Wake (comics)


Wake is a science fiction graphic novel series created by Jean-David Morvan and Philippe Buchet. The series has been translated to English and published in the United States by NBM Publishing. The issues are published in a large format as soft cover graphic novels. Issues 1 through 3 were published individually. Issues 4/5 and 6/7 were published together as single books. NBM Publishing have stated that they will not be publishing the remainder of the series in English in the United States.
Wake is space opera, exploring social themes about inequalities, corruption and colonisation.

Origin

The foreword to the art book 1000 Navïs states that the series was conceived at the prompting of publisher Guy Delcourt, who wanted a space opera to add to his catalogue. Jean David Morvan presented the name Sillage to Philippe Buchet, who conceived of the space convoy, but made them entirely alien to avoid comparisons to Battlestar Galactica. Similarly, the main character was made female to avoid comparisons to Tarzan.

Protagonist

The protagonist of the series is Navee, a young human female who was shipwrecked and orphaned on an alien planet. She was raised from infancy by one of the ship's robots, Nsob, and has never met another human being. The series uses Navee as an outside viewer of the Wake convoy as she adjusts to life in this alien civilisation.
The first volume of the series depicts the adolescent Navee topless. As a prerequisite for publication in the United States, the American publisher covered her breasts with a black felt marker in the American edition.
Navee is the only living example of humanity known to Wake. She is also unique in being neither a "psi active" nor a "psi passive"; that is, she has no telepathic abilities, but her mind cannot be read either. This lack of psionic talent of any sort comes in handy at times during the series.
Navee has white rectangular tattoos on her body. There is evidence to suggest she is not a true human being and these markings have something to do with it.
As the series begins, Navee has survived into adolescence and all the technology on her wrecked ship has finally failed. She lives a primitive life in the jungle of her world with her companion Houyo, a sentient tiger-like being. Her idyllic life ends when agents of Wake, a traveling civilization of many different alien species, arrives to Hotta-form her planet for Hottard colonisation. Prior to encountering Navee, Wake had extremely limited contact with humanity.
After some first contact friction, Navee is awarded salvage rights to her wrecked spacecraft and joins Wake with enough money to pay for her education and to commission a custom spacecraft for her to live in. When her money runs out, she goes to work for the Wake government as an agent and explorer within the Wake convoy and on technologically primitive worlds.

Wake

The Wake Civilization is a vast convoy of spacecraft that constantly travel around the galaxy in search of resources, races, and technology. This convoy drops hypergates as it travels, allowing instantaneous access to previously visited star systems. It is unclear whether Wake has any faster than light capability beyond the hypergates. The Wake civilization is very old. There are hints that it has circled the galaxy many times, and revisited many stellar systems over time periods sufficient to watch civilizations rise and fall. There is also evidence that Wake has terraformed planets and seeded life on them over a very long period of time.
As a synthesis of vast numbers of races with a long history, Wake is extremely advanced technologically. No two ships of Wake are designed the same, and some are clearly biological. Several ships and species are encountered in the convoy that are so different that communication is difficult or impossible, yet they are clearly a part of the civilization. Artificial intelligences are used everywhere, but are considered second class citizens and kept under control by the biological citizens. Advanced biological information storage and processing technologies are seen several times throughout the series.
The communication technology of Wake relies heavily on psionics, produced and manipulated by both biological and technological means. The citizens of Wake are classified by their ability to control the behavior of other beings through psionic powers and their susceptibility to control by the same means. This division of people into powerful and helpless categories is a consistent theme throughout the series. The exclusive use of psionics for communication is hinted at as one of the possible reasons why Wake and humanity have never discovered each other, as Nävis and presumably all humans are totally immune to psionic coercion and equally unable to manipulate or communicate with other beings through these means. This ability makes Nävis valuable as an intelligence agent of Wake's military, and use of this talent allows her to make a living.

Series style and subgenres

In an interview or commentary published in bilingual form in a collection of his drawings Buchet noted that science fiction had the peculiarity of "allowing a natural journey between past and future". The science fiction traditions of cryogenics and social manipulation at a grand scale made it possible for him and Morvan to explore the subgenre of steampunk in "gearing up", while the tradition of barbaric pre-industrial planets made an exploration of "sword and sorcery" possible in The sign of the Demons, and so on.

Publication

Issues published

Nävis

The story of Navee's childhood, created by José-Luis Munuera, Jean-David Morvan, Philippe Buchet, and Christian Lerolle, published by Delcourt-Neopolis.
–

Short graphic novels which takes place between principal chapters, published by Delcourt-Neopolis.
Return to early times of Navee's debut as fresh Wake-agent. By Jean-David Morvan & Philippe Buchet and Pierre-Mony Chan, published by Delcourt-Neopolis.