Boulet: Darkness

The 2000s and early 2010s on the internet were a time of unrestrained creativity. Silly little flash animations were everywhere. Talented nerds posted their memetic endeavours on Newgrounds, Albino Blacksheep, and many others. As social media barely existed in the modern sense, little pockets of the internet had their own playgrounds just for themselves.

One subculture I was deep into were webcomics. Some webcomics posted new pages daily, some thrice a week, and some only once a week. Some are still on-going, like Girl Genius, which I read to this day.

One day I came across a French cartoonist who went by the name Boulet. I believe it was on Reddit where someone had linked to an English translation of Boulet’s short story called Darkness. The adoration the tale received was deserved, and soon the strip was reposted all over. Most of Boulet’s website was in French, and only few select strips were translated to English. For an English-speaking reader, regular reading was difficult, and the website soon faded into obscurity.

Over a decade passes, and I’m suddenly struck by a memory. I had to find this strip. I remembered Boulet’s name and found his website. To my sadness, only the French version remained. He had deleted the whole English section of his website. Old direct links to the English version of Darkness returned 404.

I went on Reddit to find it, but all that was left were links to his website. Same with any other source I found on Google. Only one option remained: the Internet Archive. Thankfully, the Wayback Machine found it! With working images! I eagerly saved the pages for easier reading, read it, and forgot about it again.

Now that I have this blog, I may share it. I’m aware that if you run Boulet’s website through Google Translate, he says one should ask permission to use his works, but this time I’m having my own little moment of lame internet activism. I do not believe he would post the work if asked, as he has clearly moved on. I would also be surprised if he even had the English originals anymore. More importantly, I really want to share this piece of art with my friends.

Read the story by clicking the cover image below (24 pages).