"One thing is for sure: there comes a time when one has no more use for one’s dollars, one’s castle in Burgundy or factory in the Ruhr area ..."
This statement may be more for something in a fortune cookie, but it is also a truism and it reflects exactly the essence of the story of 'Titanic'. Although this graphic novel takes place on the most famous ship ever built, it is not an explanation of how and why the Titanic sank or about the crew and survivors. The fictional characters in this adventure have their own problems, ambitions and goals in life of which we as a reader of course already know that they will soon no longer be important.
"If a drama exceeds the normal dimensions of the acceptable, the story of the actors inevitably loses all subjectivity." Dwaa ??? Oh yes this is a graphic novel by Attilio Micheluzzi. I always have to get used to his writing style. Fortunately, his language is less fuzzy in the rest of the comic and he succeeds extremely well in writing a clear and unambiguous adventure. He also knows how to represent the zeitgeist of 1912 very well. Everywhere you had anarchists who, even though they all had their own reasons, all agreed upon the opinion that the rich were the cause of all their problems. And the rich were also the same all over the world. In Micheluzzi's own words; "It is generally assumed that material wealth allows impunity for certain violations of what is called the ‘prevailing mores’." With another word also called class justice. It still exists today, but with the difference that in 1912 the ruling class still could rely on the police to deal with renegades. But that would change quickly enough, because four years later a Bosnian Serb put the fuse in the powder keg of the world.
I have always been immensely fascinated in the first 40 years of the last century, but events that are enveloped by mysteries from that period are the most interesting to me. So it is not surprising that the history of the Titanic fascinates me. When Micheluzzi's graphic novel was published in 1990, there were still plenty of unsolved mysteries surrounding the sinking of the Titanic, but Micheluzzi did well to resist the temptation to use it in his story. It would have made it unnecessarily complicated. Although I would find a historical graphical novel about the Titanic or a graphical biography of Captain Edward Smith life very interesting. I would certainly appreciate the latter because the good man has been unjustly been blamed for the sinking of the Titanic. His decision to speed up was not taken out of recklessness, but increasing speed was necessary in order to contain the smoldering fire in the coal bunker. The annoyance of this kind of mysteries is that if there is such a long period of speculation and so many theories have arisen, it is difficult to accept that there is a simple explanation that can not be unequivocally assigned to one guilty party. It makes it all the more difficult to clear someone's name. Complot theories are so much more interesting. I must confess that I also find it more interesting, but I also realize that things are often not so complicated in real life. The Titanic, the story of pride, always wanting to be bigger, better and more luxurious than the competition that ended in a mass grave, now appears to be very different. But, as is often the case, I stray from the subject.
Micheluzzi's realistic drawings are good. The only comment that I can make is that I think the colouring is a bit la la in some drawings. But apart from that, I think this is the best Micheluzzi album I've read so far.
