La terra dei figli - Gipi

Post-apocalyptic stories were concerning enough before the COVID pandemic. La terra dei figli ('The Land of the Children') was written and drawn by Gipi in 2016, and reading it now that we have all became aware of the reality of what could happen and how quickly a virus could spread across the globe, it’s surprising how effectively his story captures the whole sense of fear that comes with the recognition that things have changed irrevocably. What makes it even more concerning is the realisation that even having come though such a global shock is the apparent inability of humanity to learn from its mistakes. All of this just makes La terra dei figli even more ominous.

In Gipi’s graphic novel, the old world is long gone or, considering how quickly a global catastrophe can strike happen, perhaps not that long gone, but definitely gone. The initial impression Gipi gives us of this world is a rather bleak and feral one. We are introduced to two youths in an unpopulated savannah living by their wits. They kill a wild dog, find a human skeleton and wonder what to do with it; two events that create an immediate and strong impression (not least because of Gipi's artwork). We find that they are living with a man who appears to be their father on a boat. The implication is that the land is no longer safe, there aren't too many people left, and that there is a need to be wary of those who remain. Their father is a survivor from the old world and he wants to ensure that the boys keep away from some dangers and old ways that still persist in this new world.

That tends to suggest also that La terra dei figli deals in its own way with familiar post-apocalyptic themes: the struggle to survive and adapt to new dangerous world and what that extreme situation reveals about human nature. It's inevitable that such matters need to be considered and taken into account, but Gipi has other angles to explore and unlike most writers of post-apocalyptic fiction, has the unique quality of his drawing style to get other impressions and ideas across. As the title suggests, this is the land of the children, a new generation growing up in a very different place who inevitably have different values to that of their fathers. Necessarily so, as they are the future and need to find new ways, the father taking pains to shield them from the past, a past that he writes about in his notebook, but not for the benefit of the boys who can't read yet remain curious about its contents.

The man considers at one point the gulf between them, how instead of killing and eating dogs, people used to keep them as pets on a rug or a couch in a warm house, but realises he would have them to explain what is a rug and a couch, not to mention the notion of a warm house. The gulf between them is too large, and he doesn't want to give them any ideas that would soften them when it is a hard world out there. When the boys eventually get the opportunity to look at the notebook, Gipi fills 10 whole three-panel widescreen pages with completely illegible scrawls, some smeared by water, in a representation of how they are seen from the boys POV. Since the boys can't read, what he has left is even more meaningless in this changed world. But they won't rest until they can find someone to read the notebook and tell them what their father wrote.

Gipi can use original techniques like this where necessary, but as a whole the artwork expresses every situation as needed, sketchy yet filled with detail and never cluttered; there is a remarkable sense of darkness and light, of emptiness and open space in a depopulated world. I've only read shorter works of Gipi published in English before, so have some idea of his style and ability to work with mood, theme and character but his work on La terra dei figli is a tour de force; darkness, water, underwater, dreamscapes, mist, rain, all rendered in his own unique fashion. In contrast, faces, particularly the boys, remain in Gipi's familiar style of little more than an oval with dots for eyes and single line nose. Somehow, he still manages through the stroke of the pen line to make them distinctive, alive and expressive.

As the work progresses towards its conclusion, La terra dei figli does start to behave more like regular survivalist post-apocalyptic fiction, trying to resist assaults from marauding gangs of crazy people with violent urges and cult-like behaviour. I'm not sure if it's a recommendation, but Gipi's ability to graphically depict these horrors is some compensation of originality, the artwork remaining vivid and expressive and almost cinematic in its layouts, angles and sense of movement. What should not be in any doubt - and which is probably the more important point - is that there is no going back to the past, but that perhaps there may remain just enough of a seed of human compassion to direct a new way forward.

Reading notes: 'La terra dei figli' by Gianni (or Gian-Alfonso) 'Gipi' Pacinotti was first published in Italy in 2016. I read a new 2024 'pocket' paperback edition, the first volume of new accessible editions of Italian indie comics published under the Collana Coconino Tascabili imprint. Gipi's work has been sporadically published over the years in English translation, shorter works first and in recent years one or two longer works. 'La terra dei figli' is published in English as 'The Land of the Sons' (maybe 'Sons' is preferable to 'Children') by Fantagraphics. There was an Italian film adaptation made of the book, which I haven't seen, but I would think that in translation to cinema it would lose everything that Gipi brings to the story in his line work and be likely to operate more like a conventional disaster movie.