Paris, May 1900. One fine afternoon, a colorful crowd throngs the Trocadéro square, in the middle of the incessant broom of the cabs and omnibuses that serve the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Indignant complaints arise suddenly from the omnibus coming from Clichy. In issue: Jessie, a 22-year-old woman encumbered by a huge suitcase, who roughly jostles passengers to get out of the vehicle.

Jessie.jpg

The scene has drawn the attention of three elegant young women, who’ve stopped to enjoy the show. They joke openly about Jessie and her enormous baggage (maybe they rushed, hilarious, to help her get off the platform?). Despite her modest allure, Jessie responds from ticking to tick, initiating a dialogue where spirit, irony and saucy allusions mingle.

What do our heroine and these three Parisians of the Belle Epoque say to each other? This is the first challenge of project Castafiore, a collective comic book experiment. Join us at www.castafiore.org