After 250 years of the USA, JORDAN MECHNER offers us LIBERTY!

Interviews Editor, Andrew Irvin, welcomes the multifaceted Jordan Mechner, creator of games like Prince of Persia, presenting his latest graphic novel, Liberty!, available through Kickstarter now, sharing how France helped the USA come into existence 250 years ago.

---

COMIC BOOK YETI: It’s an honor to have you stop by the Yeti Cave, Jordan, particularly after reading Liberty! this Independence Day weekend. How are things going in France? I know Europe is weathering an absolutely atrocious heatwave, so what have you been doing to stay cool and safe? 

JORDAN MECHNER:Thanks! It's a pleasure to be here in a nice cool cave -- 55 degrees year-round! 

CBY: Ah, yes - hard to beat the insulation provided by having some sturdy mountains overhead, I'd imagine. Regarding Liberty!, though this is a tale of the American Revolutionary War, most of the action focuses not on the front-line, but on the layers of intrigue and guile involved in building momentum behind the armed resistance to the British Crown. This is a tale of winning a war with words; rhetoric that moved the needle with various figures involved in establishing the United States. You mentioned in the author’s note – preceding a thorough reading list – wanting to make this graphic novel from the moment you learned about Georges Édouard Lemaître's Beaumarchais biography; subsequent research process entail, working through both the French and English-language sources available? Can you share with our readers more around your migration into the Francophone world, and how it has shifted your perspective of American life?

JM: I moved to France in 2016, actually for a video game project (an unannounced Prince of Persia reboot, as those who've read my graphic novel memoir Replay know) and I stayed! Among the many reasons I've come to feel at home here, France is maybe the best place in the world to make graphic novels. There's an incredible culture around bandes dessinées, a deep ecosystem of artists, publishers, independent bookstores, libraries, and festivals. I learned French in the 1990s (the team on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was French-speaking), so I already had a start on the language barrier. Now, after ten years here, I feel about equally at home in Europe and in the U.S. Which is to say, I also feel like a bit of an outsider--in France, I'm the American; when I go home to New York (where I'm from), I'm the guy who lives in France. I have family, friends and colleagues in both places. So I have a foot in both worlds.

CBY: I understand a bit of the amorphous intercultural space emigrated Americans occupy, having been in the Commonwealth most of my adult life - especially with the added dimension of surmounting the language barrier. You’ve teamed up with Étienne Le Roux and Loïc Chevallier for illustrations and Elvire De Cock as colorist - how did you initially pull your talented creative team together for this project? Since you first published this graphic novel in France, you’ve also worked with AndWorld Design for lettering and Mike Kennedy for localization while editing the English language edition. Can you share a bit about their involvement? Was anyone else involved in the production of this title deserving of mention you weren’t able to include in the published edition? 

JM: As you mentioned, Liberty! was published first in France. Delcourt had published Replay (my first graphic novel as author-illustrator), and Etienne had done previous books with our editor, Grégoire Seguin. It was actually my friend and atelier-mate Olivier Vatine who thought of Etienne for Liberty! and introduced us. We hit it off, Etienne brought in his collaborators Loïc Chevallier and Elvire De Cock, and the art team was complete.

I also need to mention a very important team member: translator Eloise de la Maison. I wrote Liberty! first in English – even though I can read and write French, English will always be the language I'm most comfortable in – and Eloise translated it into French. The advantage of my writing Liberty! in English was that when it came time for Mike Kennedy and Magnetic Press to create the English edition, no translation was required--I just sent them my original script. That was also the situation with my previous book with Magnetic, Monte Cristo (illustrated by Mario Alberti, first published in French by Glénat, then in English by Magnetic). The English editions of all my books are special to me, because it's my own language.

CBY: Working back and forth between English and French with a translator must be fascinating, seeing a rendition of your own story in another's closely-studied interpretation. There is also a testament to character offered to Silas Dean by Jean Deltier, a merchant house representative and masonic lodge brother, whom you’ve framed as your protagonist of sorts, sent earnestly into a mission on behalf of his fledgling nation; “Beaumarchais digs his grave with his own cleverness. He speaks when he should hold his tongue, but he is an honest man and a good brother…you can trust him.” In a preceding scene, Deane mentions his drinking prowess as a product of his years at Yale. There is a familiarity and human dimension you bring to history in this story; do you generally view your narratives in relational terms, and are there any narrative tools or techniques you employ? Since your earliest game design days, you’ve employed rotoscoping to give your animation a more engaging, human dimension as well. I know you’ve graciously shared a lot of your development process and behind-the-scenes work in your wonderfully well-archived site library, but as you seemed to apply the same sort of hands-on research to The Last Express, for instance, as Liberty!, how do you find your narrative approach differs according to the medium in which you’re working? 

JM: I'm a big believer in research. Whether it's a game or graphic novel, I think the way to make something that feels believable, engaging and human is to start with something real. For Karateka, Prince of Persia and The Last Express, that meant videotaping real people as reference for the game animations. For Liberty!, it started with reading everything I could get my hands on about the characters and historical events depicted in the book. There's no substitute for real information. And this might seem paradoxical, but for an artist or writer, research is also the source of originality. Things we invent from our imagination are usually a kind of shallow imitation or variation on familiar clichés. Whereas reality, if you look at it deeply, is full of odd details and surprises. Ask any artist to draw a picture of a tree. Then ask them to go into a forest and draw a real tree from life. You'll see the difference. For sure, when I read history, I'm keeping an eye out for details that can help develop characters and relationships. When I realized that Beaumarchais and Deane were both Freemasons, as were Benjamin Franklin and many of the Founding Fathers, I thought that was interesting and something I could use. 

CBY: An underlying foundation of fact always seems to make fiction all the more compelling. Now, your closing statement in this graphic novel draws from the theatrical work of Beaumarchais, “Death comes to kings too in the end, although we raise their thrones up – and Voltaire will never die!” As Voltaire died in May, 1778, two months after the last scene of Liberty!, with Beaumarchais going on to spend the 1780s leading the Société littéraire typographique de Kehl to collect and distribute Voltaire’s work, this seems like a fitting closure. Given the work you’ve put into building inspirational creative work that now has form beyond your initial efforts, what distinction between accumulation of power and state-making can you draw with the accumulation of taste and art-making? The world of art and power, as Beaumarchais exemplified, are often deeply intertwined. How did you decide to end the narrative on this note, and what would you like to see readers carry forward from this story? 

JM: I thought the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro was a good note to end the book on. We've seen Beaumarchais working on the play throughout the story, alongside the arms smuggling effort. His partner Silas has been recalled to America, the Revolutionary War continues, and Beaumarchais stays in France – where, as we readers know, another revolution is brewing. Beaumarchais' whole world of Versailles, kings and nobles, is about to be swept away by the French Revolution in just a few years. That wonderful verse you quoted, from the end of Figaro, says so much. You can understand why the French king and his ministers were displeased by Beaumarchais' play; they thought it expressed revolutionary or anti-monarchy sentiments. The final panel, where we see Beaumarchais basking in applause, while his girlfriend Amelie looks at him worried, suggests her intuition of the trouble that's in store for him. It's one of the many ironies of Beaumarchais' life that he lost everything in the French Revolution (and almost his neck). His huge contribution helping the American Revolution is overlooked and little-known except by a few historians, while he's forever famous as an author and playwright.

CBY: It's true many people also forget that once the fire of revolution is lit, it burns until it runs out of fuel, and wanton conflagration of those in the path of destruction leads to terms like "Reign of Terror" coming . On a tangential note to Liberty! (insofar as the American market allows obvious homage under fair use laws), I am curious a bit about your industry experience working across media formats. I note that you decided to develop Prince of Persia with Walt Disney Pictures, so I’m curious, at any point, have you crossed paths with the production team for the 1992 Aladdin film? With giant hourglass imagery and other specifics not included in the pre-existing Aladdin literature, have you ever discovered whether your game was making the rounds as reference material amongst both above- and below-the-line crew on the 1992 film? Not everyone is as multi-disciplinary as you are in your approach to creative work, so how much have overlapping interests led to improved outcomes working across media formats, and what do you prefer about each medium? 

JM: You know, I had the same curiosity about Prince of Persia and Aladdin. I'm not sure if I've told this story before, but I did finally get the chance to meet one of the key creative people on the 1992 Disney film – it was actually in a neighborhood live drawing workshop in Los Angeles, around 2015. By then, there had been the Disney Prince of Persia movie, and more than 20 years had passed since Aladdin, so I just asked him straight out. He said that no, as far as he knew, the animation team hadn't been influenced by Prince of Persia. Which makes sense, since PC games in 1990-91 were still a pretty niche market, that they wouldn't know about it. But he told me something interesting. He said that the team had been struggling with the story for Aladdin, gone through multiple versions, and it just wasn't working. Finally Jeffrey Katzenberg lost his patience, pointed to the 1940 Thief of Baghdad movie, and told them, "Just use that story!" So if you wonder why Aladdin and Prince of Persia both feature an evil grand vizier named Jaffar who's obsessed with a princess and locks her up until she agrees to marry him – well, I saw the same 1940 movie they did! For sure, all these mediums – games, movies, animation, graphic novels – are constantly drawing from each other, and the inspiration flows in multiple directions.

CBY: It's also a bit ironic that you crossed paths in the context of an unrelated social gathering in the L.A. community and not in any sort of shared professional setting where it might have arisen in the course of related work. Finally, as you and I are both Americans abroad, you might have also noticed America’s 250th anniversary had all the celebratory notes of a funeral dirge, as masked fascists with Confederate flags marched through D.C. amidst community parade cancellations in the face of raging storms and an extreme heatwave. What can we take away from the story in Liberty! to better address the challenges the United States faces in this moment, and the echoes felt the world over through its actions both domestically and on the international stage? How would you like to see incisive action from individual voices applied to dismantle the systems that infringe upon our liberty the world over?

JM: It's easy to feel helpless and overwhelmed these days, when we see democracy and the rule of law being attacked and undermined in the U.S. and many other places around the world, while tyrants and authoritarian governments are seemingly more powerful than ever. As an American and European, I strongly believe in democratic and pluralistic society, and the power of individual and collective action by civilians to bring about positive change. My grandparents came to America as refugees from Europe during World War II, a very dark period that they nonetheless survived. We will survive this too. Examples of courage and integrity are all around us, along with their opposite. Oleksandra Matviichuk (Nobel Peace Prize winner from Ukraine) said, "We don't choose the time we are born, nor the country we are born in. But we always have a choice – to be honest people, or not." Justice might not come tomorrow, but we have to believe that the fight is worth it. 

CBY: We also know that without the fight, justice will never be delivered, and hopefully Americans facing an assault on norms, laws, and liberty – and others elsewhere around the word – are roused to greater action by your graphic novel, as Liberty! demonstrates what individuals can do when doggedly dedicated to the democratic cause. To close, we always offer guests the opportunity to recommend other, unrelated creators. What other comics, games, films, and other pieces of work have been inspiring you lately?

JM: Jeez, you just got me thinking about how I'm inspired by people who are risking their real lives in the real world – now I have to shift gears and think of an inspiring book or movie! I really enjoyed Lucas Wars – a graphic novel by Laurent Hopman and Renaud Roche, telling the story of the making of Star Wars (and volume two, The Empire Strikes Back). It was published first in French. Very well-researched, fun, and entertaining – a rare combination of a great script, lively art style, and characters that are instantly recognizable at different ages and a variety of expressive attitudes. It's not easy as a caricaturist to draw such well-known public figures, page after page, to keep the focus on the story, keeping it loose, and not fall into portraiture. For whatever reason, that series hasn't gotten the attention in English that it has in French, but it really deserves it.

CBY: Jordan, it was a distinct pleasure to have you visit the Yeti Cave, and thank you for stopping by today. If you have any further portfolio, publication, or social media links to share, now is the time and this is the place!

JM: Thanks for this conversation, I've enjoyed it! I have a website at jordanmechner.com where I often post about my projects, both old and new. It's packed full of archival materials from past projects, including my old journals and "making of" materials from my games Prince of Persia, Karateka, and The Last Express – along with a current blog where I post about new releases and what I'm working on now. My social media links are listed on the home page, and there's an RSS feed if you'd like to be notified non-intrusively when new articles appear. I'd love for your readers to discover my recent graphic novels, Replay and Monte Cristo, along with Liberty!. Now, to step back outside into the 105-degree heat...

---

Like what you've just read? Help us keep the Yeti Cave warm! Comic Book Yeti has a Patreon page for anyone who wants to contribute: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookyeti