Jessica Ligari was Cavell’s first collaboration with the erotic novelist Robert Mérodack. Essentially it is a lesbian fantasy imagined by men, and as such can be criticised as stereotyped and formulaic. But Jessica Ligari manages to transcend most similar fantasy, introducing elements of trans-sexuality, religion, psychedelic drugs, sex robots and online erotica which are way ahead of their time. Philippe Cavell’s drawings are remarkable, using a limited palette of coloured pencils to explore perspective and comic composition in novel and genre-expanding ways.

Is red-headed Jessica for real, or is the entire narrative a dream or a hallucination? ‘She is my friend, my intimate friend, you should understand. I could very well tell you about my life – the before, you know. In the past, I would have loved only her, and the juxtaposition of a multitude of faces, both similar and different, remains the focus of my desires.’

Les chefs-d'oeuvre de la bande dessinée érotique (The Masterpieces of Erotic Comics) praises Jessica Ligari’s ‘astonishing graphic technique using coloured pencils, rhythmic and sequential cutting, creating a universe of a disturbing cold beauty, a burning and growing eroticism. Within these mosaics of images hides a strange lovesickness, bordering on sadism but with sufficient delirium not to become a bloodthirsty love, engagingly fantastic rather than grotesquely perverse.’

Jessica Ligari was published by Collection Vertiges Bulles.