Presented as the ultimate complete series, this volume therefore focuses on Jonathan’s latest album, in a version supplemented by a copious file “Vivre sur le roof du monde”, written by Nelly Rieuf Bista, where she tells us about her meeting with the artist, but also the reality of these monks, of their daily life, of everything that leads to their admission.
This dossier will above all allow us to better contextualize Cosey’s story and understand the importance that it can have in the career of both the author and his character. He tells us about an encounter, a country, a sensitivity and these three words are the basis of Jonathan’s universe.
Cosey begins to tell the stories of Jonathan in 1975. This adventurous hero, lover of the great outdoors, of Tibet, of this spirituality which will be at the center of all the albums that will follow, is a bit like the double of its author, this part of himself who travels on his motorcycle, who meets many people, who forges links over his wanderings.
Jonathan remains a very special series, where it is not really a question of good and bad, but of the evolution of a man who is looking for himself, who asks himself questions, who has barely started his long journey towards a form of awakening. However, Cosey tells himself that now is the time to stop all that. Jonathan must return home, but before that he will stop at the monastery of Yeshe, in order to find a friend there, one last time…
This final volume therefore makes it possible to take stock of the character, without indulging in a laborious summary of everything that preceded. It is not a question here of making heartbreaking farewells, but of apprehending as serenely as possible the evolution of Jonathan. Cosey insists on the readings, on all the spiritual and philosophical symbolism that has gradually led him throughout the series, accompanied by an inspired playlist, evocative of atmospheres, of slow rhythms, in a perpetual dialogue with the reader who reads it. has followed for 45 years, according to the pages.
However, the adventure may be over for this funny hero who isn’t really one, but the artist is still there, his character will perhaps appear in future albums, perhaps we will find his enigmatic gaze through that of another. Because Jonathan is the essence of Cosey’s style, this plenitude that radiates, this calm, this need to get out of the devouring Manichaeism that surrounds a large part of current production.
We thus find all the sense of purity specific to this master of comics. This desire not to dwell on the details, yet never forgetting the emotion!
We will now have to content ourselves with these 17 volumes, artbooks which have allowed us to admire the studies, the crobarts sketched on the spot, the sets, the faces, the shots full of life… Jonathan is no more and yet he does not has never been so alive!
By Fredgrithe 11/19/2022