viewing but perhaps not experiencing.
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