Artist talk: Dominique Bertail

In France, Madeleine Riffaud, who died in 2024 at the age of 100, is a legend. At just 17, she joined the Resistance against the German occupation in Paris. Under the code name ‘Rainer’ – her favourite poet was Rilke – she demonstrated exemplary courage in numerous operations. Arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, she was released in the summer of 1944 and immediately resumed her struggle. The four volumes in which JD Morvan (text) and Dominique Bertail (illustrations) recount the experiences of this extraordinary woman can already be counted among the masterpieces of documentary comics.