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Back in 1997 the English artist Dan Pearce was invited to do a contemporary take on Oscar
Wilde by the editor of Punch, who
had seen a factual strip of his inspired by Richard Ellmann’s excellent
biography. He liked the suggestion that Oscar could be plucked from Reading
Gaol by aliens and returned one hundred years later. However, the following
morning, as Dan Pearce set off to sign his contract, he was phoned by Punch with the news that the editor
had been sacked and all his projects – including the strip – had been
cancelled.
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It was a blow, but Mr Pearce liked the idea enough
to begin to turn it into a graphic novel. Bill Hunter, a website designer,
saw it and persuaded him to let him publish it on the internet, as
‘Millennium Man’. After the strip had generated quite a bit of interest in
Germany and Japan and attracted a small but select fan club, the website was
discontinued and with it the serial. However,
the fan club included Danielle Guerin, one of the founder members of the
Société Oscar Wilde in France, who was able to contact Mr Pearce and ask if he
would be willing to have the strip published in Rue des Beaux-Arts, the Society’s bulletin which she edits.
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