Review of the comic book A Night in Rome by Jim

Jim is an author who first made a name for himself on “event” comics. Understand the comics that you give for a birthday, a party, like “Everything that makes chicks bitch”, “All the flaws of guys” etc… However, we felt that there was a real pen behind the apparent lightness of his works. So when he comes to the forefront with a more mature comic like A Night in Rome, we can’t wait to see what happens.

This review covers the two volumes of the work

Synopsis

Raphael and Sophia live together. A few days before his birthday, Raphaël receives an old VHS by mail. He watches it and rediscovers himself at twenty years old with one of his first loves. Marie.

Both of them had filmed themselves and promised each other, no matter what happened in their lives, to spend the night of their fortieth birthday together, in Rome.
A phone call, the next day. Marie. The same voice as twenty years ago.

The same intonations, the same laughter.
Of course, it would be completely childish to leave everything and find her in Italy. It would be stupid and immature.
But how to resist a stupid and immature promise ?

Review

A night in Rome, it’s a comic book that we will open first for its drawing, and its title. Filled with a certain poetry, how not to resist to the almost dreamlike call of a sentence like “a night in Rome”, even more when the drawing is precise, and sexy as you wish ?

Once opened, the comic shows itself quite different. So yes, the drawing is always pleasant (Jim succeeds very well his characters in a realistic style, without doing too much), but it is not what hooks us the most.

The story is captivating, and can’t help but ring a little bell inside us. We have all known a similar story, and we could have made the same promise as the one Raphaël and Marie made to each other for their 20th birthday. And behind, we can only wonder if we too could leave everything for a madness.

Because the heart of the book is there: The eternal frontier between security, stability and madness. Would you rather have a settled life for years to come or a madness that will be irretrievable, right here, right now ? This question was perfectly addressed in the 2006 film Last Kiss (itself a remake of the 2001 Italian film l’ultimo bacio), and we find it here, finally quite identical.

Well brought, the scenaristic and sexual tension is palpable in the first volume, but unfortunately does not manage to really transpire in what should be its zenith during the second. The first volume is in this respect an example of rise in power. At the beginning very light, it becomes darker and darker and more and more fascinating as the pages go by.

Although logical in its development, we can only be a little disappointed by the second one, more calm, and which ends in a very classical way, where even the final twist is expected.

In conclusion, Une nuit à Rome is to be discovered at least for its first volume, impressive of mastery. We’ll read the second one to see where we’re going, but we can only have a little taste of disappointment in our mouths with this last one. Find the complete A Night in Rome by clicking here.