Not only the comics, but also the real event that is beyond.
If you'r as fan as me of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, maybe will you remember that amazing sequence on board of the Orca, when Quint (Robert Shaw), Brody (Roy Sheider) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) are having a drink, comparing their scars.
Here is Quint's monologue (as it appears in the movie) :
"Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin' back, from the island of Tinian to Laytee, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know... was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like ol' squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark comes to the nearest man and that man, he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces.
Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, boson's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb."
Dialogue by John Milius and Robert Shaw.
Art by Giancarlos Olivares - Uss Indianapolis #1 © Overlook Publishing
So, there is a real event, behind that dialogue - event that was told to the public in 1974. But most of us, who were not born at this time, know it from Jaws.
Even if we keep apart the Japanese torpedos and the mission of the Indianapolis - they're, as we say in France, des faits de guerre, (facts of war) - that particular event remains one of the most deadly of the US Navy.
Only a few crewmen died from the initial attack. Actually, most of them died in the next two days - drown or eaten by the many sharks laying in the Pacific Ocean.
Finally, 321 of the near 1.200 crewmen survived, and were rescued. With the trauma, and as they were not recognized officially (more than a secret mission, it was unprepared), many committed suicide in the next few years.
The ship itself was never found, and we still don't know where it really sunk.
Damien Maric, the writer of the comics, is - like many of us - a Jaws fan, and had the brilliant idea to look a little bit closer behind the story to find what really happened. Even if many things can be questionned - as it is with every witness, and more when that witness is emotionnally shocked - he wrote an amazing story, the kind I love, really emotionnal.
The Italian artist Giancarlo Olivarès produced the art on the first issue, and I'm near the end of the second which, hopefully, will be pre-released at the Geekopolis Festival at the end of May.
The comics is a mini series of 3 issues, set around the sinking, the survivors and the trial that followed the events.
That's it for now.
Due to the particularities of the comics - a long development - I'll only post sneak peaks in April and May, once the complete artwork will be done, and with permission of Overlook Publishing and Damien.
Anyway, I invite you to join the Overlook Publishing Facebook Page :
http://www.facebook.com/OverlookPublishing?fref=ts
And order (only in French so far) the first issue on their website :
http://www.overlook-publishing.com/Projets/accueil_projet.aspx?theme=Indianapolis
Uss Indianapolis
© Overlook Publishing & Damien Maric
Written by Damien Maric
Art by Giancarlos Olivarès (issue #1) and Kevin Enhart (issue #2)
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