2023-12-25 20:00:05
Mangaka Tony Valente, author of the “Radiant” manga series, in his workshop in Montreal (Canada), November 10, 2023. VALERIAN MAZATAUD FOR “LE MONDE”
The last time we met him, Tony Valente had already achieved quite a feat: being the first French mangaka to see his animated series adapted for Japan. It was 2018 and its manga Radiant (Ankama) celebrated its 5th anniversary. An accomplishment, a symbolic step even. The year 2023 marks the first decade of its manga and the passing of one million copies sold worldwide (in more than twenty languages, including Japanese). And this month of December marks the publication of the 18th volume of the adventures of Seth, Mélie, Doc, Ocoho and the other sorcerers in search of the Radiant who will end their curse.
The joy of the beginnings nonetheless remains intact: “This surprises me, because usually I get tired quickly. But seeing all these volumes on my shelf, a real big series, does something to me…”, says Tony Valente, visiting Paris at the beginning of December to blow out the candles with his readers and inaugurate a pop-up store to celebrate his series. The French mangaka based in Montreal (Canada) braved the time difference for a long interview punctuated by espressos in a café in the Odéon district, not far from the shop. “With the first volume, it was the 10th comic book album that I made; and yet, it was the first time I felt like I had achieved what I wanted to do. »
Read also: “Radiant”, or the incredible adventures of a French designer in the land of manga
Despite the lack of sleep, Tony Valente emanates an almost inextinguishable energy. Of those which make him multiply the trips and the signings in the world with endless lines of readers, which make him tackle on average two albums per year – a much more sustained pace than that of the majority of his Western colleagues. A flame whose fuel is also the « pression ». “I remember what it was like before Radiant, to have no one reading me. I fear that this day will come again and that everything will end at some point. »
Fear fleetingly shakes the confidence usually exuded by his straight-forward, sincere, unflinching responses. Like his determination to launch into a manga format at a time when the European authors who had opened the way were still struggling to convince those who swore only by Japanese comics that productions outside Japan could compete with the authors of the ‘Archipelago.
A definite taste for fantasy
By choosing to write a manga shonen – a term which does not initially refer to a genre but now alludes to the codes that series like Saint Seiya, Dragon Ball, One Piece or Naruto have endorsed – Tony Valente has taken a manga path that is as thorny (given the competition) as it is obvious to him. Born in 1984, the designer cites Son Goku and Ranma among his favorite heroes – with Marty McFly from Back to the future –, discovered in the Dorothée Club in a home where we didn’t read comics.
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