Category: European

Posted on

Women Discoverers: 20 Top Women in Science


By Marie Moinard & Christelle Pecout, translated by Montana Kane (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-270-0 (Album HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-271-7

Comics and graphic novels have an inconceivable power to deliver information in readily accessible form, and – exactly like all the best human teachers – do so in ways that are fascinating, fun and therefore unforgettable. Here’s a crucial past highpoint in a wave of historical and biographical visual celebrations seeking to redress centuries of gender injustice while providing true life role models for coming generations… if we have any.

Crafted by writer, editor and journalist Marie Moinard (En chemin elle recontre, La petite vieille du Vendredi) & Christelle Pecout (Lune d’Ombre, Hypathie, Histoires et légendes normandes), Les découvreuses is a cheery compendium made comprehensible to us via translation into English by the fine folk at NBM. As the name suggests, Women Discoverers focuses on 20 NOT MALE scientists and researchers who generally sans fanfare, or even fair credit, changed the world. Some are thankfully still doing so.

A combination of comics vignettes and short illustrated data epigrams preceded by an impassioned Introduction from Marie-Sophie Pawlak (President of the Elles Bougent scientific society), the revelations begin with an extended strip history citing some of the achievements of the peerless Marie Curie – whose discoveries in chemistry and physics practically reinvented the planet. She is followed by brief vignettes of French biologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (discoverer of the HIV retrovirus), Canadian physicist Donna Théo Strickland (laser amplification) and African-American Dorothy Vaughan whose mathematical and computing skills served the world at NASA.

It’s back to comics for Ada Lovelace who revolutionized mathematics and invented computer programming, after which single page biographies describe the achievements of and lengths undertaken by French mathematician Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet AKA Émilie du Châtelet to attend men-only institutions in the days of the Enlightenment, before writing world-changing philosophical magnum opus Institutions de Physique.

Although separated by centuries, mathematicians Emmy Noether (Germany 1882-1935) and Niger-born Grace Alele-Williams (December 16th 1932 to March 25, 2022) both excelled and triumphed despite male opposition, but their stories pale beside the strip-delivered hardships of screen star, engineer, plastic surgeon and computing/mobile phone/internet pioneer Hedy Lamarr…

Another Nasa stalwart, mathematician/astrophysicist Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson, famously calculated Apollo 11’s life-saving orbit, while paediatrician Marthe Gautier discovered the origins of Downs’ Syndrome. Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani’s geometry discoveries were tragically cut short by illness, whilst the shameful treatment and fate of British researcher Rosalind Franklin also ended in unjust sidelining, a cruelly early death and belated fame, unlike French mathematician, philosopher and physicist Sophie Germain whose many (posthumous) triumphs never brought her inclusion in the numerous scientific organisations barring female membership during her lifetime and far beyond it…

Whereas Marie Curie’s daughter Iréne Joliot-Curie won similar accolades to her mother, astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered pulsars, only to have her (male) supervisor steal the credit. At least she’s still alive to see the record set straight and reap belated fame and awards (go Google Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell to see a rare happy ending)…

In pictorial form, astronaut Mae Jemison reveals her life and medical successes on Earth, before this potent paean closes with a trio of one-page wonders: Kevlar inventor Stephanie Kwolek, Navy mathematician Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (writer of the notorious, ubiquitous and utterly essential programming language COBOL) and Chinese chemist Xie Yi, whose advances in nanotechnology are still making the world a very different place.

Sure, you could ride a search engine to learn about them all, but this book is a far more satisfying and charming alternative and the very fact that you probably haven’t heard of most of these astounding innovators – or even a few of the more ancient ones – only proves why you need this book.
© 2019 Blue Lotus Prod. © 2021 NBM for the English translation.

Posted on

Surrounded – America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832


By Wilfrid Lupano & Stéphane Fert, translated by Montana Kane (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-348-6 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-349-3

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

As and when we actually get to hear it, history is an endlessly fascinating procession of progress and decline playing out eternally at the behest of whoever’s in power at any one time. However, don’t be fooled. It’s never about “opinions” or “alternative facts”: most moments of our communal existence generally happened one way with only the reasons, motivations and repercussions shaded to accommodate a preferred point of view.

The best way to obfuscate the past is to tell everyone it never happened and pray nobody goes poking around. So much you never suspected has been brushed under a carpet and erased by intervening generations proceeding without an inkling. Entire sections of society have been unwritten in this manner but always there have been pesky troublemakers who prod and probe, looking for what’s been earmarked for forgetting and shining a light on the history that isn’t there.

If I live long enough, I can’t wait to see what will be written about the next four years, but that’s a topic for another time…

One such team of intrepid histographic investigators are Wilfrid Lupano & Stéphane Fert. In 2020 they produced a sequential graphic narrative account of a remarkable moment of opportunity that was quashed by entrenched bigotry, selfish privilege and despicable intolerance. After far too long as a digital-only English-language edition (White All Around from Europe Comics), Blanc autour is now available in a lavish oversized hardback and new digital edition from those fine people at NBM. It opens with a context-filled Foreword before we meet servant girl Sarah Harris as she is tormented by ruffian child Feral, reading to her from an infamous new book…

Set one year after Nat Turner’s doomed black uprising of August 21st 1831 (which occurred in Southampton County, Virginia), this true tale took place in a land still reeling and terrified. Freshly minted preventative measures to control and suppress the slave population included banning black gatherings of three or more people, an uptick in public punishments like floggings, lynchings and ferocious policing – if not outright outlawing – of Negro literacy. The posthumous publishing of Thomas R. Gray’s The Confessions of Nat Turner had created a best seller that further outraged and alarmed Americans. Even in 1832, and hundreds of miles north in genteel Canterbury, Connecticut, black people were careful to mind their place. It might be a “Free State” where slavery was illegal, but even here Negros were an impoverished underclass…

Sarah, however, is afflicted with a quick, agile and relentlessly questioning mind. She craves knowledge and understanding the way her fellow servants do food, rest and no trouble from white folk. One day, fascinated by the way water behaves, Sarah plucks up her courage and asks the local school teacher to explain. Prudence Crandall is a well-respected, dedicated educator diligently shepherding the young daughters of the (white) citizenry to whatever knowledge they’ll need to be good wives and mothers, but when the brilliant little servant girl quizzes her, the teacher is seized by an incredible notion…

When the new term starts Sarah is the latest pupil, and despite outraged and increasingly less polite objections from the civic great and good – all proudly pro-Negro advancement, but not necessarily here or now – Miss Crandall is adamant that she must remain. When parents threaten to remove their children, the schoolmarm goes on the offensive, declaring her establishment open for the “reception of young ladies and little misses of color”…

Her planned curriculum includes reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, natural and moral philosophy, history, drawing and painting, music on the piano, and the French language, and by sending it along with her intentions to Boston Abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, Crandall declares war on intolerance and ignorance in her home town. Sadly, her proud determination unleashes an unstoppable wave of sabotage, intimidation, sly exclusion, social ostracism and naked hatred against herself and her unacceptable student. She even tries to defend the move at the Municipal Assembly, before learning that only men were allowed to speak there…

Crandall’s response is to make her Canterbury Female Boarding School exclusively a place for a swiftly growing class of black girls. All too soon, politicians and lawmakers get involved and harassment intensifies to the point of terrorism and murder. Connecticut even legislates that it is illegal to educate “colored people” from out of State…

The school becomes another piece in the complex political game between abolitionists and slave-owing states but still manages to enhance the lives and intellects of its boarders, until 1834 when Prudence Crandall stands trial for the crime of teaching black children. When she is exonerated, the good people of Canterbury take off the kid gloves…

Although this war was never going to be won, Crandall’s incredible stand for tolerance, inclusivity and universal education was a minor miracle of enlightenment, attracting students from across America and countering the long-cherished “fact” that blacks and females had no need – or even capacity – for learning. Moreover, though the bigots managed to drive her out, Crandall and her extraordinary pupils retrenched to continue the good work in another state: one more willing to risk the status quo…

This amazing story is delivered as a fictionalised drama made in a manner reminiscent of a charming and stylish Disney animated feature, but surface sweetness and breezy visuals are canny subterfuge. Scripter Wilfred Lupano (Azimut; Little Big Joe; Valerian & Laureline: Shingouzlooz Inc.; The Old Geezers; Vikings dans la brume) and illustrator Stéphane Fert (Morgane; Axolot; Peau de Mille Bêtes) deftly deploy a subtle sheen of beguiling fairy tale affability to camouflage their keen exposure of a moving, cruel and enraging sidebar to accepted history: one long overdue for modern reassessment.

The creators wisely leaven the heavy load with delightful, heart-warmingly candid moments exploring the feelings and connections of the students, and balance tragedy with moments of true whimsy and life-affirming fantasy: but please beware – it does not end well for all…

The book includes an Afterword by Joanie DiMartino – Curator of the Prudence Crandall Museum – tracing in biographical snippets, the eventful lives, careers and achievements of eleven of the boldly aspirational scholars of the Crandall School’s first class.

Surrounded – America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832 is a disturbing yet uplifting account every concerned citizen should read and remember. After all, learning is a privilege, not a right… unless we all defend and advance it…
© 2020 Dargaud Benelux, (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) – LUPANO & FERT. All rights reserved.

Surrounded – America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832 will be published on February 11th 2025 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads see NBM Graphic Novels.

Posted on

Django, Hand on Fire: The Great Django Reinhardt


By Salva Rubio & Efa, translated by Matt Madden (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-287-8 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-288-5

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

The world has now formally and officially gone to hell in a handcart, so how about some soothing, jolly music – or at least some comics about that music?

Publisher NBM’s line of European-originated biographies never fails to delight, with this oversized luxury hardcover (also available in digital formats) one of the most engaging thus far: skilfully deconstructing – when not actually aiding and adding to – the myths and legends surrounding a top contender for the title of greatest guitar player of all time…

Django, Hand on Fire rewardingly reunites award-winning screenwriter, historian and novelist Salva Rubio (Max; The Photographer of Mauthausen) with animator/illustrator Ricard Fenandez (AKA Efa of Les Icariades; Rodriguez; L’Âme du Vin; Le Soldat). Their other collaborations are also beautiful biographies – Monet: Itinerant of Light and Degas & Cassatt: A Solitary Dance.

Originally released in France, the translated story of Django, main de feu is preceded here by an introductory prose appraisal from Thomas Dutronc before a stunning confection of painterly images traces the life of the troubled and unfortunate Roma musician from his fraught birth in a frozen field in Belgium to his second birth and reunion with the true love he threw away and found again. That natal moment was in 1910 as his father and the other itinerant performers of their tribe were eking out a wage entertaining outworlders.

By 1922, the troupe were resident in Paris’ “Zone”: an enclave for “his sort” where social outcasts like gypsies could reside until posh folks found a use for them. The lad was cocky and troublesome, an arrogant illiterate born for mischief but blessed with astounding musical skill. His life turned around when his mama acquired a six-string banjo for him and all his energies suddenly refocussed on mastering music. Soon Django was making money – and losing it gambling – even before he was considered a man…

Still an emotional child, he became the star of a professional (adult) band but his actions and attitude lost him many friends and family and ultimately the girl who adored him: Irma AKA Naguine. She faithfully trailed in his wake as producers and record publishers tracked the young man and watched in resignation as he succumbed to the shining blonde glory of faux flower artisan Florine/Bella. Naguine left the Zone entirely when Django and the flower girl wed, but swore to return…

The musician’s meteoric rise stalled only as he awaited his first child’s birth. As they slept in their wagon, it caught fire and although Bella got out, Django was badly burned on his legs and left hand. How – driven by his formidable mother – he battled back to overcome his life-changing injuries and, by changing his style, mastered another instrument, found undying fame and finally realized where his true love lay is a fabulous (if not strictly accurate) tale to warm the heart and gladden the eyes…

The pictorial paean to persistence and testament to passion is supported by a Bibliography and Creator Biographies plus ‘Django Reinhardt, from mystery to legend… In the light of History’: a fulsome, copiously-illustrated essay detailing the author’s factual choices and path to this particular truth, categorised and examined in ‘A mythical birth’; ‘The Zone’; ‘An interloper in the world of bal-musette’, ‘J’ai deux amours: Naguine and …le jass…’, ‘The Cross of Blood…’; ‘…and the fiery flowers’; ‘Hospital for the Poor’ and ‘Hand on fire’…

Sparkling and inspirational, this is treat for every music historian and intrigued dilettante: a beguiling magic window into another world and one you should seek out tout de suite…
© DUPUIS 2020 by Rubio, Efa. All rights reserved.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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/

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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/

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.