Category: Travelogue

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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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The Incredible Story of Cooking – From Prehistory to Today: 500,000 Years of Adventure


By Stéphane Douay & Benoist Simmat, with Christian Lerolle, Robin Millet & Joran Tréguier, translated by Montana Kane (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-340-0 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-341-7

Usually this bit is about sex or swearing, but here I’m issuing another culinary advisory. If you are vegan, squeamish or can be upset by fish, cetaceans and other really cool animals comedically killed, butchered and consumed, do not buy this book. It’s really not for you.

The purview of graphic novels and illustrated narrative has expanded to mirror every aspect of prose print and even TV broadcasting these days. One of the most engaging for me and many others is historical investigations, breezy documentaries and fact-based investigations and speculations… and even well-researched cookbooks. Here, direct from the continent via those fine folks at NBM, is a graphic treat that combines all of that…

The history and development of cuisine has fascinated most people and this bold venture agues wittily and quite convincingly that this is the most likely way it all unfolded…

Author, economics journalist and comic book writer Benoist Simmat is mostly known to us for Wine, A Graphic History which sold over 100,000 copies in France and has been translated into many languages, but if you drink poshly you might also have seen his satirical bande dessinée collaboration with Philippe Bercovici – Robert Parker: Les Sept Pêchés capiteux. The ambitious tome under review here is likely to be just as popular, especially as it is expansively limned by comics veteran Stéphane Douay.

Born in Le Havre, the picture maker tried assorted jobs – like radio operator and actor/juggler – before settling into drawing for money. He has illustrated strips for over two decades with Matiè re fantô me, Commandant Achab, Les Anné es rouge & noir, Ririri, Don Quichotte dans la Manche, and strips in several collective albums to his great credit. In 2006, he began the Matière Fantôme series. I don’t know if he or Simmat ever worked as cooks or sous chefs…

The cookery class – extravagantly footnoted throughout – commences with their ‘Foreword – The Oldest Story in the World’ before carrying us back to Africa and a quick menu of the species that preceded us in Chapter 1 ‘The Slow Emergence Of Prehistoric Cuisine’. Beginning by examining the capture of fire by Homo erectus, the ice ages of 700,000-500,000 years ago and the first recorded/found recipes found in sites across Asia, the gastro-journey explores with wit, charm and a soupcon of silliness how chucking the latest killed catch onto flames, hot stones and embers not only introduced a whole new range of flavours but also kickstarted the discipline of bacterial control and food hygiene…

With the addition of plants as comestibles and/or flavour enhancers and preservatives, and scavenging increasingly supplanted by farming, the science of food had begun, and as neanderthals and homo sapiens spread across the globe, experts and specialists began carving out their own niches in tribes all advancing as cooking and eating together bound families and individuals into nascent societies…

The second chapter highlights ‘Dinner Tables Of The First Great Civilizations’, sampling moments and menus of Sumer and the origin of beer and trade; Mesopotamia, breadmaking and the invention of status-enhancing banquets; Assyria, the start of gender-specific cooking roles and Egypt’s embracing of salad as well as food for haves and have nots…

Also visited is proto-imperial China as its founders confirmed the link between food and health and formalised the cuisine that has conquered the modern world: a proud claim also true of its contemporary realms in the Indus valley who propounded a connection between certain edibles and a healthy soul, before the chapter closes with a round-up of the state of play in early African and Mesolithic American nations…

The combination of anecdotal snippets, hard archaeological fact and speculation all backed up with unearthed recipes continues in the same breezy manner, encompassing ‘Culinary Passions Of The Ancient Greeks And Romans’, ‘The Trade Routes of the Far East’, ‘Castle Life’ and ‘The New Worlds’ before offering deeper insights into modern eating habits and its politically-charged, commercially ruthless dominance as philosophically demarcated and defined in ‘Bourgeois Revolutions 1: Gastronomy’ and ‘Bourgeois Revolutions 2: Capitalist Cuisine’…

From there it’s a short hop into today’s fashionably foody forum in ‘The Era Of Light Eating’ briefing on “taste activism”, macrobiotics and other fad foodisms, fair trade, fast food vs junk food, biodiversity, compassion in farming, food miles, technological advances (like microwave cookers and air fryers), the power of “Big Food”, foods that harm us, the diet industry and so much more that makes eating a political choice and how staying alive is now a balancing act between health, production, pleasure and authenticity…

Following a summation asking where it will all end and how will we get there, this fabulous buffet of fact and fun wraps up with ‘Recipes’: detailing 22 significant dishes the reader can make, culled from the historical archive and the entirety of human experience across the planet.

Graded Easy, Elaborate or Difficult and spanning recent to ancient the list opens with ‘Anti-waste Velouté – Italy’ and includes ‘Vegan Hamburger – England’; ‘Chicago Hot Dog – USA’; ‘Chow Mein Noodles – China’; ‘Cincinnati Chili – USA’; ‘Fish Ceviche – Peru’; ‘Homemade Ketchup Sauce – USA’; ‘Herring and Potatoes in Oil (Hareng Pommes À L’Huile) – France’; ‘Authentic Paella Valenciana “Mixta” – Spain’; ‘Fish & Chips – England’; ‘Woodcock Hash in Beauvilliers-style Croustade – France’; ‘The Aztec Taco – Mexico’; ‘Chicken Marengo – France’; ‘Cassava-Plantain Fufu with Mafé Sauce – Ivory Coast’; ‘Pork Vindaloo – India’; ‘Oyakodon Donburi – Japan’; ‘Maestro Martino’s Macaronis – Italy’; ‘Lamprey Pâté – France’; ‘Beef Plov – Uzbekistan’; ‘Maza Bread – Greece’; ‘Roman Garum – Italy’ before ending at the beginning with ‘Prehistoric Confit – France’…

The art of food and pleasures of eating have never been better appreciated or shared than in books like these, blending fun and exoticism with the tantalising yet satisfying anticipation of gustatory consumption. Academically robust and steadfast, the book’s ‘Bibliography’ and ‘Acknowledgements’ sections are huge but fascinating, making this a simply delightful dish: an inviting comics divertissement that absolutely whets the appetite for more… and maybe a snack to accompany the ingestion…

The Incredible Story of Cooking – From Prehistory to Today © Les Arènes, Paris, 2021. © 2024 NBM for the English translation.

The Incredible Story of Cooking – From Prehistory to Today: 500,000 Years of Adventure will be published on 10th September. 2024 and is available for pre-order now. NBM books are also available in digital formats.
For more information and other great reads see NBM Graphic Novels.

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Self-Esteem and The End of the World


By Luke Healy (Faber)
ISBN: 978-0-571-37560-8 (HB)

Ireland’s multi-award-winning low-key iconoclast Luke Healy studied journalism at Dublin University and earned an MFA in Cartooning from the Center for Cartoon Studies (Vermont, USA). An occasional stand-up comedian, his previous cartoon works – such as Americana, Permanent Press and How to Survive in the North – have won prizes and acclaim, and he’s also done gallery shows in places like Manhattan’s Museum of Comics & Cartoon Art.

His aforementioned comics for VICE, The Nib, A24, Medium, Nobrow and Avery Hill are exceptionally good and, as I hinted, he apparently likes exposing himself to ridicule on stage. But not so much, these days.

By combining all that trauma, weltschmerz and experience into tales exploring basic big stuff like life, friends, and how to keep your head above emotional water, he has kept many of us wonderfully entertained and himself alive for a decade. Here and now, that self-excoriating journey manifests as bursts of small-scale prediction and prognostication. By looking inwards and backwards, Healy has unlocked a doorway to our probable mutual future…

As seen in prior books (like The Con Artists) our absolutely Unreliable Narrator is London-based, Irish, gay, formerly Catholic, clinically anxious and helplessly honest. He’s still undergoing treatment for his head problems and other self-diagnosed personal issues whilst perennially building pre-emptive stress for the next Big Bad Thing. Incisive, sentimental absurdist, pedestrian and casually surreal, the collective appointments with destiny are delivered in three acts each entitled ‘Luke Healy is…’ with the first preceded by tone-setting prelude ‘fig (i) Self (ish)’.

Here the aging worry-wort consults his treatment advisor and grudgingly accepts a new tactic to process feelings and responses. The first prophetic episode then sees him making ‘Plans’ as a moment of elation at a family gathering plunges him back down and confirms his gloomy assessment of everything after he attends twin brother Teddy’s engagement party and endures a major disappointment. Retreating if not exactly retrenching, Luke immerses himself in a tidal wave of self-help books and runs away to a hotel where he indulges in some unwise acts. And then Teddy tracks him down…

The narrative digresses for ‘Interlude (i) Luke brings a date back to his flat’ after which hilarious encounter we jump ahead five years to reveal ‘Luke Healy is…’ a paid writer scripting a work-training play for a major company. Sadly, devising ‘L’hotel du Murder’ as a whodunnit was a doomed proposition from the start.

The country is on viral lockdown again, Wye Valley’s Regional Hereford Gotel experiences an actual real murder the night before the premiere and with his Mam in the invited audience, Luke has to stage-manage rubbish players, his own stress, a deadly flood and the revelation that he’s subconsciously made the entire story all about him and his bosses and now faces inevitable exposure and humiliation. It never rains but it pours…

Another strange break comes with ‘Interlude (ii) Luke has a video conference with his former agents’ and he learns his books have been re-optioned. The pittance paid means the studio still aren’t making the film they’ve already “bagsied” – and so no one else can – but his reps are keen to sell something else. Surely he must have some old comics or small press stories they can push?

Another five years go by and ‘Luke Healy is…’ in Lefkada. The Greek island – like much of the planet – is mostly submerged now. Although officially working as a telemarketer at and from home, Luke has come to the expanded Aegean on a deeply personal mission. Soon he’s adopted by fellow traveller Beth: there to explore the unearthed archaeological detritus of the past.

Framed from the start in deceit, the jaunt ends painfully for all concerned and – after returning to England – ‘Interlude (iii) Luke receives a phone call’ which promises to change his life forever. Following another ‘fig (ii) Self (ish)’ moment, ‘Luke Healy is… OTMPOW’ finds the bewildered failed author and his Mam five years further on: whisked to Palm Springs (the new Hollywood ever since Los Angeles slipped beneath the seas) where a sleazy producer is turning Healy’s old comic about whale-watching into a mega blockbuster. It’s such a shame the cetaceans aren’t real and the filmmaker is hiding his secret agenda…

An ‘Epilogue’ details the sorry aftermath of all that and is accompanied by ‘appendix (ii) Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales’ which “reprints” the college mini comic notionally adapted into that ludicrous and conniving movie, with young teens in Reykjavik hanging out, having sex and making mistakes on an Icelandic whale-spotting boat: a terse and grittily witty romance I’d certainly watch…

It seems fittingly ironic that this wry and introspective examination of the fustercluck that has become the totality of All Human Endeavour is released on the day much of Britain goes to the polls to choose the minor nabobs who will mis-guide and mis-lead us until our next general election, but that’s really just a peculiar and coincidental facet of publishing schedules. There’s certainly nothing conspicuously covert or conspiratorial. Nope. Nu-uh. No sirree-bob. Read nothing into it, but please do read this book…
© Luke Healy, 2024. All rights reserved.

Self-Esteem and The End of the World is published today.

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Ruins (Paperback Edition)


By Peter Kuper (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-18-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

Multi award-winning artist, storyteller, illustrator, educator and activist Peter Kuper was born in Summit, New Jersey in 1958, before the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio when he was six. Growing up there he (briefly) met iconic Underground Commix pioneer R. Crumb and at school befriended fellow comics fan Seth Tobocman (Disaster and Resistance: Comics and Landscapes for the 21st Century, War in the Neighborhood, You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive).

As they progressed through the school system together, Kuper & Tobocman caught the bug for self-publishing. They then attended Kent State University together. Upon graduation in 1979, both moved to New York and whilst studying at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute and The Art Students League created – with painter Christof Kohlhofer – landmark political art/comics magazine World War 3 Illustrated. Separately and in conjunction, in comics, illustration and via art events, Kuper & Tobocman continued championing social causes, highlighting judicial and cultural inequities and spearheading the use of narrative art as a tool of activism.

Although a noted and true son of the Big Apple now and despite brushing with the comics mainstream as Howard Chaykin’s assistant at Upstart Associates, most of Kuper’s singularly impressive works are considered “Alternative” in nature, deriving from his regular far-flung travels and political leanings. Moreover, although being about how people are, much of his oeuvre employs cityscapes and the natural environment as bit players or star attractions.

When not binding his own “Life Lived in Interesting Times” into experimental narratives – such as with 2007’s fictively-cloaked Stop Forgetting To Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz – or bold yarns like Sticks and Stones (2005), Kuper created The New York Times’ first continuing strip (1993’s Eye of the Beholder) and regularly adapts to strip form literary classics like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1991), Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (2019), Kafka’s short stories  Give It Up! (1995) and Kafkaesque (2018) as well as longer works like The Metamorphosis (2003), all while creating his own unique canon of intriguing graphic novels and visual memoirs.

Amongst the so many strings to his bow – and certainly the most high-profile – was a brilliant stewardship of Mad Magazine’s beloved Spy Vs. Spy strip, which he inherited from creator Antonio Prohias in 1997, and he also chases whimsy in children’s books like 2006’s Theo and the Blue Note or experimental exercise The Last Cat Book (1984: illustrating an essay by Robert E Howard). Whenever he travelled – which was often – he made visual books such as 1992’s Peter Kuper’s Comics Trips – A Journal of Travels through Africa and Southeast Asia. Three years later he undertook a bold creative challenge for DC’s Vertigo Verité imprint: crafting mute, fantastically expressive thriller/swingeing social commentary The System.

Kuper’s later comics – all equally ambitious and groundbreaking – had to make room for his other interests as he became a successful commercial illustrator (Newsweek, Time, The Nation, Businessweek, The Progressive, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly and more), lecturer in Graphic Novels at Harvard, a teacher at Parsons School of Design and The School of Visual Arts and – since 1988 – co-Art Director of political action group INX International Ink Company. Translated into many languages, he has built a thriving occupation as a gallery artist exhibiting globally and scored a whole bunch of prestigious Fellowships and Educational residencies as a result.

He still finds time to pursue his key interests – such as contributing to benefit anthology Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds and cultivates a lifelong passion for entomology. This hobby infused 2015’s fictionalized autobiographical episode Ruins: an Eisner Award winning tome now available again in an enthralling trade paperback edition.

A passionate multilayered tale of crisis, confrontation and renewal infused by his ecological concerns, political leanings, rage against authoritarianism and love of Mexico, it draws from the same deep well as 2009’s Diario De Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico. Between 2006 and 2008, Kuper, his wife and young daughter lived in Oaxaca, absorbing astounding historical and cultural riches, beguiling natural wonders, hearty warmth and nonjudgemental friendliness. They also witnessed how a teacher’s strike was brutally and bloodily suppressed by local governor/dictator Ulises Ruiz Ortiz – AKA “URO” – in a series of events with a still heavily disputed death toll scarring the region and citizens to this day.

Part travelogue, part natural history call to arms and paean to the culture of Oaxaca, Kuper’s tale details a marriage in crisis played out against a disintegrating crisis of governance. Recently unemployed, socially withdrawn and emotionally stunted museum illustrator/bug lover George finally capitulates and voyages to the Mexican dreamland his wife Samantha has been pining for since before they met. Under the aegis of a sabbatical year taken to write a book on pre-conquest Mexico, she has dragged him out of ennui and churlish career doldrums to a place where he can indulge his abiding love of insects, if not her…

For Samantha, it’s a return to a paradisical place and magical time, albeit one where she loved and lost her first husband. That’s not the sole cause of growing friction between the increasingly at odds couple. The lengthy trip’s overt intention of reuniting them falters as she is drawn deeply into stories of how the Conquistadors destroyed Mesoamerican cultures they found and highlights parallels to her own plight. There are other earthier distractions she just can’t shake off too…

Slowly, George’s intransigence melts as he meets people willing to tolerate his ways, see beyond his shell, and share the history, geology, geography and serenely easy-going culture that eventually penetrates his crusty exterior. All manner of distracting temptations – like the infinite variety of cool bugs! – are endless and constant as he makes friends and finds healthier ways to express himself. He even tries to renew his constrained relationship with Samantha, but there will always be one impossible, impassable barrier to their future happiness…

… And then they’re caught up in the Teachers’ strike and extra-judicial methods Governor URO employs to end it even as George achieves the milestone life goal he never thought possible and visits the Michoacan forest where Monarchs come to breed and die.

… And finds it expiring from human intrusion…

Acting as thematic spine and tonal indicator for the unfolding story, each chapter follows – with snapshot scenes of changing, degrading landscapes – the epic flight of a lone Monarch butterfly, from its start in Canada, across America to the forest’s lepidopteran devotee George ostensibly left his comfort zone home to see.

With overtones of Peter Weir’s film The Year of Living Dangerously (and Christopher Koch’s novel too), Ruins layers metaphor upon allegory, distilling political, ecological and personal confrontation into a powerfully evocative account of people at a crossroads. Inspirationally visualised in a wealth of styles by a true master of pictorial narrative and classic drama, this new paperback edition also includes an ‘Afterwords’ where the author adds context to the still ongoing saga of the civil war crime underpinning his story.

Clever, charming, chilling and compulsively engrossing, this delicious exercise in interconnectivity is a brilliant example of how smart and powerful comics can and should be.
© Peter Kuper 2015. All rights reserved.

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Follow Me In


By Katriona Chapman (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-38-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Katriona Chapman is a story-maker who has been crafting superb tales in Small Press titles like Tiny Pencil (which she-cofounded), Comic Book Slumber Party, Ink & Paper, Save Our Souls, Deep Space Canine and her own award-winning Katzine. She draws beautifully and knows how to quietly sneak up, grab your undivided attention and never let go – and she hasn’t spent all her life sat at a desk either.

Follow Me In was her first novel-length tale (go look up Breakwater when you’re done here), combining recollections of a particularly troubling time in her life with clearly the most life-affirming and inspirational events one could hope to experience.

At the railway station, a young woman meets up with an old boyfriend. He’s a writer and she draws. It’s been years and they’re still awkward and uncomfortable in each other’s presence. They talk about the time in 2003 when they decided to trek the entire country of Mexico, north to south-east to west. Back then they were looking for themselves. As her mind goes back, she realizes she’s a lot closer to answers than he is…

This hefty yet pocket-sized (165 x 216 mm) hardcover traces that voyage with exquisite detail, relating history, culture, the sights, and most especially the actual, non-screaming headlines and bad-movie images of a young nation with thousands of years of history, architecture and archaeology: a nation that proudly boasts dozens of indigenous cultures living in relative harmony, speaking at least 68 legally recognised languages and constantly being reshaped by political turmoil. Moreover, no traveller should miss this tome – if only for the advice on bugs, minibeasts and illnesses…

Follow Me In is deftly lyrical and enchantingly enticing; a moving and intoxicating graphic assessment of a crucial time in the illustrator’s life, filled with facts, warmth and conflict, offering fascinating data on such varied topic as ‘A Selection of Mexican Foods’, ‘Learning Spanish’, ‘Travel Sketching’, ‘What’s in our Bags?’ and ‘The Conquests’, all equally compelling and useful to know. And through it all, you’ll want to know what happened to our travellers as they transition from kids to grown-ups as much as what they’ll see next in this magnetic story within a story.

Refreshing, redemptive and rewarding, this is a read to chase away all winter blues and existential glums and an experience you must not deprive yourself of.
© Katriona Chapman 2018. All rights reserved.

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Je Ne Sais Quoi


By Lucie Arnoux (Jonathan Cape)
ISBN: 978-1-78733-359 8 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Sweet, Smart Reminder of What We Are and Where We’re Going … 9/10

The French have a word for it…

We Brits have an hard-won and insanely-cherished Awkward Relationship with the French. On “our” side, the unending, frequently re-declared war of cultures and attitudes stems from our envy of their scenery, beautiful holiday locations, wonderful food, all those different words (like chic and elan) for style, mature and easy attitudes to sex and even the cheap booze & smokes. It’s all bundled up in a shared history of squabbling with a neighbour.

For us, it’s their arrogant smugness, never knowing when they’re wrong and/or beaten, inconceivable ability to say no to their leaders and rulers, never knowing their place and just plain not being British. Worst of all is they do it all whilst making us look stupid: “indulging” and “tolerating” our antics.

Oh, and sport too. They won’t accept our clear superiority there, either. They don’t even play cricket and have their own name for bowls…

I won’t detail their side, even though it’s probably as justified and well-reasoned. Until this book, there was never any evidence that a Gallic heart could fathom the workings of the English mind…

At least the rivalry is generally good natured these day, but can still somehow be exploited to rile up an unwholesome and frankly embarrassing audience whenever dog-whistle politics are unleashed or if newspapers need a quick boost to prop up our equally despised governments. Of course, theirs are despised at home too, but at least seem to know what they’re doing…

At heart, the entente cordiale is an ambiance we’ve carefully cultivated for more than a millennium, nurturing it like a Home Counties lawn or boutique-brewed artisanal gin, which is why it’s such a splendid moment when national disgraces like me can say “Oi! Look at this”…

The one place where the French constantly and conclusively kick our derrieres is comics. Acknowledged as an art form (officially The Ninth Art, in fact) the medium and industry is supported, understood and appreciated by all: calling forth talented individuals like the ungrateful émigré revealed in this tome: someone who inexplicably loves us here as we are and has made her home among us oiks and heathens for more than a decade now…

Lucie Arnoux is a story-maker based in London, from where she’s been embracing our peculiar uniqueness for over a decade. When not travelling the world, she gratefully returns to her English home, celebrating so many conflicting aspects of us, channelling her mania for drawing and music and art in all forms into comics, teaching, illustrating, book writing, set design, sculpture, knitting and so many more forms of sharable self-expression…

I’ve never met her, but she’s clearly as engaging and personable as she is gifted, and – in this big colourful hardback collection of strips – shares her history, thoughts, dreams and adventures with astounding frankness.

A self-confessed misfit looking to find her place, Arnoux draws beautifully in a clear, expressively welcoming – almost chatty – manner and knows how to quietly sneak up, grab your undivided attention and never let go. In a succession of seditiously disciplined 9-panel grids which act as counterpoint to the free flowing pictorial excursions, the auteur deftly steers us through her self-determined chaotic life.

It’s like a comics take on those wonderful 1990s Alan Bennett character studies Talking Heads, revealing greater truth through apparent conversation, intimate fact and candid self-assessment, except here you can actual see what does and doesn’t happen …and how…

Across these page you’ll learn how the drawing-addicted prodigy grew up in Marseilles in an unconventional family amidst unfriendly school inmates and unsettled environs. How she was a remarkable comics prodigy who began working professionally at the age 14, the same year she first visited Britain and inexplicably fell in love with the place…

Formally learning her craft under a strong editor at Studio Gottferdom, she produced a weekly autobiographical strip for legendary fantasy publication Lanfeust Magazine, studied unhappily in Paris, and eventually migrated to her happy place and spiritual home… London.

You’ll pry no more secrets from me: this is a hugely enjoyable treat that you deserve to experience with no preconceptions or spoilers. So go do that, then buy copies for all your friends…

Je Ne Sais Quoi is a fabulously absorbing jolly with a delightfully forthright companion. Arnoux unstintingly shares her thoughts, feeling and experiences in a manner guaranteed to win over the most jaded companion – especially as she garnishes her slivers of fresh experience with laconic but unguarded observations, glimpsed through the welcoming lens of regional foods, booze, hunts for companionship, festivals attended, artworks made, consumed and enjoyed.

Sharp, funny, disarmingly incisive, heart-warming, uncompromising and utterly beguiling, this moving memoir is a comics experience you’ll want to relive over and again.
© Lucie Arnoux 2022.

Je Ne Sais Quoi will be published on 27th October 2022 and is available for pre-order now.

If, like Lucie, you’re London-based, love to travel and party, there’s a Launch Event scheduled for that day at the wondrous and fascinating Gosh! Comics. For details see Gosh! Comics (goshlondon.com)

There could be wine, there may be cheese, there WILL be Lucie Arnoux, convivial conversation and Signed Copies.

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Joe and Azat


By Jesse Lonergan (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-570-2 (TPB)

I’m writing this well in advance of publication, with the British media resolutely awash with the worst of all possible candidates for a new Prime Minister. That is of course excluding the one we still have – and cannot seem to pry loose from office. It’s actually comforting to remember that it could always be worse. Here’s a delicious example of a true tale with a hidden message…

Global traveller and cartoonist Jesse Lonergan (Flowers and Fade; Hedra) was born in Sacramento, California, raised in Saudi Arabi and Vermont and then spent two years as an American Peace Corps volunteer, before settling down as an artist and storyteller.

That stint was in the nation of Turkmenistan in the days when the Soviet Union’s collapse released many countries from seven decades of iron repression…

Granted autonomy and self-rule virtually overnight, a lot of Warsaw Pact countries didn’t fare well with instant democracy or Free Market Capitalism. In Turkmenistan, their new leader was also their old one.

Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov became First Secretary of the Turkmen Communist Party in 1985, and was leader of the country until the 1991 coup and revolt that established an independent Turkmenistan. Then – as “Turkmenbashy” – he ruled as president until his sudden and suspicious death in 2006.

The election was on 21st June 1992 and he was the only candidate running, and in 1994 extended his term of office until 2002 through a plebiscite whose official result gave him 99.9% of the vote (because “everybody likes him”). In December 1999, Parliament  – all of whom he hand-picked – spontaneously appointed him President for Life…

As you’d expect, he was a real pip, renaming the days of the week after himself, adding portions of his autobiography to the official driving test requirements and using the nation’s entire budget to send a book of his poetry into space. In a pitifully arid country, he built a river through his capital city – because all great cities have rivers running through them. Images of the ruthless potentate were everywhere: it’s a shame nobody ever found oil in the country… oh wait. They did…?

Seriously though, if you admire the precept that “truth is stranger than fiction”, you will have as much fun reading his Wikipedia page as this superb, charmingly subtle tale of culture shock pretensions and national misapprehensions that begins as young Joe grapples with the outrageous differences between his (mostly) liberal and wealthy homeland and the rules, laws and ingrained prejudices of a newly liberated society still reeling from the scary potentials of liberty and personal autonomy.

Nervous and alone, the Yankee lad slowly finds a friend in the astonishingly upbeat and forward looking Azat: an ambitious Turkmen convert and eager zealot for “The American Way”. Subsequently, most of Joe’s time is spent futilely apologising and explaining what that term actually means, since current reality is as far removed from the US Movies Azat is addicted to as the decades of Russian propaganda he grew up with.

Becoming almost part of the family – as complex and dysfunctional as any western one – Joe is caught in the tidal wave of Azat’s enthusiastic aspirations and daily frustrations, but never seems able – or willing – to staunch or crush them, even though he knows how hopeless they ultimately are…

Poignant, bittersweet, with an end but no conclusion, this is a superbly understated graphic dissertation on the responsibilities and power of friendship, the toxicity of unattainable dreams and the unthinking cruelty of cultural imperialism and unchallenged tyranny. Illustrated in a magically simplistic and irresistibly beguiling manner, Joe and Azat is a delight for any reader searching for more than simple jokes and action. Reading this would actually be time very well spent and could easily change your outlook…
© 2009 Jesse Lonergan. All rights reserved.

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The Art of Sushi


By Franckie Alarcon, translated by Peter Russella (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-285-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-86-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Sensational Sagacity for All Seasonings… 9/10

Usually this bit is about sex or swearing, but I’m issuing my first ever culinary advisory here.

If you are vegan, squeamish or simply care about fish and other animals and are likely to be upset by graphic depictions of the preparation of really cool creatures like octopi or eels, do not buy this book. It’s really not your thing.

Once more confirming that there’s nothing you can’t craft compelling comics about if you’re talented and inspired, here’s a gripping graphic testament to the art, philosophy and mindset of Japan’s most misunderstood culinary export.

First seen as L’Art du Sushi in 2019, and courtesy of ever-inquisitive, fantastically convivial cartoonist-foodie Franckie Alarcon, The Art of Sushi follows the artist and close associates on a fact-finding tour of Japan. Their mission is in response to the recent phenomenon of France falling madly in love with the oriental art of food, and subsequent seeking to mimic and master its traditions and pure quality; whilst making it just a little bit theirs, too…

After a cheery introduction, scene-setting, history and visual précis to the discipline’s antecedents and nine basic forms, “Bibi” Alarcon, girlfriend Marilyne, Editor David and photographer Chloe join translator/guide Rica in Tokyo to track down a revered Master, one who is also a three-starred Michelin chef…

As well as fascinating insights into the philosophy, personal beliefs and techniques of 50-year veteran craftsman Hachiro Mizutani, the researchers taste marvels and come to understand the importance of sourcing the components. ‘Mizutani: Traditional Sushi’ catalogues dishes and how they’re constructed before following him to legendary Tsukiji Market to test the daily catch in still-living splendour before detailing how they are prepared… and why. The lesson includes eye-watering comparisons with the practices of Brittany fishermen….

Sidebars include the parlous state of the oceans and fish stocks, how to make rice and a beguiling history of knife-making.

As seen in ‘Maguro bocho and Oroshi bocho’, the nation’s metallurgical artisans used to make swords, but now craft far more dangerous implements…

After reinforcing our presentiments with tastes of old Japan, the tourists explore the rush of the contemporary city with a brilliant young chef making all the right waves in ‘Okada: Modern Sushi’. Prior to that, they headed into the country to visit with Rica’s family and spent time on fishing boats.

The pride of their catch comes with them to Okada’s city restaurant for a display of his innovative virtuosity and is supplemented by lessons in consuming the beverages that are an integral part of Sushi appreciation; the history of rice; aesthetics of presentation, more blade techniques for preparing various sea creatures and useful information in spotting and dealing with the assorted parasites that infest uncooked food…

One of the most compelling asides concerns the best shape and materials of bowls, plates, cups and other tableware, which diverts into a visit to a ceramicist providing such containers to the trade…

Every visit results in a fresh eating experience and freebies to take home, but after leaving Okada’s place the team go to Mito in Ibaraki Prefecture to learn all about rice wines and ‘The Stages of making Sake’: for many the most important component in ceremonial Sushi consumption…

Once done examining old and new at the high end, our intrepid voyagers tackle the working world of ‘Everyday Sushi’ in modern Japan. Beginning with a day aboard an eel fishing boat, learning cunning tricks to keep the catch alive until ready to eat, the Europeans later enjoy a home-prepared feast courtesy of Mrs. Tanemura – who runs an eatery out of her house – and discover the hard truths about Nori (seaweed wraps/mats) from her other guests…

The trip concludes with a mind-blowing visit to a soy sauce brewery before the city offers Sushi in fast food and convenience store mode before the exhausted well-stuffed visitors go home to reassess the state of ‘Sushi in France’ with now-learnèd eyes and taste buds.

Apparently, the biggest challenge is adapting to a far smaller range of truly fresh and seasonal ingredients in a largely land-locked country, but as star chefs Takuya Watanabe – in between revealing how to grow authentic wasabi in European soil – and Yannick Alléno point out, Gastronomy and Sushi are about technique. It works with vegan or even mammal-meat ingredients. There are even chocolate desserts available for the bold and truly discerning…

Closing out a truly revelatory reading experience comes a selection of ‘Recipes’ comprising ‘Rica’s Chirashi’ with either tuna, eel or avocado as main ingredient; ‘Okada’s Green Tea Octopus’, ‘Mrs. Okada’s Temari’ (a selection including meat- and fish-free options) and ‘Sasa Sushi’ (mackerel), plus an accompanying cocktail: ‘The Sake Mojito’

Also adding value is an ‘Address Book’ of recommended restaurants in Japan and France, and physical stores and online sources for ingredients, utensils and travel advice.

The art of food and pleasures of eating have never been better appreciated or shared than in books like these, blending the exoticism of travel with the tantalising yet satisfying anticipation of gustatory consumption. The Art of Sushi is simply delightful: an inviting comics divertissement that must surely whet the appetite for more…
© Editions Delcourt 2019. © 2021 NBM for the English translation.

The Art of Sushi will be released on December 14th 2021 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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750cc Down Lincoln Highway


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

For such a young country, there’s an astounding amount of vibrant – almost 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 almost half the “Buddy movies” ever made.

Somehow, these stories always seem to particularly resonate with non-Americans. Scottish, French and Italian consumers are especially partial to westerns and Belgians adore period gangster and 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 in film, TV or comics (Mann(Grauman)’s Chinese Theatre, Central Park, Daly Plaza, Empire State Building) or uniquely American moments and activities (pretzel cart, bag of potato chips bigger than my head, bar fight) 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 an 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 narrator has hired a motorbike and decided to cross the USA down 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 rider regains his life’s equilibrium and gets on with the rest of his life, happy that the trip and the anonymous people he met have rewarded him with perspective and fresh hope…

Backed up by an extensive map of the trip and garnished with suitable quotes from Abraham Lincoln, this is quite literally all about the journey, not the destination…

Written by award-winning novelist, poet and historian Bernard Chambaz (L’Arbre de vies, Kinopanorama), this beguiling excursion is realised by multimedia artist and illustrator Barroux (Where’s the Elephant?, In the Mouth of the Wolf) and serves 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.
750cc Down Lincoln Highway is published on February 17th 2020 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads go to NBM Publishing at nbmpub.com

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Follow Me In


By Katriona Chapman (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-38-7 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Perfect Holiday Getaway… 10/10

I read a lot of graphic novels. Some are awful, many are so-so and the rest I endeavour to share with you. Of that remaining fraction most can be summarised, plot-pointed and précised to give you a clue about what you might be buying if I’ve done my job right.

Sometimes, however, all that fuss is not only irrelevant but will actually impede your eventual enjoyment. This is one of those times…

Katriona Chapman is a story-maker based in London, from where she’s been crafting superb tales in Small Press titles like Tiny Pencil (which she-cofounded), Comic Book Slumber Party, Ink & Paper, Save Our Souls, Deep Space Canine and her own award-winning Katzine. She draws beautifully and knows how to quietly sneak up, grab your undivided attention and never let go… and she hasn’t spent all her life in the Smoke either…

Follow Me In is her first novel-length tale and combines recollections of a particularly troubling time in her life with clearly the most life-affirming and inspirational events one could hope to experience.

At the station, a young woman meets up with an old boyfriend. He’s a writer and she draws. It’s been years and they’re still awkward and uncomfortable in each other’s presence. They talk about the time in 2003 when they decided to trek the entire country of Mexico, north to south east to west. Back then they were looking for themselves. As her mind goes back, she realizes she’s a lot closer to answers than he is…

This magnificently hefty, pocket-sized (165 x 216 mm) hardcover then follows that voyage with exquisite detail, relating history, culture, the sights, and most especially the actual, non-screaming headlines, bad-movie images of a young nation with thousands of years of history, architecture and archaeology: a nation that proudly boasts dozens of indigenous cultures living in relative harmony, speaking at least 68 legally recognised languages and constantly being reshaped by political turmoil. Moreover, no traveller should miss this tome, if only for the advice on bugs, minibeasts and illnesses…

Follow Me In is slyly lyrical and enchantingly enticing; a moving and intoxicating graphic assessment of a crucial time in the illustrator’s life, filled with facts, warmth and conflict, offering fascinating data on such varied topic as ‘A Selection of Mexican Foods’, ‘Learning Spanish’, ‘Travel Sketching’, ‘What’s in our Bags?’ and ‘The Conquests’, all equally compelling and useful to know. And through it all, you’ll want to know what happened to our travellers as they transition from kids to grown-ups as much as what they’ll see next in this magnetic story within a story.

Refreshing, redemptive and rewarding, this is a book to chase away all winter blues and existential glums and a reading experience you must not deprive yourself – or your family – of.
© Katriona Chapman 2018. All rights reserved.