The Road

Shortly before Cormac McCarthy's death in 2023 he received a passionate letter from a French artist named Manu Larcenet. In the letter, Larcenet explained how he had read the author's most prescient novel, The Road, over and over for six months. He pleaded with McCarthy and explained how he had almost lived in the book's bleak narrative for months. He asked McCarthy if he could adapt the novel into a graphic novel adaptation and the legendary author consented to the request. Unfortunately, McCarthy died before seeing the finished product. Larcenet's adaptation was published in 2024 by Abrams Comicarts.

This is an usual adaptation in the way that Larcenet doesn't actually write any of the book's dialogue or scenes. Instead, he simply quotes directly from the novel itself, straying from any semblance of the film adaptation. Larcenet pencils these dire apocalyptic scenes into harrowing exhibits of human loss and anguish. Often the scenes are washed out to properly convey the atmosphere of ash and snow blanketing America in a white sheet of doomed oblivion. 

If you are unaware of McCarthy's The Road, it was published in 2006 and serves as a post-apocalyptic melodrama as an unnamed father and son walk across a scarred landscape that has been obliterated by a  nuclear war. Along with marauders and bandits, the two face the cruelest enemy of all – starvation. Using that as a dismal background, Larcenet punctuates McCarthy's work in a more enhanced, deeply troubling adaptation that orchestrates humanity's downfall in the most intimate way possible. While the film left something to be desired, Larcenet's adaptation hones in on the insanity and utter hopelesness in a unique way. This is a stunning visual art. You won't be disappointed.

Get your copy of the book HERE.