A satirical and realistic piece of work :

The saga of "Jérémiah, "with an eye to the future is directly concerned with the modern world and its problems. The "Blacks", Indians, racism, slavery, drugs, sects, money extortion, corrupted justice, the freeing of murderers and child abusers, the death sentence, electioneering and so on and so forth.

The communities are still isolated as there is no link between them. Exchanges are limited. They are often led by a power abusing leader. When several leaders share a society, they often mange this as a balanced game. It is understood that "sharks don't eat each other". We rapidly understand that when the intentions of a leader are just, he is seconded and manipulated by a damned soul. "Food orgies and games". That's what the population wish for. The game is marked by two tendencies.

It distracts the population, but brings money in to the leader. The game often balances out the power. Each clan has a champion wrestler in "La Ligne Rouge", and each match involves a percentage of money extortion. The loser is condemned to death by his clan.

When a sect is in power, the game is a ritual. In "Strike", the bowling alley boss delivers young girls to a guru. The guru gives them drugs, and brainwashes them before sexually abusing them.

Aesthetic hyperboles and mockery :

The scene settings are sumptuous and original in most of the stories. They show the megalomania and disproportion of the demented leaders.

When we think of the water cathedral in "Simon est de retour", the statue in "Alex", the rich convent in "Strike", or the leader's feline bird cage in "La nuit des rapaces" The settings are often odd, flashy, imitative, almost a mockery of what happens in the story, thus bestowing a satirical dimension..

The character of Caesar in "Ave Caesar" is a grotesque and laughable incarnation of the Roman em-perors. He wears Tyrolean costumes as he believes that Cesar wore them. The hyperbole is full of gags.

In "Trois motos…ou quatre", we reach the height of mockery, with a laughable gag on the last page. Winston, a legless cripple with a bad memory, can't remember that he gave his fiancée, Daisy, (who has just lost both legs in a settlement) a super pair of boots... [see illustration] .
Hermann forces his cynicism or black humour with this closing illustration of the album. Here, we can see Daisy, in Marilyn Monroe's famous position, sitting on an air vent which blows up her wedding dress and shows her two badly made false legs, while an amused Winston watches her sat in a wheel chair.

Bodies, shameless sexes :

The universe is hard, crude and virile. For example, we are not afraid of the "pissers". This topic is used over ten times. Things often take place in the men's toilets, (Boomerang, Strike...). At times, it's a pigeon which does its droppings in Kurdy's glass, or a person who needs to be sick. A representation of the nausea and disgust in the world. Weapons are omnipresent, certifying man's independence and virility.

Men only need women to screw, whereas women are looking for romance.

Take note that in this narrative, Jérémiah is kinder, more inhibited and better educated. He falls in love with Cheryl (Un cobaye pour l'éternité) [see illustration]
and even more in love with Lena but prefers adventure, and realises that love with her is impossible.

The disguises show the insecurity and appearances. Kurdy dresses up several times in order to get away with getting into the enemy lines. The conspirators are also masked (Boomerang, Julius and Roméa) and the leaders disguise themselves or make themselves up, too.

Violence and the myth of Sisyphus :

The post atomic world is less structured, which undeniably leads to violence everywhere. People are killed with all kinds of weapons, strangled ,immolated, electrocuted, attacked by cheetahs [see illustration] , killed with fire arms, knives, circular saws, hammers, they are hung, crucified, thrown into space, tortured and whipped. Humiliation arises by having your shoes pissed on, or your hair chopped off. Excusing oneself is hardly done as people must know how to get their revenge.

In a lot of the adventures, the tyrant is overthrown, one or two henchmen are killed and subjects saved from slavery. However, a new structure builds up behind the hero, another tyrant replaces the first, or the same one continues his reign. In the last adventures, we can see that the leaders are untouchable, and it is always the henchmen who pay the hard way. "Les Héritiers Sauvages" presents the case of the dethroned dictator. We believe that justice will triumph, but Jérémiah soon learns that the victims don't actually behave any better than their tyrant. The roles are simply inversed [see illustration].


Nature and Civilization :

There is a very evident contrast between the urban constructions and the wild. We see modern areas : skyscrapers, mad scientists' laboratories, fortified hamlets, abandoned industrial areas…
Nature is depicted by deserted countryside, marshes, forests inhabited by animals, and burning deserts .[see illustration]
All of the albums contain either a fire, flames, explosions, it is the force of destruction that reminds us of the violence in the world and society. (In "Strike", we can see the little old woman, who takes revenge on the guru who seduced her granddaughter by blowing up his car.)

The sects :

The topic of religious fanatics had been bothering Hermann for some time, but it was the collective suicide of the Jones sect in Guyana which really triggered him off. In "La Secte" we can see how strongly the followers depend on the manipulating guru. We can feel a fantastic sort of atmosphere combined with realistic elements, like these models, reproducing sect victims, who we imagine in the fog with burning torches and pieces of clothing hanging off them. Extreme violence reigns, all people who don't join the movement are executed. One of the scenes is worth mentioning, a father figure takes two disciples of Inemokh back (anagram of Khomeni). He is knifed in the back [see illustration]. We don't see any beating or blood, but it is an incredibly violent scene.

In "Strike", Hermann presents a pervert who drugs his victims before physically abusing them.

Child Abuse :

Hermann declared in an interview : "A few years ago, a man raped and killed a child in Liège (Belgium). Psychiatrists declared him as being ill and irresponsible, and he was locked in a mental asylum. He was freed a short time later, and began again only ten days later : another child, another rape, another murder.This criminal should never have been let out." Hermann is appalled by such decisions, and believes that such monsters should be put to death.
In "Simon est de retour", Sikorsky is a rich eccentric, who makes a living through his business and the illegal production of heroine. With the help of good lawyers, an excellent psychiatrist and a lot of "cash", he succeeds in freeing his brother Simon, accused of child abuse, from prison. Kurdy kills Simon mercilessly (because he paints Kurdy's mule yellow!) before getting rid of the psychiatrist. Kurdy carries out Hermann's ideas.


Jérémiah's murders :

In the first adventures, Kurdy doesn't tolerate killing. He gets led astray by a kind of justice which he believes is correct. A scene in "La nuit des rapaces" shows this. While Kurdy is being tortured, Jéré-miah threatens them with his gun, but he doesn't dare shoot at the torturer. He shoots without aiming at him several times [see illustration] . When threatened, he unintentionally kills an Indian with a knuckleduster. Then disgusted with the world, he accepts shooting people if it's in legitimate self defence. It's a way of becoming the righter of wrongs.

In the last editions, he chooses murder even if less drastic solutions are possible. Here are three examples.

La ligne rouge :
He mercilessly shoots down a wrestler.

Trois motos …ou quatre :
He kills a gangster with a hammer [see illustration]

Le cousin Lindford :
He doesn't think twice about setting a fatal trap for his pursuer.