"You Are There," Jean-Claude Forest and Jacques Tardi

Seattle-based publisher Fantagraphics nods toward comic history with its latest release, You Are There, the first English translation of Jean-Claude Forest and Jacques Tardi’s 1978 book Ici Même — one of the first collections of serialized comics to be printed in book form in Europe.

You Are There is no superhero comic. It’s not a book for young boys reading floppy comics with a flashlight under their bedcovers. It’s a tale of land ownership, shady political plots and the over-sexualized children of the wealthy Victorian elite.

You Are There is a story of one man: Arthur There, the last living member of a previously wealthy, landowning French family. His land has been taken from him, and the only thing he owns are the tall, castle-like concrete walls that surround each sprawling estate in the town of Mornemont. He walks the walls like an alley cat, yet he does it dressed in a top hat and tails.

He is paranoid but insufferably poised, riffraff to everyone but himself — in his mind, the people around him are merde, grubbing thieves who’ve stolen his birthright. And so he charges them to pass through his gates. He’s the elitist ogre living atop their walls, peeking in their windows and watching their lives. He truly enjoys being a nuisance to them — it’s his life purpose, it seems.

But then that starts to change. Parisian politicians turn their eyes to Mornemont to gain popularity. A sexed-up debutante takes an interest in Arthur’s strange little life. His simple life of being the town brat suddenly becomes very complex — and Arthur’s half-witted mind isn’t quite sure how to handle that.

It’s a story that could be told just as easily in a regular book — but as a graphic novel, we see the personality tics and quirks of Arthur There. The sprawling lawns of Mornemont. The ornate castles of the politicians juxtaposed with Arthur’s teetering wall-top shanty. It’s less of a book than it is a flickering, black and white film that coyly comments on who we are, where we came from and what gives us purpose to keep living.