By Hubert & Kerascoët, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-315-8 (Album TPB) eISBN 978-1-56163-897-0 (Kindle), 978-1-56163-896-3 (Epub), 978-1-56163-895-6 (PDF)
French comics creator Hubert Boulard died suddenly on February 12th 2020. He is criminally unknown in the English-speaking world despite an astounding canon of wonderful work. Thanks to NBM, two more gems from his supremely enticing canon can now be added to your physical or digital bookshelf…
Technically this first fantastic, cunningly subversive fable is a re-release, having first crossed the linguistic divide way back in 2008, but its message has only increased in poignancy and potency since then…
Prior to establishing himself as mononymously revered “Hubert”, Boulard was born on January 21st 1971, in Brittany’s Saint-Renan. In 1994, on graduating from the École régionale des beaux-arts d’Angers, he began his comics career as an artist for such seasoned pros as Éric Ormond, Yoann, Éric Corberyan, Paul Gillon and more. Also highly regarded as a colourist, he morphed into a triple threat in 2002, and wrote strips for others.
He began with Legs de l’alchimiste – limned by Herve Tanquerelle – following with Yeaux Verts for long-term collaborator Zanzim and Miss Pas Touche (20th July 1922) illustrated with irrepressible panache by Kerascoët (married artistic collaborators Marie Pommepuy & Sébastien Cosset) and many others. Awards started piling up as he steered 14 separate series; many of them internationally renowned and celebrated, including Les Ogres-Dieux and Monsieur désire? An activist by nature, in 2013 he helmed and contributed to groundbreaking collective graphic tract Les Gens normaux, paroles lesbiennes gay bi trans: released to coincide with France’s national debate on legalizing same sex marriage and assuredly a factor in the measure becoming law…
His final book was with artist Zanzim: posthumously published in June 2020, and as yet unavailable in English. Peau d’homme is a comedy exploring gender and sexuality at the height of medieval European religious intolerance and social stratification, and I’m sure we’ll get that here in the fullness of time.
That era of “blood and iron” – and its fantasy potential – was frequently used by Hubert as a backdrop for his stories and here is utilised in a trenchant adult fairy tale revealing the cost of attraction and the dangers of wishing. Originally published in France between 2011 and 2014 in three volumes (Reine) Beauté is a deceptively witty and barbed parable following the many tribulations – and so few joys – of a homely peasant girl whose greatest wish is granted… and how it all lays low the mighty and destroys many kingdoms.
‘Wishes Granted’ introduces slow, unhappy Coddie: skivvy and household drudge in a rural mansion: teased by children and shunned by most adults. Her tedious, onerous duties include preparing all the fish the wealthy autocrats eat, so there’s also always something of an “atmosphere” around her. Despite being kind and gentle, it’s fair to say that she’s the kind of girl only her mother loves… although first son of the house Peter always pays attention every time he sneaks down to the kitchens for a stolen snack…
The scullion’s despondent misery seemingly ends when after years of leaving presents for the fairies, she accidentally frees one from a curse. Queen Mab is adamant about paying the debt incurred and casts a spell. Henceforth, although Coddie has not changed physically, all will see her as “the very idea of beauty in woman incarnate”…
The girl is too naive to realise that Mab has an agenda of her own or even to question exactly why the sprite was imprisoned in the first place, and trouble starts as soon as she reaches home. The women are astonished and envious and men who have ignored the drudge all her life now beg and plead and throw themselves at her: even attempting to kill each other to possess her. Even sweet pudgy Peter is enthralled…
When the male villagers form a mob to take her and the women try – and fail – to mar her loveliness, Coddie flees into the woods and is rescued/slash abducted by the Lord of the region. Young Otto locks her in his castle and makes her concubine. Coddie, unsurprisingly, doesn’t mind at all, even when he arbitrarily renames her “Beauty”…
Moreover, she can’t wait to make the villagers pay for how they treated her, both before and after her wish came true, and Mab reappears with a few suggestions…
Having driven Otto away with her demands for better and more opulent gifts and presents, Beauty pushes the manse itself into ruin and when a travelling artist tragically captures what he sees, the paintings and sketches catapulted her onto a global stage. As her image enflames the passions of lords and princes across the continent, knights start killing each other and regal overlord King Maxence of the Southern Kingdom and his top advisor/sister Princess Claudine intervene. Claudine immediately sees a strategic use for Beauty, but her scheme is thwarted when her brother falls uncontrollably under the commoner’s spell.
Second chapter ‘The Indecisive Queen’ details – with chilling echoes of Marie-Antoinette – how the kitchen girl inadvertently brings down two kingdoms as Max makes her his wife and mother of a child he cannot accept as his. Queen Beauty’s interference in state matters bankrupts the kingdom, decimates the nation’s cream of chivalry and drives the king into jealousy-fuelled madness and murder.
Moreover, the moment his great rival, archenemy and brother-in-law The Boar King of the Northern Kingdom claps eyes on Beauty, he too is seized by a mania to possess her and the resultant war destroys both nations…
Escaping with her un-ensorcelled and rather plain daughter Marine, Beauty resolves to have Mab revoke her wish in ‘Ordinary Mortals’ but the price the fairy demands is far too costly. Bonded to her child, Beauty is betrayed and sold to the Boar King: notional victor in the recent war. Allowing his wife Dagmar to know of his enslaved prizes seemed like a good idea, but soon the frenzy of possessing the fairy-touched treasure grips him and enrages his queen. Again death and death and destruction are the result – especially as Princess Claudine and Otto (now an unbeatable berserker knight) constantly harass and plague the victor’s occupying forces in advance of a full revolt and liberation…
Also a prisoner, Marine sets the final fall into motion by a simple demonstration of how to discern Coddie’s appearance under Beauty’s glamour, and the Boar King’s self-destructive behaviour escalates into overwhelming madness and inevitable catastrophe.
The child was born smart and when she learned to read, soon discovered the true history of Mab, albeit not soon enough to stop The Boar King again abducting mother and daughter (from his own citadel) and locking them way where only he could see them whilst letting the kingdoms doom and damn themselves…
Ultimately, Coddie and Marine break free and turn their attentions to stopping the true threat: fairies…
The blood-soaked saga ceases with a puckish ‘Epilogue’ set decades later, as some of those troublesome artworks of Beauty finally reach another almighty potentate in a distant land. He cannot believe or forget what he sees…
Smart, charmingly cynical and hugely engaging, the epic cautionary tale is sublimely realised by visual creators probably best known in the English-speaking world for Miss Don’t Touch Me and Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim’s Dungeon series. However, French phenomenon Kerascoët (joint pen name of married illustrators, comics & animation artists Marie Pommepuy & Sébastien Cosset) have generated a wealth of books for all ages including Malala’s Magic Pencil, I Walk with Vanessa, Beautiful Darkness, The Court Charade, I Forgive Alex, Paper Doll Artbook and more) to further delight the wide variety of grown-up readers everywhere.
Beauté © Dupuis, 2011-2013 by Hubert, Kerascoët. All rights reserved. © 2014 NBM For the English translation.
Beauty will be published on June 14th 2023 and is available for pre-order now.
For more information and other great reads please go to http://www.nbmpub.com/