Before his creation :

In an interview done in 1982 Hermann admits to the fact that he sometimes has a very extreme character due to interior violence (Hermann, published by Alain Littaye), and that in 1975, under the pseudonym "Hair Mann", he felt the need to tell a cruel story. Perhaps this was his teenage crisis.

At this time, he hated all criminals and conmen more than anything else, and towards whom he felt a lot of sympathy and indulgence was shown. He found it unbelievable that one could soften to criminals but nothing was done to help people in deep misery. Although he is completely hostile towards any act of violence, he seethed with anger to see innocent victims of violence. He found that he needed to tell a "Charles Bronson" type story (c.f. film "Un Justicier dans la Ville".)

His inspiration came from the assassination of 5 people in Bel-Air (California) one of whom was Sharon Tate in 1969. In a similar setting, Hermann imagines an ending whereby the murderers are executed by the hero, the dispenser of justice. Nevertheless, this young man had to kill in order to save his own skin.

Hermann thought he would create a series with this young man as the hero, but when he had finished the first story, he didn't feel the need to carry it on. Furthermore, he maintained that " Violence is like porn matters, you can only say so much".

At first sight, we could imagine that Hermann takes pleasure in producing these ten series of illustra-tions in which we can feel the violence. [see illustration] But we would be utterly wrong. He told such a ferocious story quite simply to get it out of his system!

We can detect the opinion of the author in this story, even if we don't get the message : reality is more atrocious than fiction, and Charles Manson's real-life satanic sect is even more abject than the brutish characters imagined by Hermann [see illustration]. Why should we hide such horrors? Why be unaware of them? What the true character of Hermann wants to put across through his ten series of illustrations, is his disagreement, which he incessantly tells in the stories that he has written and illustrated. "Here are the actors, here is what happens, and here is the way in which I react". We can approve or not.

Currently, violence tends to have disappeared from his narratives, or is more discreet, even if a hidden tendency remains.

In this story, we notice the first steps towards the realization of his series "Jérémiah". In some ways, it's his first outline of a merciless world.