Sense of a Place that Never Really Was

I’m not big on graphic novels, because the stories too often play second-fiddle to less-than-compelling artwork. Sometimes I read about such and such a story being “deep” or “sweeping” and I end up feeling like I’ve eaten unseasoned soup.

This is one of the wonderful exceptions. White Rapids, by Pascal Blanchet. It's the story of a company town in remote northern Quebec, built around a hydro-electric dam. The company provided amenities resembling mid-century North American middle-class life, in exchange for the hardship of living in utter isolation [map] with a few hundred other employees and families.

It's a short book, with fanciful art deco drawings conveying a Utopian nostalgia, something I normally find quite off-putting. But the Never-Never-Land effect works here, in part because it feels like outlandish propaganda by a loaded and megalomaniac company, one willing to impose an impossible town on an unforgiving landscape, at great expense, for the even greater profits that would follow.

In light of that history, Utopianism is the only possible design choice, like Las Vegas in the desert.

Here's the artist's website.