111 - Aubin

Aubin ANTOINE AUBIN BLAKE AND MORTIMER Closed Cases (Vol. 32), Blake and Mortimer 2026 Original cover. Signed. India ink and white gouache on paper 30 × 38 cm (11.81 × 14.96 in.) As soon as the publisher asked me to illustrate the cover for this anthology—a collection of ten Blake and Mortimer stories that didn’t yet have a title—I envisioned an allegorical representation of a Jacobsian adventure: the two heroes striding resolutely through a dark tunnel—in the direction the story unfolds—to shed light on the mysteries of an underworld. I was then given two scripts to read that didn’t inspire me much, but one of them was set in a former London power plant. Intrigued by the visual and symbolic potential of the turbines, I asked the writer to provide me with the research he’d gathered on the Deptford Power Station. My setting is a collage of elements appearing in various photos. I sought to compose a powerful image rather than a documentary one, similar to those by Jacobs, who could transform miniature electrical components plucked from *Science et Vie* into gigantic laboratory machines. I proposed a color version—both red and somber—suggesting that Blake and Mortimer were “heating up” as they neared the crux of the problem. The publisher preferred to use the colors from the sequence set in the power plant—which, however, has nothing to do with my illustration—and which diminish its impact. Antoine Aubin