Translation: Jamie Richards
Book Design: Michael Heck
5,000 km Per Second is a love story spanning the lives of two Italians named Lucia and Piero. The comic begins with their first teenage flirtation after Piero notices Lucy settling into an adjacent apartment and is immediately smitten by her appearance. Egged on by his best friend Nicola, the chapter ends with Piero making an awkward effort to catch Lucy’s attention. The narrative feels set to explore the unfolding tale of their first love. Instead, the start of the next chapter is set several years later and in a different country. Lucy and Piero have since broken up and are pursuing their separate careers. The succeeding chapters flit back and forth between their respective lives. And it ends with a bittersweet attempt to reconnect from the now two middle aged former lovers, significantly worn down by the intervening years. This is a story of how romantic relationships fail without showing the relationship itself, and without the plot contrivances usually employed in more glamourous Hollywood productions.
What compounds the deceptiveness is the ink and brushwork of Manuele Fior. The lush tones and bright palette are initially inviting and even indicative of a certain youthful naivete. And every change in location carries with it a sense of hopefulness. Fior’s expressionist figures are reminiscent of Paul Cezanne or a young Pablo Picasso. Their sensuous quality combined with the delicacy of Fior’s watercolors imbues every place with an exoticism that evokes the excitement of traveling to foreign places for the first time. Whether it’s Lucy studying the works of Henrik Ibsen while overlooking a lovely fjord in rural Norway, or Piero participating in an archeological dig in Aswan.
But the mood changes at the midpoint as Lucy and Piero slowly become disconnected from their environments. The initial excitement fades, only to be replaced by a sense of alienation. What once looked beautiful becomes oppressive. Time marches relentlessly forward, as expressed through the comic’s meticulous use of three-tiered rows of panels. The colors start to fade as if in response to their internal change. Lucy and Piero's attempts at cosmopolitanism only go so far. The local inhabitants remain mostly strangers or adversaries. The new country doesn’t become a second home. And returning to the old country doesn't provide any greater sense of belonging. When the much anticipated reunion finally takes place, Lucy and Piero’s accumulated life experiences and differing perspectives have created a vast gulf separating them. And yet, every relationship and heartbreak they’ve experienced separately is haunted by the shared memory of their first love. The memory which emerges from their meeting succeeds in interrupting the comic’s forward progress and allows for a flashback to circle the narrative back to the brightness of the first chapter.
But it’s only a momentary relief before life, in all its glorious indifference, forces them both to keep muddling forward.
