BD: what La Presse thinks about it

The real is never far away in the work of Fabien Toulmé. His first comic It’s not you I was waiting forrecounts the birth and taming of his daughter Julia, who suffers from trisomy 21. His series Hakim’s Odyssey focuses on the journey of a Syrian immigrant and poses as a counterweight to anti-immigration and xenophobic discourse.

Alexandre Vigneault
The Press

After his charming Suzette or the great lovehe returned to his role as a social documentary filmmaker. The reflections of the world: in struggle recounts the political and social struggles waged by communities in Lebanon, Brazil and Benin.

Fabien Toulmé is not Joe Sacco, a renowned American cartoonist who has notably produced significant works on Bosnia, Palestine and Gaza. His approach is less journalistic and more of a personal exploration. However, it has the same objective: to highlight popular struggles and explain the reasons for them.

It begins in Lebanon where, exasperated by social inequalities, the people began to demonstrate against the government of Saad Hariri in the fall of 2019. He had not made the trip for that: he was rather to participate in the Salon du livre de Beirut, which was canceled at the last minute due to the thawra – the revolution. Here, as he will do later in Brazil and Benin, he meets people, recounts their daily lives and sets out their demands.

His subjects are sometimes harsh, but there is always something sympathetic in the pages of Fabien Toulmé. This is due to his clear line which has something a little naive about it, but above all to his tone: the cartoonist takes an empathic look at his surroundings and the people he meets. He never rises above his subjects either, does not appropriate their struggles and does not play the hero – he is even a little shy – which contributes to the bond with the reader.

in struggle does not stand out either by its craftsmanship or its cutting, but accurately points to the abuse of power and the human disasters caused by flagrant social inequalities. However, if it shows militants, it is not a militant work: it is rather a benevolent book, which speaks of solidarity, combativeness, justice and human dignity. Values ​​that make the world go round.

The reflections of the world: in struggle

Fabien Toulme

Delcourt/Inkings

329 pages

6/10

On the edge of reality

Disastrous in real life, conspiracy theories are fascinating material in fiction. The heirs recounts the initiation to alternative facts of a student working in a Parisian bookstore focused on marginal ideas. He is skeptical and does not subscribe to this discourse that they “hid things” from us and that only minds freed from the formatting imposed by the media and political institutions manage to see clearly. He therefore decides to “do his own research” and takes this circle of conspirators as the subject of his thesis, which will lead him to follow an expedition to the South Pole, which would be neither what we think nor where we think… Pierre-Yves Cézard, whose style relies on gray washes, skilfully plays with the stereotype of the plotter in The heirs. We even feel a smirk in his way of leading his story with esoteric outlines, which goes far beyond the borders of reality, but which leaves one hungry after an extravagant finale.

The heirs

Pierre-Yves Cezard

The watermelon

128 pages

6/10

A clever tale

Lake Kijikone ignited following a storm, which created quite a stir in Rivière-aux-Corbeaux, especially since it is said that a flaming lake has the property of transforming everything we dive into it in gold. A group of teenagers therefore go on an expedition to put the legend to the test with various objects, including a live rabbit… The deeper they go into the forest, the more dissension arises in the group. The two most motivated go to the shores of the lake where a tragedy occurs. Sometimes the lakes burn skilfully plays with the characteristics of the tale, which the author inscribes with credibility in today’s world, in particular through very accurate dialogues. Geneviève Bigué has a soft and expressive line, superbly highlighted by a color palette based on gray, earthy hues and orange. A first album that gives a glimpse of beautiful things for this cartoonist.

Sometimes the lakes burn

Genevieve Bigue

Cold Front

92 pages

7/10

A comedy with bite

Laughing goes behind the scenes of the National School of Humor where a group of young people are struggling to write numbers that will hit the mark. It’s difficult for Reda, the son of an immigrant who doesn’t dare admit to his father that he wants to become a comedian, but it comes more naturally to Yvonne, a lively young woman at the heart of Jean Lacombe’s story. The verve that the author lends to it literally carries this story which takes a benevolent ironic look at the underside of this strange profession: the courses with sometimes absurd themes, the mad dash to go from an open mike evening to the other, the hope of breaking through and one day having his 15 minutes of fame at Everybody talks about it… We quickly become attached to his Yvonne, who is really dying, and we quickly let ourselves be taken by her skilful dialogues, her compositions which have bite and her lively line.

Laughing

Jean Lacombe

The watermelon

128 pages

7.5/10

Other publications

Last weekend of January

Visually, Bastien Vivès always hits the mark: his line is elegant and his black-white-grey compositions are always superb. Last weekend of January (Casterman), on the other hand, offers the banal story of a bored cartoonist who, during a festival, will feel his heart beating again.

The end of the beginning

The end of the beginningit is the setting in images by Anne Villeneuve (A long heat wave) of the journey of Fadi Malik, who was forced to leave Lebanon. Because of the war, but also because of intolerance: Fadi is gay. However, it is not enough to change the scenery to change what we have internalized and its release will be slow.