Its primary subject being political complacency, this is a comic that speaks to this moment almost as vividly as the one that inspired it ... Gébé is interested in the influence of nostalgia on groupthink, something that has only grown the more corrosive in the decades since Letter to Survivors first appeared ... This is a book whose relative brevity and outward simplicity may, on a first reading, obscure its deep philosophical richness. It is, somehow, so incredibly French and all the better for it. To be read when you’re feeling at your most calm, possibly while wearing a black polo neck.
With its varieties of imagery and stories, Letter to Survivors is, for all it succinctness, effective, a pointed critique of contemporary life (and suggestion to get one's life together -- in particular, in confronting the capitalist order and its power structures and the life it tries (so successfully) to sell to consumers -- or else ... Quick and sharp, Letter to Survivors is a fine little graphic novel.
This odd blend of sf and satire of consumer culture raises more questions than it answers, but who needs answers when the cartooning is this elegant and the questions are this fascinating?
Built on a foundation of whimsical gallows humor, this book bursts at the seams with lessons as relevant to the current state of the world as when it was first published in France over 35 years ago ... Contrasting the thought-provoking stories, Gébé’s simple artwork is as playful as a children’s book. Through black-and-white cartoon linework, the characters of the letters and the family they are being read to are brought to life in a manner as satirical and pointed as the lessons they are depicting. This introspective and sardonic book makes it painfully clear how far society has failed to come in the decades since its debut.
