Jordan Mechner, Étienne Le Roux, and Loïc Chevallier examine a forgotten piece of America’s fight for independence in their new Liberty! original graphic novel.
Learn all about Liberty! (now available to back on Kickstarter) in this exclusive interview with writer Jordan Mechner.
When did you first become aware of the historical story that is the basis for Liberty!?
Jordan Mechner: I was in a used bookstore and picked up a biography of Beaumarchais, whom I knew as the French playwright who wrote The Marriage of Figaro–I had no idea that he was also an unsung hero of the American revolution! It’s an incredible story: Beaumarchais created a front company, using a fake name, to illegally buy arms and ammunition from the French depots and ship them across the ocean to the American rebels who were desperately underequipped. He did this in coordination with an American secret agent named Silas Deane, who was sent to France by Benjamin Franklin and only a few people in Congress knew about it. I found it absolutely riveting, and a story whose themes are very resonant and relevant to today’s world.
What was it that made it a perfect subject for a graphic novel adaptation?
Mechner: Liberty! is an epic story, with parallel action unfolding in Paris and Versailles, the French docks and seaports of Bordeaux and Nantes, and the Revolutionary War battles on the ground in America–including New York, where the population is anticipating a crushing British invasion, a battle which the rebels will certainly lose and will probably destroy the city. I wanted to see these events through the eyes of Beaumarchais and Deane, their frantic intrigue and the Herculean efforts they made to overcome the obstacles in France and get the arms shipments out– and simultaneously from the point of view of a soldier in America, and the people in New York. Our third main character, Sam Webb, is Deane’s stepson, a soldier in the army, and George Washington’s personal aide. He sounds like the kind of character a writer might invent for dramatic convenience, but he really existed and participated in those battles.
The combination in Liberty! of epic historical events, fused with the personal and intimate–Beaumarchais is about to become a father; Sam is engaged to a girl in New York whose parents are Royalists and side with the British, and she’s enduring the battle as a civilian–this is a story on a scale that unless you’re Christopher Nolan with a 200 million dollar budget, could only be a graphic novel. The format is perfect for a story like this. It can blend emotional immediacy with a high level of historical accuracy.
What do Étienne Le Roux and Loïc Chevallier bring to the material and your writing that stands out to you?
Mechner: Etienne and Loic take historical research and accuracy very seriously, as I do, but they’re also very attuned to the need for storytelling to be clear and direct so that it works on the page. When sometimes, as a writer, I tried to pack more into the script than the panels and pages could accommodate, Etienne would raise his hand immediately. Fortunately, in those cases, we always found a solution to streamline it to our mutual satisfaction. Loic is incredibly detail-oriented, and fortunately is an expert in 18th-century ships, weaponry, uniforms, and armaments, which was a godsend on this project.
You have worked for a long time in the video game industry. How would you compare creating a game to creating a graphic novel?
Mechner: I’ve worked on big and small games over the years. Making a graphic novel feels a bit like making an indie game with a small team of three or four people. The mediums are different, but the dynamic of creative collaboration is similar. It’s a marathon, not a sprint: you know you’re going to spend several years in this universe. The need to always keep the big picture in mind, while at the same time being completely focused on the minutiae of what’s in front of you, the little bit you can write or draw or code on a particular day, moving the project just that much closer to the finish line that’s years away– that combination is very familiar to me from game development.
Memories of creating Prince of Persia and its impact on video games?
Mechner: When I made the original Prince of Persia on an Apple II computer in the 1980s, the technical limitations of the platform were a major constraint. The screen was 280 x 192 pixels with only four colors; the entire game with all the code, graphics and animation had to fit into 64K of memory (if you’re reading this online, that’s less than one of the JPEGs illustrating this website page). That constraint became a virtue, as it required a discipline of construction and attention to design that made the game richer in the end.
Thoughts on Kickstarter as a platform to get Liberty! to fans?
Mechner: It’s always a challenge to get people to know that a book exists. There’s so much competing for people’s attention online, and paid marketing and advertising are financially out of reach for most authors and publishers these days. Even though Prince of Persia is known to millions of people around the world, to translate that awareness into someone hearing that I’ve done a book is very, very difficult. I hope that people who know me mainly or only through my games will be curious to click on the Kickstarter link, and check out Liberty! (Along with my other recent graphic novels, Monte Cristo and Replay!)
Upcoming projects?
Mechner: I’ve got a full plate at the moment with two new graphic novels in the pipeline. One is a collaboration with the great French artist Olivier Vatine–a fresh take on the Robin Hood legend. The other book I’m drawing myself, and hasn’t been announced yet– it will be of special interest to video game players! I’ll be very excited to share that news a few months from now. I encourage readers to follow me via my website at jordanmechner.com; I post announcements there, along with archival materials about my current and past games, books and films. There’s also an RSS feed which you can subscribe to, as a free (ad-free, cookie-free) way to follow my news.
Liberty! is now available to back on Kickstarter until July 22.
