Yearly Archives: 2016

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The finishi….starting line!

The missionary organisation in question covers an enormous area largely composed of lawn. It's almost as if they wanted to put that fitted carpet, omnipresent inside, also on the outside. But there are also artificial ponds and trees surrounded by flowers with such care that it’s as if something doesn’t quite match with reality. A private, luxuriant forest surrounds their offices, which are themselves also meticulously well-ordered in a building that looks as if it is carved into the rock. I have the impression of being an envoy from Europe who has come in quest of reinforcements from the United States army. In a few minutes I’ll be late…..

Before entering the feudal domain, I have to cross a barricade with guards who ask to see our papers. Are they really expecting me in such a place? The security guard removes any remaining doubts as he removes the barrier. The road is so clean that it looks as if it has just been drawn for a children’s book of fairy-tales and legends. A delegation, all wearing ties, is waiting for me at the entrance and welcomes me, just like the technical team of a Formula One racing driver, they show me the toilets, pat me on the shoulder, sympathising with my misfortunes.

The toilets are so luxurious that you feel guilty about going (it’s a bit like pooing in a salad bowl placed in the middle of the living-room table). For the little Swiss guy that I am, everything is excessive here, but I refuse categorically to judge what I see, I’m just in another dimension with other rules. I wet my head under the tap to chase away as best I can the last shreds of tiredness. It’s time! In a jiffy I find myself on a platform. The audience is staring at me, curious to hear what this guy from nowhere has to say to them…(unless it’s because of the water still running down my face).

 

1st meeting

I don't have much vocabulary in English, but what I have I give to them in good heart, but at any rate, it's with the latter (my heart) that I speak. My sharing has the same effect as a key, giving me access to their hearts. Emotion can be seen on their faces. From now on, whenever I cross paths with someone from this closed world, they will recognise me as being the little guy that Jesus found thanks to a Christian comic book thrown in a bin…..

 

The testimony of K.

When I finish, a respectable elderly man sits down at my table and shares his testimony with me:
‘I was a junkie, lost in New York and, like you, I had nothing at the start but I found Jesus in a rehab centre. When I telephoned my father, a practising Jew, to tell him, he wept. My mother took the phone from him and said to me:
“Your father isn’t crying with sadness, but with joy, because we too have found Jesus and we’ve been praying for you for a long time…..”
Ten years later I become head of the centre. Reagan, the United States president in person comes to visit my business and congratulate me on its good management. I have become one of the bosses of McDonald’s aid sector, I’m here now sharing my expertise for my neighbour…..’

The guy pats me on the shoulder and leaves. I’ll learn later that he is one of the big bosses of the place, that his presence on that day is exceptional and that after listening to me, he passes on the message to those who are to see me to take my work seriously.

 

Amazing! Awesome! Wonderful!

What enthusiasm on seeing my drawings! (You’d think they had all just won the lottery!)

Everyone seems in favour. The director offers me a week at a hotel! After my time of sharing, I am invited to several meals, you’d think that all the doors of the country had been opened! They are talking of a future tour so that I can give my testimony and interviews with TV companies, meetings with key figures. The director is already asking me to present them with a draft version of ‘Comic Book Without Words 2’!

 

Return to (my) earth

During the return flight, I have something of the impression of returning victorious from a battle, I have the impression of having my suitcases full of promises. But I am happy to be back in the workshop in my little country that I love, because even if I have to confront its nagging problems of survival, it is nevertheless my homeland whose logic I understand better.

A short time has passed and the mission writes to tell me that they are not going to get involved in my comic book project. But when I ask them, I insist on knowing what the problem is, I get no answer. So I tell them that, if it’s a question of money, I agree to do it for free, because the aim of reaching all these people comes before my interests….but no-one replies to me any more. The line goes dead….

 

Failure

At the end of the day, I find myself back at square one, without any more results….

Why? After all, I was sincerely counting on God’s intervention! (?) Maybe something will come out of all of this later on… (or not)

Resigned, I place the book in a drawer, (next to the Spanish project) and decide to go back to other projects. But before that…..I sleep.

part 1  part 2  part 4

 

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The allies!

Touching the bottom in order to get to the top

 

The target

After a brief investigation, I discover that there is a big mission which each year gives several millions of presents to the poorest families on the planet….

It’s not only a demographic that can’t read, but also that needs, more than anyone else, to have the enriching experience of the most beautiful message of hope that there is, the one that helps people triumph over everything; the one that is summarized in my little comic book.

 

How are we going to go about it?

I understand pretty quickly that "contact" addresses on the internet are in reality just dead ends.  When they aren’t quite simply abandoned, they are strictly monitored by fierce watchmen known as secretaries, whose job consists pretty much entirely of filtering the messages. (The last thing we need is one of those plebs bothering the leaders.)  By chance*, I at last meet someone who knows one of the main leaders of the youth section of this mission!  Over the months, the tenacity of my efforts to obtain "the" telephone number has at least the merit of being a source of inspiration of jokes for my entourage, but finally….yessssss! I’ve got it!

Voice from the back of the workshop: ‘Ha, ha, ha, yes, but it’ll never work!
I pick up the handset of the telephone. The cord uncoils slowly, I feel like Indiana Jones, poised to give a flick of his whip, only this time the target's on the other side of the Atlantic.

(To tell you the truth, I am freaking out a bit…)

*("chance" - Ha! Ha! Ha! this word - Ha! Ha! Ha! I can't take it anymore! lol! )

 

First contact!

Sitting at his desk, one of the big chiefs of the mission is wondering about some old comic books produced by his predecessors that he has just found in the archives:
‘Lord, would it not be a good thing to do these again….?’
Like a reply to his prayer, the phone rings….it's me calling.
The guy, in a bit of a state of shock, doesn’t give anything away, but asks to know more.

One thing leading to another, from Skype to official correspondence, with the help of a real treasure by the name of Heyidlovetoeatasteak (not her real name), discovered at about the same time, who helps me translate my poor English (awesome coincidence: she lives 30 mins away from the mission), he ends up giving me an appointment in his office.
(Little, but non negligible detail: for me, this latter is situated at the other end of the earth!)

 

Rendez-vous with destiny

My first rendez-vous (just before the appointment with him) will be on Tuesday 11 June at 8.00 a.m. on the dot.
They are giving me 10 minutes to give my testimony to the 300 members of staff. A special privilege which will not be offered a second time, if I were to happen to arrive late. (Late, me... !? Never !)

I fly away into the void

After scraping some money together for the flight, I honestly think that I won’t have enough money for a hotel... But that doesn’t matter, the stakes are too high, I am taking my flight. To Washington, then I have to get a connection.

I enjoy making friends with everyone during the flight (that’s what I’m like.... !) As I leave the first plane, the stewardess, glad to have been able to have a chat with me in Spanish, tells me: ‘If ever you need any help, I’m here till 11 p.m.!’
She knows perfectly well, however, that I am leaving on the 5 p.m. plane.  I have a sense of foreboding...
‘Lord, could it be, by any chance, that you are trying to tell me something ... ?’
Whatever... Tomorrow morning at 8.00 I have a rendez-vous with my destiny (and indirectly with that of millions of disadvantaged people) and that’s all that matters.

 

Sorry, it’s not going to be possible !

5 p.m.: the plane’s cancelled !
‘No problem ! You can take another one at 8 p.m.,’ the lady behind the desk tells me, with an embarrassed smile.
8 p.m.: the plane’s cancelled again and rescheduled for 10 p.m.
10 p.m.: it’s cancelled for good.
A bone to chew for the complainant

Faced with my consternation and my persistence, the smile of the lady behind the desk is no longer anything more than a muscle exercise.  Her voice betrays some annoyance. The politeness is just a light veneer of kindness behind a cold, professional indifference.  She hands me a photocopied sheet with writing in an incomprehensible language: the language of administration (and in English to boot). As the solution for every problem, it contains the number of an automated answering service, where I won’t even be able to leave a message. I get the idea: this sheet of paper is nothing but a bone to chew on, so that the complainant leaves her in peace; to accept her piece of paper is to give up. There is so little understanding in this place that I decide to give it some of mine (the person really responsible is hidden behind her; I fully understand that this evening can’t be easy for her either).
I take the piece of paper.

The Hispanic stewardess

I know nobody here, I am so far away from home, the airport is about to close and I am politely asked to vacate the premises by guys who look like policemen and who are just doing their job, and, of course, it is nobody’s fault... (him again!)
Mercifully, I meet the Hispanic air hostess again. She explains to me what options remain for me: in other words... nothing !
She provides me with a thin blanket and a wash bag with a toothbrush kit, and she looks sincere when she wishes me all the best before heading off; when all is said and done, at least she did respond to my most basic need - a semblance of compassion in this artificial world.

Abandoned

A drop-out... I wander around the airport with my luggage and my guitar on my back.
It’s not the first time that I feel completely dumped. But this awful feeling of abandonment is surely nothing compared with the way the thousands** of people feel that I intend to help through this journey... , for, if I don’t understand anything either about what is happening to me, I know at least that, for sure,  God is not far away.

You would think that another invisible force was trying to prevent my rendez-vous. However, I have to make it, they’re counting on me... ! (or not)
Who knows, maybe, some day, someone will thank me for doing this...
(**in reality it’s much, much more, but I am just saying thousands so you don’t think I’m a show-off)

 

Zombie territory

The only seats that I can find nearby have nasty arm-rests, and I have the impression that they are deliberately designed like that to prevent a poor guy like me from stretching out on them. I can just about manage to work out the level of lack of decent compassion required to have the ability to ask an engineer to design a seat like that. I lie down well underneath it so that a passer-by doesn’t trample on me. If the fake luxury marble floor isn’t a great success as far as colour is concerned, it is excellent when it comes to durability. I think that I have never appreciated a blanket as much (even if it was lightweight) as during that night.

I am worn out, *ç%&/()= ! have to sleep, but is it sensible to do that ?

As I don’t have much power left on my mobile phone, which serves as my alarm clock and I am afraid that it won't ring on time, but I also don’t have much power left in my body, I doze….
During the night, several people come and kick me all over to rob me; or did I just dream that?  Anyway, I feel in the same state as if it had been real: I am shattered!  I wake up all the time wondering if I have been sleeping or not….

Strange zombies are wandering here and there all around me (…No, phew……! they’re just weirdos). I cling tightly on to my suitcases so that they don’t run off, in case, inadvertently, my tiredness leaves this body for the land of nod…..as long as I get up in time for my plane.

 

4.30 a.m., I'm waiting at the end of an interminable queue that isn’t moving forward (blast, am I becoming a zombie too!?). Victory is possible, the plane is taking off (and what’s more, I’m inside!) Before losing power, my mobile had received a message from my two guardian angels (prayer team, see the comic book Appointment in the forest page 33) to tell me that they were on to it.

Heyidlovetoeatasteak and her husband are waiting for me at arrivals. (Amazing - but then that means that contacts on the internet are real people!!?)

part 1    part 3   part 4
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A time to sow (an idea that germinates)

A universal language

‘Hey Alain, do you realise that you are one of the few people who are fluent in a language understood in any lingo on the planet, even by those who can’t read?’

‘Eh? Who? Me? How’s that...?’

‘Through pictures! You fattie: pictures!’

‘I’m not fat!!!’

My conscience is getting to me (you're witnesses: all it ever does is go on at me about my weight!!!)

So I think up a story without words which sums up, exclusively in pictures, the heart of the Bible’s message. I set to work...(compared to a white whale, I’m even …..downright ultra slim!!!!)

A time to grow

 

The twinkle in Doc's eyes
I almost forget the realities that surround me during the weeks that this stage of the creative process lasts. All my heart beats for now is this quest. Totally absorbed in the task, I scarcely sleep more than 4 hours a night and get a boost from shots of pure adrenaline, drawn straight from the cask of this all-consuming passion...

Only once the sketch I am working on is finished do I lift my nose from my drawing board. (Well I never, are there people around me?)... 

And, as in the film “Back to the Future”, in the manner of Doctor Emmett Brown in his moments of ecstatic creativity, crazed, I grab a passer-by to show him my drawing. Without any further explanations. 

I watch his facial features attentively while he is reading, and if I detect him pulling the slightest grimace of incomprehension, I snatch the sketch from his hands, leave him high and dry with his questions, to return straightaway to my drawing board in order to think up a more comprehensible scenario.

 

Winter time (when nothing happens)

‘I’ve fiiiiiinished!’...
This is what I used to shout as a child on the potty when I had finished doing my business… But here, once my work is finished, (er….the comparison stops there, okay!?), there’s silence, no-one comes…

I find myself alone with my comic book. 

It’s as if a workman had failed to turn up to finish the job.

Didn’t he hear the call? Doesn’t he feel up to it? Might that be you? How can we now get this little book without words into the hands of the potential target audience?

If you would like to see the little book without words, click here:http://www.auderset.com/en/bd-sans-parole

 

The Spanish example
This isn't the first time that this situation has happened to me…..

I was filled with a strong surge of love for Spanish-speaking peoples, to the point of being moved to tears for them. (Is it serious, doctor?) A love like that could only come to me from above! (Personally, I have nothing of that kind in stock.) I therefore put a crazy amount of energy into translating my comic book "Conventional Wisdom"*1 into Spanish using my pure line of descent to help me out (friends, family, etc...) and once it was finished: NOTHING. 

I didn't know what to do with the book. I put it away in a drawer in the workshop alongside my hopes for it, and I moved on to something else.
If you would like to see this book, Conventional Wisdom, click here: http://www.auderset.com/en/comics/idees-recues-1

DIY
How are we now going to get this little book without words into people’s hands?

I benefit from having a small network within the French-speaking world, but not a Spanish one as yet, let alone a global one…..

Not content to stop there, I decide to don, for a while, the guise of another: that of a prospector. 

 

part 2    part 3    part 4

 

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