Reimagining The Road
A new graphic novel brings Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic road trip to life. “I immediately was enthralled by the atmosphere it creates,” cartoonist Manu Larcenet tells Inverse.
A boy and his father make their way across a post-apocalyptic America. Destroyed beyond recognition in an unexplained, cataclysmic event, this world is empty and dangerous. Marauders and cannibals roam freely. Even the sky has turned against humanity, filled with poison in some horrific event we can only assume was man-made.
The Road is perhaps Cormac McCarthy’s most successful work. Released in 2006, the book, which deviates from his usual Western inclinations, won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Two years later, it became a Hollywood movie starring Viggo Mortensen and a young Kodi Smit-McPhee. Now, The Road is taking on a new form: the graphic novel.
French cartoonist Manu Larcenet brings McCarthy’s dark epic to life with detailed linework and stark black-and-white imagery. Larcenet’s drawings go beyond anything Hollywood could ever bring to the screen, showing the true sadness and depravity of The Road. The entire project was also approved by McCarthy himself, though the author died in June 2023 before he could see the final product.
“He died and only saw half of the album before we could communicate,” Larcenet tells Inverse. “I was only told that he was both happy and impressed by it, which is both too little and a lot.”
Ahead of his graphic novel’s U.S. release, Inverse interviewed Larcenet via email to find out how he discovered The Road, his thoughts on the story’s ambiguous ending, and the story behind some of his favorite images from the adaptation.
The Road: A Graphic Novel Adaptation launches in the US on September 17.
When did you first read The Road and what was your reaction to the book?
I read The Road three years ago.
I immediately was enthralled by the atmosphere it creates. Most likely because I enjoy drawing the snow, the chilling winds, the dark clouds, the sizzling rain, snags, rust, and damps. I draw violence or kindness, wild animals, dirty skin, pits, and stagnant water. I enjoy the contrast between the characters and their environment.
I am very sensitive to slowness and the absence of Hollywood-style action scenes. There is no classic narrative arc but rather a succession of scenes, sometimes very contemplative. And I felt that I would be able to draw the silences of the novel.
What’s your relationship with Cormac McCarthy’s books in general? What are your favorites and why?
Until then, I had only read No Country for Old Men but I had not felt the connection I experienced with The Road. So I cannot say that I am a McCarthy specialist. What I can say is that I spent most of my days and some of my nights for two years reading and reading again this novel. I guess those 160 pages made me maybe a good connoisseur of The Road.
Manu Larcenet’s previous work includes Blast and a visual adaptation of the French book Brodeck’s Report.
Tell me about the process of getting this graphic novel approved by Cormac McCarthy. How did you get his approval? What conditions or advice did he give you?
Cormac McCarthy is a secretive, taciturn writer who has only given two interviews in his life. And from what I know, reluctantly. To present my project of adaptation we got in touch only through his agents. We presented some of my previous works and especially Blast and an adaptation of another successful novel, Brodeck’s Report. I guess that it convinced him but it was obviously based on my future work that I thought we were going to have a dialogue.
“I was only told that he was both happy and impressed by it.”
Unfortunately, this has not been possible; he died and only saw half of the album before we could communicate. I was only told that he was both happy and impressed by it, which is both too little and a lot.
It so happens that I had complete freedom. Today, I like to think that it was the way McCarthy wanted and I believe that he would have been happy with the result.
“It so happens that I had complete freedom.”
What other pieces of visual art, if any, did you use as inspiration for this project?
Perhaps the work of Gustave Doré for the complexity of his linework.
I love the moments in the graphic novel where darkness or light (from smoke, or snow, etc.) completely fills a panel. Where did that idea come from?
The Road takes the reader into a lifeless world and apocalyptic landscapes, broken, dirty, and above all dead. A setting without nature, without animals, without leaves. I was afraid that I could not sustain it over time, suffocated by this coldness. It was the ash and the smoke, omnipresent, that changed everything by clothing that setting, by tinting it, by transforming it.
“It was the ash and the smoke, omnipresent, that changed everything.”
When we see how skinny the characters are, it’s very jarring. How did you decide exactly how to depict their bodies?
The characters are drawn into a long wandering, driven by fear, hunger, and the search for food. Their silhouettes imposed themselves. And in line with McCarthy’s description.
What’s your favorite panel in the entire graphic novel?
This seems to call for a simple answer but I'm afraid to disappoint you.
I think it's difficult to say which panel, page, or scene I prefer because comics are more than just beautiful panels strung together. The drawing itself is only a small part of the process for the author. It's probably different for the reader. But there are some panels where I felt like I was on the wings of the wind. Two of them stick in my memory:
“My great pride as an author is recognizing when chance does better than my mind.”
One is a completely unremarkable panel, a close-up of hands striking a match (not the one on the title page, another one). I had set myself the goal of showing damp matches. I remember that, for Christmas, my parents would take me to the countryside, to a house that was 100 years old at the time, with only one fireplace. And the matches were often damp, requiring several strikes to light. They emitted small bits of sulfur that ignited as they separated from the wood. Well, I succeeded! If you look closely at the drawing, you can see those sparks. It was a great victory.
The other is the very first drawing of the ending, in black and white. I was very happy with the character, but I couldn’t manage to add a background to it. After multiple attempts, the simple electric wires swayed by the wind appeared by accident, while I was scribbling. My great pride as an author is recognizing when chance does better than my mind (and my pencil).
“After multiple attempts, the simple electric wires swayed by the wind appeared by accident, while I was scribbling.”
Was there anything from the original book that you were simply unable to draw?
It may seem a bit bold, but there is very little that I am not able to draw. But one has to make choices taking into account the graphic appeal of some scenes. For instance, I did not draw the boat episode and the kid's scene at the end because I could not quite figure them out.
What do you think happens to the boy after the end of The Road?
As you know, I never talked to McCarthy and I guess no journalist ever asked him such a question. We are not in a movie with a classic happy ending. And there is no The Road Part II.
I left nothing but a glimmer of hope perhaps? Like the writer did, I'll let the reader choose.
