- The novel’s starting point came from an interview at city hall and was transformed through fiction.
- Sun City creates distance between real-world inspiration and the satirical story.
- Local power, corruption and bureaucracy become sources of dark comedy.
- The origin story leads readers toward the characters and Cannibal Western itself.
Artagan’s Journal · Behind the writing
At the age of twenty, Artagan imagined and wrote almost the entire first text of Cannibal Western by hand, just after a job interview at a city hall. Interrupted by family difficulties, the project was completed much later, when technology finally allowed him to bring his characters to life.
How was Cannibal Western born?
Cannibal Western was born at a very precise moment in my life. I was twenty and had just left a job interview at a city hall, where I had gone to ask for work. As I left, something was triggered. The ideas, situations and tone of the narrative emerged almost immediately.
I began writing by hand. The text came with such force that I wrote almost the entire first version then. There was no publishing project, strategy or communication plan. There was simply a story demanding to be written.
Why did the book remain unfinished for so long?
I was unable to finish the text at the time. Because of family difficulties, I no longer had anywhere to write. When one loses one’s space, stability and the most basic conditions for creation, even a vivid story can be forced into silence.
The manuscript had not disappeared. It remained suspended, as if its characters were waiting for me to return. I finally resumed and completed it much later, with the same view of power, ambition and absurd mechanisms I had observed at twenty.
Time had interrupted the writing, but it had not made the subject old. It had made it even more current.
How did technology bring the characters to life?
By the time I completed Cannibal Western, available technologies had changed profoundly. They allowed me to go beyond the manuscript and visually create characters I had carried for years: Billy S’étouvu, Gravité, the mayor of Sun City and the other figures in this world.
The text could now meet image, voice, music and video. The characters were no longer merely described: they could appear, adopt an attitude, inhabit a setting and extend the satire in a new form. Technology did not invent the story; it gave me the means to make visible a world imagined long before.
Why does Cannibal Western remain current?
Corruption, dubious recruitment, arranged audits, manipulated contracts and administrative absurdity were already at the heart of the original text. The years have not weakened these themes.
The book uses dark humour and the distance of the western to discuss very contemporary mechanisms: power, cynicism and the ease with which the abnormal can become routine.
To explore this angle further, read how French satirical fiction and dark humour expose corruption in Cannibal Western.
What influences shaped this world?
Since childhood, I have been deeply inspired by René Goscinny’s remarkable dialogue and Morris’s extraordinary sense of the absurd in drawing. Their ability to draw humour from a line, a silhouette or a situation has permanently nourished my imagination.
Cannibal Western belongs to this passion for dialogue, rhythm and visual comedy, while developing a personal world devoted to the contradictions of our time.
Step into the world of Cannibal Western
Discover the book, its characters and their videos, then continue exploring Sun City.
Frequently asked questions
How old was Artagan when he began Cannibal Western?
He was about twenty when he wrote almost the whole first text by hand.
Where did the idea originate?
After a job interview at a city hall where Artagan had gone to ask for work.
Why was the manuscript completed much later?
Family difficulties had deprived Artagan of a place to write.
What role did technology play?
It enabled Artagan to embody the characters through image, voice and video while preserving the story imagined at twenty.
Lire cet article en français · First-person testimony by Artagan · Updated 30 August 2026 · Artagan’s Journal