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When I was in Angoulême last year, the best looking book I found at the festival was Brecht Evens’ The Wrong Place. It was in French, but that was okay; it was just so beautiful, I didn’t care that I couldn’t fully understand the story. I read it backwards and somehow I got it. I think. Something about friendship. Painted in watercolor, this book really grabbed my attention. It was soft, but very powerful. Charming, but without too much fancy. Very direct drawing, painting, and proportions. Very skilled.

So, it was with great pleasure I read the new translation of the book in English and loved it. I was hoping the story would match the execution of the art.

Thankfully, there is a match. Art and story content are both on equal footing.

The story concerns a group of friends and their attachments to each other. Specifically everyone’s attachment to Robbie – who seems to be a heroic dancing fool who can charm the pants off anyone. There’s a party at a boring apartment owned by Gary, the boring party host. Everyone, including lots of cute girls, wanna know where Robbie is. So after sitting around we switch scenes to the Disco Harem where Robbie hangs out. Robbie is indeed there and the story takes off. (more…)

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Hey there, True Believers, welcome to Comics Comics Sunday edition. For those of you still following along, we’ve been talking about romance comics and also naturalism in comics. So, hopefully that all set the table for you, dear reader, and you will appreciate this week’s post before we get back into studying ye olde American romance comics during the coming weeks.

Manuele Fior’s 5000 Kilometres per Second was one of the most interesting comics that I found at last year’s Angouleme festival. I don’t know much about Mr. Fior and I think I’ll let him stay mysterious to me for awhile. Feel free to google him. Personally, I like to think of him as one of the artists whom I “discovered” while in France. I had never heard of him, no one had told me to check him out, he was completely off my radar. I searched and searched at Angouleme to try and find some artists that didn’t subscribe to what I call the dominant “Canniffer” style of European comics. It took days. I swear. There are so many books (they call them albums) to look through at Angouleme that it can be depressing when they all start to look alike. I’d search all day and not really find anything I really liked. I swear. Then one day I found Brecht Evens. The next day I found Bastien Vives. And on the last day I found Manuele Fior. These three artists – for my own personal taste – provided an oasis of sorts. They all felt, feel, current and conversant in a living language whereas many of their peers seem occupied with speaking in an older, distant language. Simply put, they aren’t “Canniffers” or “Blutchies” or “Girs” and I found that interesting. Still do. (more…)