{"id":26246,"date":"2022-07-28T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T08:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=26246"},"modified":"2022-07-27T09:30:11","modified_gmt":"2022-07-27T09:30:11","slug":"stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2022\/07\/28\/stay\/","title":{"rendered":"Stay"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Lewis <\/strong>Trondheim<\/strong> & Hubert<\/strong> Chevillard<\/strong>, translated & edited by Mike Kennedy<\/strong> (Magnetic Press)<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-1-54930-771-3 (HB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

Until so very recently, comics in the English-speaking world were largely comedy or genre adventure, with a small but vital niche of breakthrough biography and autobiography such as Maus<\/strong>, Persepolis<\/strong> and The End of the F**king World<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What we have never had, and still largely don\u2019t have, is an equivalent to general fiction and drama\/melodrama. That\u2019s not so in Europe, where a literal \u201canything goes\u201d attitude has always accommodated human-scaled slice of life stories that depict ordinary people in the quiet as well as extraordinary moments.<\/p>\n

Think of such comics as the sequential narrative equivalent of watching mainstream broadcast TV (in the UK that would be BBC 1, 2, 4, ITV1 and Channel 4) and it isn\u2019t hard to find almost impossible genres. For example, there\u2019s a wealth of superb material just about going on holiday\u2026<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not really a fair comparison for Americans, but quite frankly, your TV networks are a hellhole of your own devising. It\u2019s a miracle that you have generated so many great shows and programmes over the decades and it\u2019s also why I keep banging on about comics. In them, there are always infinite worlds and possibilities\u2026<\/p>\n

So, now our own Powers-That-Be (Hopeless) might have arranged it so that it\u2019s now all-but impossible for any UK-based folk to pop across and have une petite vacances<\/em> in Europe, but over there it\u2019s an inescapable right, and they have some fabulous tales about a simple break. This is probably one of the best you\u2019ll ever read.<\/p>\n

A sublime example of what I\u2019m talking about is Lewis Trondheim & Hubert Chevillard\u2019s Je vais rester<\/strong><\/em>. <\/strong>Translated by Magnetic Comics as Stay<\/strong>, it challenges the commercial pressures I\u2019ve alluded to above: an intriguing, engaging drama in both print and byte-sized versions for me to recommend and you to fall in love with. It also means that if you\u2019re stuck in road, rail or airport queues you can download it after getting bored with me\u2026<\/p>\n

With north of 100 books bearing his pen-name (his secret identity is actually Laurent Chabosy), writer\/artist\/editor\/animator and educator Lewis Trondheim is one of Europe\u2019s most prolific comics creators: illustrating his own work, overseeing cartoons adaptations of previous successes such as La Mouche<\/strong><\/em> (The Fly<\/strong>) and Kaput and Z\u00f6sky<\/strong><\/em> or editing young-readers book series Shampooing<\/strong><\/em> for Dargaud.<\/p>\n

His most famous tales are such global hits as Les Formidables Aventures de Lapinot<\/strong><\/em> (seen in English as The Spiffy Adventures of McConey<\/strong>); the Donjon<\/strong><\/em> series of nested fantasy epics (co-created with Joann Sfar and translated as conjoined sagas Dungeon: Parade<\/strong>, Dungeon: Monstres <\/strong>and Dungeon: the Early Years<\/strong>); comedy fable Ralph Azham <\/strong>and an utterly beguiling cartoon diaries sequence entitled Little Nothings<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In his spare time – and when not girdling the globe from convention to symposium to festival – the dourly shy and neurotically introspective savant wrote for satirical magazine Psikopat <\/strong><\/em>and provided scripts for many of the continent\u2019s most popular artists such as Fabrice Parme (Le Roi Catastrophe, V\u00e9n\u00e9zia<\/em>), Manu Larcenet (Les Cosmonautes du futur<\/em>), Jos\u00e9 Parrondo (Allez Raconte <\/em>and Papa Raconte<\/em>) and Thierry Robin (Petit P\u00e8re No\u00ebl<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Ostensibly retired but still going strong, Trondheim is a cartoonist of uncanny wit, outrageous imagination, piercing perspicacity, comforting affability and self-deprecating empathy who prefers to scrupulously control what is known and said about him\u2026<\/p>\n

I must admit that, at this moment, from all his vast canon, STAY<\/strong> is probably my absolute favourite\u2026<\/p>\n

Born in Angers in 1962, Hubert Chevillard (Le Pont dans la Vase<\/strong><\/em>, Corcal<\/strong><\/em>, Terra Incognita<\/em><\/strong>, Le Facteur<\/em><\/strong>, Pavillon Rouge<\/em><\/strong>, Donald\u2019s Happiest Adventures<\/strong>) is a French cartoonist now working from Grenoble who studied animation at the Gobelins School and the School of Fine Arts in Angoul\u00eame. He worked at Walt Disney Animation France\u2019s Montreuil Studious for almost a decade before switching to comics as illustrator of Didier Crisse\u2019s Luuna<\/strong><\/em>. He thereafter branched out and carried on, scripting his own stuff whilst remaining an in-demand artist for others\u2026<\/p>\n

Here his softly endearing images paint us a picture of idyllic summer holidays at the seaside for affianced couple Roland Matturet<\/em> and Fabienne Guillardin<\/em>. For their trip to the South of France, he has meticulously (it\u2019s his way) planned everything and paid for it all in advance as a build-up to asking her a certain question.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the entire sunny escapade is cut short – as is Roland himself – when a bizarre accident leaves Fabienne instantly alone in a strange but welcoming resort of happy strangers\u2026<\/p>\n

Shocked and stunned, but still posthumously guided by Roland\u2019s notebook itinerary, she seems to pause inside. Not even informing the families of the change in circumstance, she roams like a ghost, sampling all the prepaid amenities, diligently attending to Roland\u2019s checklist of events and gradually reinventing herself.<\/p>\n

Avoiding all past connections and her current situation, Fabienne savours being unknown, alone, and not yet bereaved: pondering the ramifications in her pensive way, as she grudgingly befriends eccentric, exotic and quixotic local Paco<\/em>\u2026 a man unlike any she has ever met before.<\/p>\n

With no idea how she feels about anything, Fabienne allows herself to be intrigued as Roland\u2019s hold on her diminishes and fades away\u2026<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next\u2026?<\/p>\n

Lyrical, laconic, blackly comic and engagingly demure, this gleefully morbid, platonic holiday non-romance unfolds with a minimum of verbiage and powerfully understated silent visuals: exploring life and death, addressing denial, avoidance and coping mechanisms through a soft-focussed lens of friendships in adversity and those ever-present, never-acted upon holiday impulses\u2026<\/p>\n

Vacations are built of never-seized moments of seductive might-have-beens and affable strangers, channelled here in astonishingly compelling episodes that make the mundane magical and encapsulating those brief spells of transient opportunity that comprise such \u201cholidays of a lifetime\u201d. This is tale of woe and wonder writ small, and all the more perfect because of it.
\nStay<\/strong> published 2019 by The Lion Forge, LLC. \u00a9 2019 The Lion Forge, LLC. Originally published in France as Je vais rester<\/em>, scenario by Lewis Trondheim, illustrations by Hubert Chevillard \u00a9 Rue de Sevres, Paris 2018. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lewis Trondheim & Hubert Chevillard, translated & edited by Mike Kennedy (Magnetic Press) ISBN: 978-1-54930-771-3 (HB\/Digital edition) Until so very recently, comics in the English-speaking world were largely comedy or genre adventure, with a small but vital niche of breakthrough biography and autobiography such as Maus, Persepolis and The End of the F**king World. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Stay”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[239,63,148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-european-classics","category-romance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4AFj-stay","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26246"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26249,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26246\/revisions\/26249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}