There are literary genres so different and distant from each other that it is even difficult to imagine them together in any work. They didn’t have to be of the same opinion writer Giuseppe Grossi and the designer and colorist Lorenzo Nicoletti when they thought about making the graphic novel The Earth Without Children. It is a self-contained storypublished by Hyppostyle Publishing and previewed at Lucca Comics & Games 2022, which sees the union of western freezing and snowy winter and of the post-apocalyptic more realistic. Inside them unravels a complex and exhausting hunt that takes place between horror, regrets and stories that scare more than death.
The Land Without Children: a bounty hunter priest and a female assassin
The Earth Without Children tells one unique and atypical story which sees two classic figures of the western scene as protagonists and antagonists: a bounty hunter and an assassin. The peculiarity lies in the fact that the bounty hunter is a priest who decides to question his faith, while the killer is actually one woman with very solid motivations that also put man in crisis. Father Ewan, this is the name of the priest, is a very enigmatic figure, far from what we might imagine from a man of the church and whose change of life sees particularly harsh reasons, which give rise to total disillusionment with the future. Even his constant questioning, with frequent existential questions, collides quite a bit with the religious figure’s concept of faith.
The assassin, on the other hand, is Mildred Jones, a bloodthirsty who has carried out several massacres in the mountains of Oregon without having the slightest hint of second thoughts or guilt. After all, she is of the opinion that blood and death make the world fertile and therefore she continues her killing streak undisturbed. In reality, behind her bloody actions there are much more serious motivations that make them more reasonable and less crazy. Both characters, well described and characterizedsee their stories intertwine and revolve around the heart of the story that we don’t reveal to you for obvious reasons.
The future as glue for a distorted present
In any case, from the outset it is clear how the western and the post-apocalyptic scenario are as different as they are identical in soul. There are, of course, various plot elements that are very different from each other and also many characters which make the story realistic, alive and even more raw. As if that weren’t enough, themes belonging to esotericism are inserted such as the mysterious cult of the mask that sees the assassin as part of it (among other things, aesthetically, the mask is wonderful, but we’ll talk about this later). However, there is an element as unexpected as it is evident that manages to bind all of this together: the title of the work. The Earth Without Children it is a world without a future, where even the most delicate and human hopes become nightmares and every gesture takes on a different meaning. As ours also says Manuel Henryin a short period of his splendid preface to the titled work It is not a country for children (obvious reference to the wonderful Oscar-winning western novel and film It’s no country for old men): “the childless earth is a metaphor for what we can become if deprived of our hope for the future, the portrait of a humanity deprived of its heritage“.
It is precisely for this reason that the actions of the characters, even the simplest ones, take unexpected and unprecedented turns. Violence, the struggle for survival and prevarication on the weakest, classic elements of both the western and the post-apocalyptic genre, are not the real protagonists of the story since in reality they are rather static as if each character wanted keep their sense of inner and social unease infinite. Why try to overwhelm others when you have no light to follow? Taking someone’s life when it becomes uncertain even for the murderer therefore becomes useless despite the fact that the environment obliges it to do so. This metaphor, excellently and intelligently studied by Giuseppe Grossi, is very powerful and fits effectively into the general context of the story. Furthermore, an aspect not to be underestimated, is the great ability on the part of the authors to have managed to summarize and tell everything in an almost perfect way despite the volume does not have many pages: this is the great power of comics in its maximum expression.
The artistic style and the editorial component
Of course, great credit must be given to wonderful boards by Lorenzo Nicoletti. These have a very impactful free subdivision to best represent the most concise and dynamic actions. In fact, the presence of small vignettes in the midst of the larger ones allow you to understand the true rhythm of the story with a climax that tends to grow more and more until it stabilizes towards the final stage. What is most striking about the artistic style is the attention to detail from the facial expressions of the characters to their clothes, weapons and accessories up to the evocative and sad and cold settings. The end result is extremely functional for the purposes of the narrative and also works thanks to the choice of a color palette based on cold and dark colors.
The cover of is also totally spot on Michael Benevento which allows you to immediately understand the fulcrum of the comic. In fact, it is possible to observe a pyramidal composition in which the villain emerges in the background and the protagonists in front, with a clear chromatic detachment that is reunited in small points to demonstrate that, after all, between good and evil, virtue lies in the middle. It is precisely here that it is possible to observe the aforementioned wonderful for the first time killer mask in all its splendor and originality. Furthermore, an excellent job has also been done from an editorial point of view with the creation of a nice hardcover volume also rich in final extras. Among the latter, in fact, it is possible to observe tributes from other designers such as, for example Annamaria Duello and Valerio Pastore and a short interview with Michele Benevento.
Conclusions
In conclusion The Earth Without Children it’s a little jewel of Italian comics which manages to achieve all the set objectives thanks to the skill of its authors. The story is engaging, passionate, raw and also manages to give birth to reflections of a philosophical and religious nature despite its brevity. The concepts of future, death and faith always take different turns throughout history, with the former finding himself totally deprived of the light of hope. The world that you will find yourself reading and observing it needs you too so that the spark of life can be rekindled, therefore the only advice we can give you is to prepare yourself mentally and make the journey in this wonderful post-apocalyptic western.
