Writer 1879: Solitary Journey in France

Chapter 521 The story has been reinvented!
A clerk wearing a top hat was quickly intrigued by the first page of the “series of picture books”.

He took out his pocket watch and saw that he still had twenty minutes left in his lunch break. So he found a shady spot under a tree and eagerly began to read on.

At first, he was still going to look for the next section of "main text," but the next page also didn't have any long passages of text.

Before me was a whole page of pictures divided into several squares.

In the first scene, Jacques is leaping lightly from the leaning mast;

By the second square, he had already landed on the pier, and his hat almost flew off.

On the third step, he steadied himself, adjusted his hat brim, and smiled slightly.

The clerk blinked hard to make sure he wasn't seeing things—this wasn't the illustration he was familiar with!

I've read quite a few illustrated novels—Zola's *L'Hotel* and Dumas' *The Count of Monte Cristo* both have illustrations.

Those paintings always occupy an entire page or most of a page on their own, with complete images, like a moment frozen on stage.

After viewing the illustrations, readers' eyes will naturally slide to the text below, allowing them to continue reading the story.

But now, where are the words?
His gaze swept across the page several times, but he saw neither lengthy narratives nor detailed descriptions.

Only one or two lines of small text at the bottom or side of each panel indicate the action or plot.

The text that appears most often is the oval speech bubble that pops up next to the heads of characters like Jacques Sparrow.

It contained text such as, "Ha, at least I'm not completely soaked. Good morning, sir!"

The clerk was stunned for several seconds before realizing that this was a dialogue or inner monologue of Jacques Sparrow or another character.

He subconsciously tried to think of it as a satirical cartoon—like the political cartoons in Le Figaro, each picture accompanied by a satirical caption.

But that's not right!

A satirical cartoon is a series of jokes, not connected to each other; but these cartoons clearly depict a series of consecutive moments of the same action.

His gaze involuntarily moved from the first square at the top left to the second square at the top right, and then fell to the third square at the bottom left.

His eyes move on their own, and he hardly needs to think about the order of things, which feels really strange.

He couldn't stop turning the pages; some of the later pages had even more illustrations—

As Jacques Sparrow began to flee the naval port, British Royal Navy soldiers surrounded him from all sides.

In the first panel, Jacques is huddled behind a barrel; in the second, he leaps out and jumps onto a bunch of ropes; in the third, the ropes swing wildly as he kicks, and the pursuers miss their target; in the fourth, he has already scaled the railing and grins at the reader…

The clerk's eyes followed the drawing, "jumping, darting, swaying, flipping"—four movements, four moments, were firmly nailed to the paper by the image.

He suddenly realized that he didn't need to imagine "how he escaped," because the scene had already broken down the escape and presented it to him step by step.

He stopped again, this time not because he couldn't understand, but because he understood it too quickly!
In the past, when reading adventure novels, if you came across the line "he skillfully evaded his pursuers," you had to create your own mental picture: How did he evade? Which way did he run? What were the pursuers' expressions like?
It was a secret game between him and the author, where the words provided clues and he filled in the blanks and created images in his mind.

Now, the game is gone, and the screen has laid everything bare. The transitions between actions, the shifts in space, even Jacques's nonchalant attitude—

It wasn't told to him through sentences like "he gave a cynical smile," but rather it was painted directly on his face and embedded in every movement.

The clerk felt a slight unease; he felt as if he were being pushed along, and he didn't even have time to take a step on his own.

But the continuous visuals were so pleasurable that he couldn't control his hands and kept turning the pages.

The pace quickens in the following pages.

Jacques Sparrow scurried around the naval port, using everything at his disposal: cranes, canvas, cargo boxes, even drying fishing nets.

Each frame is a scene from an action sequence, and when pieced together, they create a dazzling escape scene.

The clerk found himself reading more and more smoothly, his eyes automatically capturing the order of the panels, and the dialogue in the speech bubbles directly entered his brain.

When Jacques swung over a group of soldiers on a rope and casually snatched an officer's hat, the clerk almost burst out laughing.

But he immediately stopped laughing because he realized that he hadn't actually "read" the words at all.

The witty remarks in those speech bubbles—"Excuse me!" "This hat suits me well!"—came straight into my eyes along with the visuals.

The images were moving, and the characters' dialogue was playing, which was unlike any of his previous reading experiences!
When reading newspaper cartoons, he first looks at the picture, then reads the satirical commentary below, and then tries to understand its meaning.

When reading illustrated novels, he reads a passage first, then looks at the illustrations to deepen his impression of the images.

Stage plays are continuous, but they require sitting in a theater and rely on the actors' performances and the passage of time to complete.

And this booklet somehow manages to bring all of these together!
It's not like a play because it's static; yet it's not like a book because it brings the static images to life.

The clerk turned to the page where Jacques hid in the blacksmith's shop.

In the drawing, Jacques climbed in through the window, landed, turned around, and raised a finger to hiss at the surprised blacksmith apprentice.

Four movements, all performed in one smooth motion.

He stared at the few panels of drawings, and something inside him suddenly skipped a beat. He suddenly understood where his shock came from—

In this "series picture book," time is actually depicted! And it's not a metaphor, it's real!
From the window to the ground, from turning around to pointing with a finger, this time—perhaps only two or three seconds—was sliced ​​into four pieces and laid out on the paper.

The order in which he viewed the paintings mirrored the order in which time passed. This discovery sent a shiver down his spine. He flipped back a few more pages, to the three panels depicting Jacques Sparrow jumping off the mast, and now he understood:
The first frame: feet off the mast; the second frame: body in the air; the third frame: feet touching the ground. Three moments, one fall.

In the past, time was created through words—"He leaped and landed on the pier in an instant."

The reader must experience that "moment" for themselves. But now, this "moment" has been dismantled and placed before him, forcing him to see the very fabric of time.

Unable to contain his excitement, the clerk abruptly closed the booklet, as if he needed to pause reading to calm his inner turmoil.

An excitement of being struck by a completely new art form!
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting dappled patterns of light onto the book in his hands.

He thought of Jacques on the cover and suddenly felt that his smile was a little sly, as if to say, "Didn't expect that, did you?"

He really didn't expect it.

He thought he had bought a novel, or at least an illustrated book, but what he had in his hand was neither a novel nor an illustrated book.

It tells stories through images, yet doesn't abandon words; it breaks down actions into fragments, yet connects those fragments into a flowing river; it remains static on the page, yet makes you feel that everything is happening...

At that moment, the clerk subconsciously glanced at his watch. It was time to go back to his office. He quickly stuffed the booklet into his coat pocket.

But after taking a couple of steps, he couldn't resist any longer, so he stopped, took out the booklet, and quickly flipped through the last few pages.

The story ends with a cliffhanger: the crew of the Black Pearl, cursed with immortality, attack Port Royal and kidnap the governor's daughter, Elizabeth.

The clerk closed the book, and this time he truly felt a sense of emptiness.

It wasn't the kind of emptiness that comes from an unfinished story—he was annoyed when the serialization was interrupted, but it was more about "wanting to know what happens next."

The feeling is different now because the later parts of the story have already been serialized in Le Parisien, and he knows them.

It was as if he had just experienced an intense, high-speed visual run and suddenly stopped, with the sound of wind still in his ears, but his eyes could only see a still street.

He stood there blankly for a few seconds before putting the book away again and walking towards his office.

Throughout the journey, one word kept popping into his mind: sequential picture book.

That's what the stall owner calls it.

So, stories really can be told like this!

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A few days later, in the living room on the second floor of "Charpentier's Bookshelf", Lionel and Georges Charpentier sat facing each other.

On the coffee table in front of them was the newly released "Pirates of the Caribbean 1" picture book.

George Charpentier's face was practically creased with laughter; his office had been flooded with orders for the "series of picture books" in recent days.

This led to countless advertising orders, so many that careful selection was necessary to avoid "telling a story in an advertisement".

With a price three times that of Le Petit Parisien, and including the fees for Lionel and the artists, it was practically printed at cost.

All the profits come from advertising! And how much advertising revenue we get depends entirely on the success of the first phase.

George Charpentier almost took a gamble when he followed Lionel's advice.

Because the concept of "series picture books" doesn't exist in this era, readers need time to adapt, critics need time to understand, and the market needs time to test it.

He spent two whole months preparing and completing this crazy publishing attempt, and now it turns out he made the right bet.

Only Lionel knew the potential of this thing, so he was extremely certain.

This form will eventually evolve into a global cultural force, creating countless idols and forming an industry worth tens of billions.

Even here, in Paris in 1882, it was like a newborn baby, its first cry, though faint, heralding the beginning of new life.

As expected, the "Pirates of the Caribbean 1" picture book series spread like wildfire, and the printing presses at Charpentier's Bookshelf were running non-stop.

The market is like a monster with a gaping mouth; no matter how many copies are printed, it can devour them all in one gulp.

A line formed outside the bookstore, and readers who couldn't buy anything kept asking, "Is there any left? When will the next batch arrive?"

People who buy books come from all walks of life; even readers who follow the newspaper serialization want to see what the illustrated version looks like.

Painters throughout Paris were eager to study this new form.

Many of them, after watching it, felt an urge to personally find Lionel and bow to him.

Because they saw hope for their future in this brand-new art form!

Georges Charpentier sincerely praised, "Leon, you have reinvented the story!"

Lionel shook his head: "The story is there, I'm just telling it in a different way."

Then he looked into George Charpentier's eyes: "George, has your thought about something else?"

George Charpentier looked troubled...

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(End of this chapter)