Category: European

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Void


By Herik Hanna & Sean Phillips, colours by Hubert; translated by Nora Goldberg (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-084-9 (Album HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Proper Seasonal Shocker… 8/10

Delivered by Herik Hanna and Sean Phillips as a slim but oversized (282 x 206 cm) deluxe hardback edition, chilling deep space psycho-chiller Void was originally published by French publisher Guy Delcourt in 2012. It’s an eminently readable, bleakly absorbing example of dark psychological horror in the manner of Ridley Scott’s Alien, set in the most claustrophobic and hostile environment imaginable…

The terror commences in the silent, blood-splashed observation bay of Goliath 01, a colossal prison transport spaceship wrecked by astronomical mischance and human frailty. Battered and terrified survivor John pauses to take stock of his precarious position. With ears pricked for any hint of peril he reviews how, following a mass penetration by a storm of micro-meteorites, the monolithic penal vessel suffered a massive systems failure.

That however is not the real problem. In the aftermath of the one-in-a-billion accident, iconic war-hero and infallible mission commander Colonel “No Mercy” Mercer suffers some kind of breakdown and begins stalking the corridors, indiscriminately executing prisoners and crew alike with a space axe…

As John keeps frantically moving in a desperate cat-and-mouse gamble to stay ahead of the maniac, he experiences vivid hallucinations: reliving the deaths of his comrades and helpless charges, conversing with food and animals and even arguing with long-gone ex Nancy…

Can it simply be pressure and appalling danger, or is there some unfathomable aspect to the nature of space that drives everyone to madness? More importantly, will John be able to find an escape route before the relentless, remorseless Mercer catches up to him?

… And then Nancy suggests that he should stop running and kill the colonel first…

Rendered in a compulsive style reminiscent of the most powerful work of Richard Corben, this sharp, suspenseful, astoundingly atmospheric explosive tale unfolds in a grimy, gritty intoxicating manner, yet cunningly holds in reserve a devastating double twist…
Void and all contents © 2012 Guy Delcourt Productions. Translated edition © 2014 Titan Comics.

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The British Invasion


By Hervé Bourhis, translated by James Hogan (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1681123424 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Pourquoi pas, non?… 9/10

Despite a thousand years of “not getting on”, Britain and France are neighbours who have bathed and basked in the glow of each other’s culture, arts, achievements… and failures… with remarkable constancy and consistency. For as long as each nation has existed, this peculiarly dysfunctional relationship has periodically cross-fertilised the lives and adventures and judgements of all of us. We love their stuff and apparently they’re pretty cool about ours. The strange state of affairs (oh tee hee!) has also baffled countless observers from other countries and probably always will. C’est la vie, innit?

Now and here, music writer, graphic novelist, culture vulture and avowed anglophile Hervé Bourhis (The Little Book of Rock) has encapsulated his – possibly forbidden – love for les anglaise and all their works in a fabulously eclectic years-by-year catalogue of events, achievements, style-&-fashion forays, music-&-movie moments, and less definable landmarks. Beginning in 1962, and meandering all the way to 2022, the best, worst, weirdest, and wildest pub talking points, quiz question fodder and modern minutia of pop culture have been assiduously counted and crafted into a dossier of our innate spiffiness.

These are all graphically combined with listicles, celebrity call-outs, name checks, scandals, disasters, tragic passing (and a few who are probably still feeling someone’s boots dancing on their tombs, even through six feet of well-packed Albion dirt) and all the kinds of True Brit bewilderments that provoke our always astonished amis to doff their berets, scratch their pomaded bonces and mutter “sacred blue et focquinelle”…

Joking, japing and jesting aside, this is a superbly astute, stunning researched and wittily wrought dose of weaponised memorabilia, stuffed with fun facts captivating drawn and even offers the best index I have ever seen in its ‘Britbook Playlist’ section. This is something so many boomers deserve in their wrinkled gabardine (or latex: live and let live sez me) stocking this year.

I’ve been around – if not always awake – for all of the stuff cited here, and while I can’t say it was all as much fun as what’s on show on these crisp, fab-hued pages, it does stir memories, bouts of quiet pride and an odd urge to mumble “been there, did that, gottit, mum threw it away,” and “where are they now?”

Gosh, I say! Do you think the Germans could be induced to commit their thoughts on how terrific we’ve been to paper too?
Le Britbook, © DARGUAD 2023, by Hervé Bourhis, All rights reserved. © 2024 NBM for the English translation.

The British Invasion is published on November 12th 2024 and is available for pre-order now.
Most NBM books are also available in digital formats so for more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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Ginette Kolinka Adieu Birkenau


By Ginette Kolinka, JDMorvan & Victor Matet, Cesc & Efa, Roger, Tal Bruttmann & various; translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91422-423-2 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An Awful Truth That Must Be Told… 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

With its world-shaking reordering of society and all the consequent, still-felt repercussions of the rise of fascism and (hopefully) temporary triumph of totalitarianism, World War II – and the apparently ongoing/slowly gaining momentum third one – remain very much in people’s minds. I fear current events may well be inviting the world to revisit and reemphasise those hard learned lessons in the months and years to come…

The role of history in avoiding repeating past mistakes has never been more crucial and -thanks to brave and talented individuals and a trend for biographical and autobiographical sequential narratives – better armed than now. One chilling yet charming case in point is this testament, detailing the life and work of a Frenchwoman who survived Nazi concentration camps and enjoyed a “normal” life before latterly dedicating her last years to educating the world and preventing the reoccurrence we’re all anticipating today…

Born in February 1925, Parisian Ginette Kolinka (nee Cherkasky) enjoyed an unexceptional early life within a large, loving, non-religious Jewish family. That changed in 1940 when the Nazis took over. Fleeing across the divided nation (half under direct German administration and half under the puppet “Vichy” regime), Ginette and her kin were inevitably captured, processed through a methodically inhuman system and sent to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Birkenau. Ginette somehow survived as so very many did not and was liberated in May 1945.

She returned to France, married and remained silent about what she endured for fifty years, but was convinced by other Shoah survivors to share her experiences – particularly with school children. Kolinka became a tireless and passionate “ambassador for the memory” of those dark days and actions. Her efforts have been acknowledged with fame and numerous accolades, including a knighthood from (and eventual officer status in) the Legion of Honour, and appointment as commander of the Ordre des Palmes académiques for services to education.

Kolinka is a major force in spreading awareness of atrocity and in 2022 her life and achievements became this engaging and compelling graphic tome thanks to writers JDMorvan & Victor Matet, illustrators Cesc & Efa and colourist Roger. Rather than further précising Kolinka’s amazing story, I’ll just say that the tone seamlessly switches from sweetly engaging to appallingly chilling (and back again) with deft ease and the narrative conceit of contrasting flashbacks of Ginette’s historical recollections with a present day trip back to camp with a group of modern-day schoolchildren is shockingly effective and powerfully evocative.

Adding academic vigour and heartbreaking veracity, the tale is appended by Tal Bruttmann’s pictorial essay ‘Ginette Kolinka: A Survivor’s Story’, detailing everything from Paris under Nazi occupation to life in the camps, supplemented by photos, sketches, recovered artefacts and family memorabilia.

This tale is a potent counterpoint to the usual shock-&-bombast approach, devoting as much time to showing how far we’ve come and what we all stand to lose if those days and attitudes are allowed to resurface. Adieu Birkenau reveals how inhumanity, stupidity and simple evil can only be defeated by endurance and will. Here, we see acknowledgment of the nigh-universally disregarded contributions of women caught up in the conflict, and how the way to win against monsters is to not to be like them and never let them win.
© Éditions Albin Michel Départment bande dessinée, 2023. All rights reserved.

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Audrey Hepburn


By Michelle Botton, Dorilys Giacchetto & various, translated by Nanette McGuiness (NBM
ISBN: 978-1-68112-346-2 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-347-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An Elegant Invitation to Enjoy Finer Things… 8/10

A few years back publisher NBM struck pure gold with a line of European-originated contemporary arts histories and dramatized graphic biographies. This one is a gently moving but deceptively sharp peek at one of cinema’s most beloved icons and a very human star we all think we know…

As first revealed in a candid introduction from her second son Lucca Dotti, ‘Everyone has their own Audrey’, and what follows is a sweetly beguiling account that seeks to show the crushing lack of confidence that did not hold back a young wannabe dancer who eventually took the world by storm. Her hard work, lucky breaks, hard work, captivated mentors, unwise affairs, helpful and hindering men, hard work, recurring family tragedies and sheer determination are meticulously explored as the ingenue starlet navigates the most momentous period of social change women have ever experienced.

The lonely girl’s film and stage works are deconstructed and assessed through Audrey’s own harshly judging eyes, as are her relationships, and – in the end, just like a movie – the right ending finally occurs…

This is very much a classic rags-to-riches account, fetchingly rendered by Dorilys Giacchetto (Blind Date, Storie di vittime innocenti di Mafia, Idromele), who adds by turns sparkle and poignancy to the complex, almost accidental stellar stardom of meek yet resolute Audrey Hepburn. Detailed by writer Michele Botton (Abe Sada, il fiore osceno, Bukowski, Hotel Mezzanotte, Pink Future) what we want and expect to see all show up, paving the way for surprises and twists no one could foresee…

Bracketed by a ‘Prologue’ and ‘Epilogue’ focussed on Hepburn’s real passion – her work with children for UNICEF – and summed in ‘My Audrey by Michele Botton’, this easy breezy life story also offers academic rigour in ‘Essential Filmography, Book and Documentaries’ listings, resulting in a sweet confection any fan would by overjoyed to own.
© BelloGiallo2023. © 2024 NBM for the English version.

Most NBM books are also available in digital formats so for more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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1066: William the Conqueror


By Patrick Weber & Emanuele Tenderini, translated by Pierre Bison and Rebekah Paulovch-Boucly (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital only

Although I’ve never for a moment considered history dry or dull, I can readily appreciate the constant urge to personalise characters or humanise events and movements, especially when that job is undertaken with care, respect, diligence and a healthy amount of bravado.

An excellent case in point is this superb, digital-only (still!) retelling from 2011, ruminating upon and postulating about individual motives and actions, whilst relating the verifiable events leading up to the most significant moment in English – if not full-on British – history  – apart from all the other ones. Other individual and national opinions may apply…

In case you were one of those who were asleep, surreptitiously ogling a classmate who didn’t even acknowledge your existence, or carving your name into a desk or body part: on October 14th 1066, a force of French invaders led by William, Duke of Normandy clashed with the forces of Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson in East Sussex near Hastings (most historians agree that the actual bloodletting happened in a place later dubbed – for no apparent reason – “Battle” and commemorated thereafter by the edifice of Battle Abbey.

Translated into a compelling, lively and lovely digital edition thanks to the benevolence of the collective imprint Europe Comics, 1066: William the Conqueror opens with historian and author Patrick Weber’s foreword ‘Before Setting Sail’, revealing how the magnificent Bayeux Tapestry closely inspired the fictionalised account he crafted with veteran comics illustrator Emanuele Tenderini (Dylan Dog, Wondercity, World of Lumina).

The story is gripping and savvy, putting flesh and bones on a wide range of complex characters, all trapped in a web of royal intrigue and savage power politics, long before Halley’s comet appeared in the skies over northern Europe more than a millennium ago. The war of nerves between the kings and kingmakers of proto-England, machinations of the ferocious Godwinson clan and untrammelled ambitions of the Norman Duke play out against the pitiful backdrop of a rich and powerful country suffering for lack of coherent – or even barely capable – leadership. The parallels to today are painful to behold and we all know how the last shambles played out.

Here, though, is a possible explanation of why…

Most marvellous of all, this is also a brilliantly compelling adventure yarn with readers not sure who to root for before the big action finish…

Adding lustre to the tale is bonus section ‘Deep Within the Inner Stitchings’: an accessible exploration of the Tapestry, accompanied by character sketches and designs.

Potent, beguiling, evocative and uncompromising, this a retelling any fan of history and lover of comics will adore.
© 2015 – Le Lombard – Tenderini & Weber. All rights reserved.

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Halloween Tales



By O.G. Boiscommun & D-P Filippi, translated by Montana Kane (HumanoidsKids)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-654-5 (HB/Digital editions)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The trauma-tinged, gluttonously anarchic ceremonies of Halloween are celebrated far and wide these days, and although the basic principles are fairly homogenised, different regions can throw up a few enticing variations that are well worth noting. A graphic series that proved a huge European best-seller when released in 2017, the three stories comprising this magnificent hardback compilation are also available digitally in the original 3-album format, albeit translated into English for your delectation and approval.

Snob and eco-supporter that I am, these days, I’m going to say buy or gift the book if you like: I’m reviewing the electronic editions here…

Devised by writer/artist Olivier Boiscommun (Renaissance: Children of the Nile) and full-time screenwriter/scenarist Denis-Pierre Filippi (Gregory and the Gargoyles, Muse, Fondation Z, John Lord), these overlapping adventures focus on a band of kinds in an oddly archaic city of indeterminate vintage. It’s a place of towers and cathedrals, strange moods and winding streets, perfectly captured by Boiscommun’s exaggerated painting style.

The first album – Halloween Tales: Halloween – sees a gaggle of adolescents gathering to celebrate the night with frolics and mischief: elaborately costumed and frightening each other. However, gauntly-garbed Asphodel remains gloomy and aloof, eventually heading off alone. Her thoughts are locked on death, until she is accosted by a strange, clownish figure who seems barely real. He seeks to alter her mood and mind with a strange philosophy…

Second volume Halloween Tales: The Story of Joe is delivered in eerie monochrome tones and hues, returning us to the mountainous outskirts of that dreaming city where little Bea can’t understand why playmate Joe is being so mean. As they idle about on the rooftops, the boy and his new pet cat survive a close encounter with a huge bat that leaves Joe scarred and bleeding. His doting dad is too busy working these days, so it’s Bea who first notices some bizarre changes – physical as well as emotional – increasingly afflicting her friend, before culminating in him dealing with bullies who persecute them with terrifying power. Only when Joe’s awful transformation is nearly complete do Bea, the cat and his father find a way to challenge the tainted child’s descent into nocturnal isolation and monstrosity…

Scripted by D-P Filippi, Halloween Tales: The Book of Jack completes the trilogy with a return to vibrant colour as a pack of children, led by overbearing Stan, dare little runt Jack to break into a spooky haunted mansion. As the moppet mob approaches the dilapidated pile through a statuary-infested overgrown garden – or is it a graveyard? – lanky Sam tries to reason with her little companion. She has plenty of misgivings and a really bad feeling about all this…

Bravado and peer pressure win out, and Jack enters the derelict building, to discover the biggest library in the world in its centre. Suddenly panicked, he snatches up a tatty tome to prove his triumph and dashes for the door. Only when they are all safely back outside the gates does Sam realise there’s something odd about the book. Many pages are blank, but gradually filing with spindly writing every moment – each unfolding line magically recording what Jack is doing as he does it. Mean, jealous Stan sees an opportunity for mischief…

Next morning the book has vanished, and Jack is slowly becoming a gigantic, savagely uncontrollable beast. Sam knows what’s happened and starts searching the city for the miraculous chronicle, determined to get it and literally rewrite her friend’s appalling future…

With All Hallows festive celebrations inexorably installed in so many modern cultures, it’s grand to see an alternative to the almost-suffocating commercialising and movie tropes where heart, sentiment and yes, unease and outright fear can be safely experienced and expunged. These moody escapades are a true treat, in darkness or in light, and that’s no mean trick…
© 2017 Humanoids, Inc. Los Angeles (USA) All rights reserved.

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Little Tulip


By Jerome Charyn & Françoise Boucq (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80872-7 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Some creative teams spend all their time collaborating: crafting works that constantly remind us why we are wise to await their every effort. Other artisans only link up at agonisingly rare intervals, and when their newest works are finally finished we hungry lovers of their art can only breathe a huge sigh of relief and release.

A sublime case-in-point are the all-too-rarely seen concoctions of American crime author and graphic novelist Jerome Charyn (Johnny One-Eye, I Am Abraham, Citizen Sidel, Bitter Bronx: Thirteen Stories) and French illustrator Françoise Boucq (Bouncer, Sente, Jérôme Moucherot, Bouche de diable) who together created Femme du magicien/The Magician’s Wife and Billy Budd, KGB: uniquely compelling graphic novels which won popular acclaim and numerous awards all over the world.

Published in French in 2014 before – eventually – becoming available in a remastered English translation by Charyn himself, Little Tulip is a ferocious and captivating blend of bleak reverie, coming-of-age drama, noir thriller and supernatural vengeance tale, opening in New York City in 1970 where tattooist Pavel plies his trade under the admiring gaze of fascinated teen Azami. She too is enslaved to the act of drawing, and wants to know everything: how to mark the skin, the secrets of adapting past designs, where and how the master got his own skinful of stories…

The city is in a growing panic. A serial-killing rapist dubbed Bad Santa is terrorising the night: targeting late-working women like Azami’s mother, so Pavel is keeping a quiet eye on them both. He’s actually far more informed than most citizens, as his uncanny ability to draw likenesses from the barest of witness accounts makes the old man a crucial component of the cops’ war on crime.

This almost magical ability has been consistently failing in regard to Bad Santa’s killings, however, and mounting tension makes Pavel dream of his own appalling childhood…

Just after WWII ended, his artist father emigrated from Washington Heights, USA to the Soviet Union to work with legendary film-maker Sergei Eisenstein. In those constrained environs Pavel absorbed a love of drawing and hunger for creative expression that could not be crushed even when a political climate shift saw him and his family arrested as spies before being shipped off to the horrific Siberian gulag Kolyma.

The daily casual atrocities of the corrupt guards were worse than what the boy experienced at the hands of the rival criminal gangs who actually ran the prisons. Soon he was alone, but his instinct for survival and gifts as an artist set him upon a new path, creating the sacrosanct, almost-holy tattoos inmates used to define, embolden and characterise themselves.

It was not the only art Pavel learned. As he grew older he became the top gladiator of his gang: a fast, deadly warrior with a blade in pitch darkness or broad daylight…

As the killings continue in the blighted Big Apple, Pavel’s thoughts keep returning to the unceasing stream of hardships and atrocities he experienced in the camp. Slowly a grim conclusion comes to him about the nature of Bad Santa… but too late for him to save the people nearest and dearest to him…

Bleak, uncompromising, seductive and painfully authentic whilst tinged with a smear of supernatural mystery, the story of Little Tulip is an unforgettable peek into the forbidden and the profane that will take your breath away. In 2020 notional sequel New York Cannibals was released, and one day we’ll get around to that one too…

Also included in this album-sized (280 x 210 mm) full-colour paperback is a glorious selection of sketches and working drawing in an entrancing display of ‘Artwork by Françoise Boucq’ to inspire you to making your own meaningful marks on paper – or any preferred medium…
© 2014 Jerome Charyn and Françoise Boucq. © 2014 Le Lombard. Lettering © 2016 Thomas Mauer. All rights reserved.

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Agatha – The Real Life of Agatha Christie


By Anne Martinetti, Guillaume Lebeau & Alexandre Franc translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91059-311-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

This year celebrates 125 years since the birth of Agatha Christie and it’s rather odd to think that someone so quintessentially English, purportedly old-fashioned and adamantly upper (middle) class can belong to the entire world, but in the case of Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan DBE it’s inescapably true.

Anointed both “Queen of Crime” and “Queen of Mystery” she remains the author of the world’s longest continually running play – The Mouse Trap – and is officially Earth’s best-selling fiction author. Moreover, she was Really Quite Good at her job and if you’re the one who hasn’t read her yet, just get on with it: you are letting the side down most dreadfully…

Her literary appeal and plotting ingenuity, as most effectively expressed throughout this pictorial perambulation via metafictional icons Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple (and many other creations (such as Tommy & Tuppence, Mr. Parker Pyne, Harlequin and Ariadne Oliver), is truly global and inspires generations of readers every day.

Such can be seen in her own fictive alter ego Ariadne Oliver and the many other depictions of the author-as-investigator, as seen in graphic novels like The Detection Club or this bold offering from France blending incontrovertible fact with rational deduction, wild extrapolation and delicious speculative fantasy on the manner of highly polished professional Fan Fic…

Agatha – La vraie vie d’Agatha Christie was co-written by author/Editor Anne Martinetti (Creams and Punishments) and author/documentarian/graphic novelist Guillaume Lebeau (Crimes on Ice). Beguilingly illustrated by Alexandre Franc (Victor et l’Ourours, Mai 68: Histoire d’un Printemps, Le Satellites, Cher Régis Debray), it was released in 2014 and made it into English as Agatha – The Real Life of Agatha Christie two years later.

Telling tales within tales, it takes as its starting point the infamous but true “lady vanishes” incident from December 1926 and from that event weaves a mesmerising tapestry exploring the childhood and early unsettled existence of Agatha Miller and the stellar life – or lives – she ultimately made with the sweat of her brow…

That only really began after extricating herself from an extremely troubled marriage to dashing pilot-turned-failed-businessman Archibald Christie…

Although this story is awash in fact, drenched in detail and delivered with compelling charm I’m not sharing much of that with you: magnanimously opting to let readers enjoy the unfolding and infinitely re-readable glee of seeing a true world – if not real life – enigma peeled back before your very eyes, whilst all around you some of the most captivating character-play and psychological analysis ever concocted holds the attention and hopefully tickles your little grey cells…

Playfully messing with chronology we see her life and death, disappearance and rise to dominance, capacity to forward-plan, wild adventurous life and loves as well as possibly peeking within, thanks to beguiling tête-à-têtes between Agatha and her great, incisive, pitilessly unforgiving and inescapably present totemic creations…

All the compelling speculation on events, triggers and their aftermath are bolstered by a lengthy and comprehensive Appendices section, containing an extremely complete Timeline of her eventful life, backed up with a mammoth Bibliography of her many, many, so many books and plays…

A sublimely visual examination of the world’s most accomplished wordsmith, Agatha – The Real Life of Agatha Christie pulls off the near impossible trick of using a picture book to make literature irresistible. Surely you need to see for yourself?
© Hachette Livre (Marabout) Paris 2014. All rights reserved.

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750cc Down Lincoln Highway


By Bernard Chambaz & Barroux, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-245-8 (album TPB/Digital edition)

For such a relatively young country, there’s an astounding amount of vibrant – and largely self-perpetuating – mythology underpinning America. Cowboys, Indians, colonialism, Manifest Destiny, gangsterism, Hollywood, food, Rock ‘n’ Roll and even names and places have permeated the imagination of the world. This last even created its own sub-genre: tales of travel and introspection ranging from Kerouac’s On the Road to Thelma and Louise via the vast majority of “Buddy movies” ever made.

Somehow, such stories seem to particularly resonate with non-Americans. Scots, French and Italian consumers are especially partial to westerns, and Belgians adore period gangster tales set in the golden age of Los Angeles. I must admit that during my own times stateside there was always a little corner of my head that ticked off places I’d seen or heard of from films, TV or comics: Mann’s/Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Central Park, Daly Plaza, Empire State Building as well as uniquely American moments and activities – pretzel cart, bag of potato chips bigger than my head, bar fight, someone saying “yoo Brits…” – as I experienced them myself. That’s the true magic of modern legends.

It’s also the theme driving this beautiful travelogue depicting life imitating art…

Available in oversized (288 x 214 mm) paperback and digital formats, 750cc Down Lincoln Highway reveals how a French competitor in the New York Marathon takes a cathartic life detour after getting a “Dear John” text from his apparently no-longer Significant Other one hour before the start.

Understandably deflated, he hits a bar, discovers bourbon and strikes up a conversation with one of life’s great survivors…

Ed’s barfly philosophy hits home – as does his description and potted history of the Lincoln Highway – and before long our remarkably reliable narrator has hired a motorbike and opted to cross the USA along the historic route from East Coast to West…

Rendered in a dreamy, contemplative wash of greytones, his ride becomes a shopping list of transitory experiences confirming – and occasionally debunking – the fictive America inside his head and his preconceptions of the people who live there.

Putting concrete sounds, tastes, sights and smells to such exotic ports of call as Weehawken, Princeton, Trenton, Philadelphia, Gettysburg, Pittsburgh, Zulu, Fort Wayne, Chicago, Dekalb, Mississippi, Central City, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Eureka, Reno, Lake Tahoe, Berkeley and so many other places before reaching the highway’s end at Poteau Terminus, the once-broken rider regains his life’s equilibrium and gets on with the rest of his life, happy that the trip and anonymous people he met have rewarded him with fresh perspective and rekindled hope…

Written by award-winning novelist, poet and historian Bernard Chambaz (L’Arbre de vies, Kinopanorama) and backed up by an extensive map of the trip, garnished with suitable quotes from Abraham Lincoln, this is quite literally all about the journey, not the destination…

This beguiling excursion is realised by multimedia artist and illustrator Barroux (Where’s the Elephant?, In the Mouth of the Wolf), serving as a potent reminder of the power names and supposition can exert on our collective unconsciousness.

It’s also a superbly engaging, warmly inviting graphic meander to a mutual destination no armchair traveller should miss.
© 2018 URBAN COMICS, by Chambaz, Barroux. ©2020 NBM for the English translation Hearst Holdings Inc. All rights reserved.

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Goblin Girl


By Moa Romanova, translated by Melissa Bowers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-68396-283-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Scandinavian artists and authors seem to have a real knack for combining comics with therapy and producing truly memorable books you really want to tell your friends about. Like this one…

Stockholm resident and dog-lover Moa Romanova (Moa Johanna Strinnholm as was) came into the world in 1992 in Bollstabruk, Kramfors Municipality, Sweden. She’s an artist and musician who studied painting at the Gothenburg School of Fine arts before becoming a worthy graduate of the wonderful Malmö Comic Art School. She’s done a whole bunch of other stuff too, such as fanzine On Tour and second graphic novel På glid (Off the Rails). Today, though, let’s plug her multi-award-winning debut graphic novel which English-language readers can see as Goblin Girl. Available in at least seven languages so far, it started life as Alltid Fucka Upp when first published in Sweden by Kartago förlag.

The Goblin in question is a young woman of artistic temperament and ambitions who suffers from crushing panic attacks and other contemporary insecurities. Despite being broke and stuck in a grotty squat over a shop, she’s getting by, thanks to mum, friends and a counsellor I personally wouldn’t give house room…

Looking for love – aren’t we all? – she hooks up online with a minor TV celeb who’s far too old for her, but at least he seems to listen. It’s not undying passion, but in the absence of anything better…

He seems to want nothing, and validates her life …even offering to sponsor her art career. Are things finally looking up? Aren’t there always strings attached?

And so, her life progresses via drink, panic attacks, other people, concerts, social services, work, no work, body issues, relationships, fraught travel, psych evaluations and admissions: all the crap making up a modern life if you’re not born perfect but still have a brain to be unhappy and discontented with…

Dealing with contemporary life, mental health issues and the inescapable problem of unequal power dynamics in all relationships in an uncompromising but astonishingly steady – if not upbeat – manner, Goblin Girl (available in breathtaking oversized hardback or digital editions) is a remarkable testament and to modern living and appraisal of the costs involved, beautifully drawn in a deliberately ugly way and deeply, inescapably moving. You won’t all like it, those who do won’t like all of it and those of you who take it on will read it over and over again and still come away wanting more…
© 2020 Moa Romanova. English translation © 2020 Melissa Bowers. This edition © 2020 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.