Ce huitième tome des formidables aventures de Lapinot réjouira les amateurs d'albums de BD cartonnés, de livres en couleurs, de personnages animaliers et de mort.
(This eighth volume of the spiffy adventures of McConey will delight those who like hardback comic albums, colour books, animal characters and death.)
La Vie comme elle vient is a 2004 comic book by Lewis Trondheim. It is the eighth album of The Spiffy Adventures of McConey series, even if it was published after the ninth album, L'Accélérateur atomique. It is set in the present-day. Nadia invites friends for a party in her flat. One of the guests is a tarot card reader. She predicts someone will die.
La Vie comme elle vient provides examples of the following tropes:
- 13 Is Unlucky: There are 13 people at Nadia's party and someone will die.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Pierrot, who had appeared in all the previous albums set in the present-day, is absent, even if there are thirteen people at Nadia's party. No explanation is given about his absence.
- Cranky Neighbor: Lapinot and Richard have a neighbor who spits in the entrance hall of their building. They throw yoghurt on him as a revenge. Then the neighbor gets crazy: he injures Richard, Lapinot, Patrick and Felix. Richard is seriously hit and he falls into a coma.
- Darker and Edgier: This episode is darker than the previous installments of the series. There is a collective breakup scene and Lapinot breaks up with Nadia. Then a violent neighbor seriously injures Richard, who falls into a coma. Titi gets a lung tumor. Lapinot is attacked by thieves. Finally, The Hero Dies in a car accident.
- Downer Ending: Lapinot dies and his friends mourn him.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted. Marion is about to throw herself in a river, but somehow she changes her mind.
- Foreshadowing: Even before Marion's prediction, count how many times people evoke death.
- The Hero Dies: Lapinot dies in a car accident.
- Internal Deconstruction: Titi is unfaithful. He is dumped by his girlfriend in front of 11 of his friends. She says she cannot trust him. Richard makes silly jokes. He is half-killed by one of his victims. Lapinot tries to help his friends. He gets killed in the process.
- Look Both Ways: Lapinot dies this way.
- The Matchmaker: Nadia knows that Marion has a crush on Serge, so she invites both of them and encourages Marion to go for it with Serge.
- Meaningful Funeral: Lapinot's funeral in the epilogue.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The neighbor on Richard.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Lapinot's death, which fulfills the prophecy, occurs because he was trying to get to a witch who could prevent the prophecy from coming true.
- Tarot Troubles: Marion is a tarot reader and she predicts someone will die.
- Tonight, Someone Dies: As predicted by Marion, the tarot card reader, Lapinot dies in a car accident.
- Überwald: Marion uses a tarot from Svalonia. In Pichenettes, this country was located in Central Europe and already provided another paranormal artifact: a cursed stone.
- Unintentional Final Message: Lapinot leaves a message on the answering machine of his own flat. His friends only listens to it much later, after his funeral.
- Witch Classic: Lapinot tries to visit a witch, because she can change the future and maybe prevent the death of one of his friends. He gets killed in a car accident while trying to reach her house.
