Alain wrote in November 1999: "In French, 'toile' means the web as well as the canvas of a painting, and 'sanguine' is the red chalk of a drawing as well as one of the adjectives derived from blood ('sang' in French). But would a love of colors justify a murder? 'Sanguine sur toile' is the strange story of an internet surfer caught up in an upheaval inside his own computer, which is being remotely operated by a very mysterious person whose only aim is revenge. I wanted to take the reader into the worlds of painting and enterprise, which intermingle, escaping and meeting up again in the dazzle of software. The reader is invited to try to untangle for himself the threads twisted by passion alone. To penetrate the mystery, he will have to answer many questions. Even with the world at his fingertips, isn't the internet surfer the loneliest person in the world? In view of the competition, what is the greatest degree of violence possible in an enterprise these days? Does painting tend to reflect the world or does it create another one? I also wanted to show that images are not that peaceful. You can use them to take action, even to kill." What part does the internet play in his novel? "The internet is a character in itself. Instead of being described in its technical complexity, it is depicted as a character that can be either threatening, kind or amusing. Remember the computer screen has a dual role - displaying as well as concealing. This ambivalence is the theme throughout. In such a game, the big winner is of course the one who knows how to free himself from the machine's grip and put humanism and intelligence before everything else." = The web and its hyperlinks Like many artists, Jean-Paul began searching how hyperlinks could expand his writing towards new directions. He switched from being a print author to being an hypermedia author, and created "Cotres furtifs" (Furtive Cutters) as a website "telling stories in 3D". He enjoyed the freedom given by online (self-)publishing, and wrote in August 1999: "The internet allows me to do without intermediaries, such as record companies, publishers and distributors. Most of all, it allows me to crystallize what I have in my head: the print medium (desktop publishing, in fact) only allows me to partly do that."