Comics | What the press thinks

Some suggestions of comics to discover.

Stephanie Morin
The Press

Alexandre Vigneault
The Press

Childhood at the end of the line

The designer Grégory Panaccione, who gave us in 2014 the sublime silent album An ocean of love (with Lupano on the screenplay) arrives this time with its very first solo graphic adaptation, that of the best-selling novel Someone to talk to by Cyril Massarotto.

We meet Samuel, a completely lost single thirty-year-old who, one birthday evening alone, decides to dial his ex’s phone number (they’ve been separated for eight years and he calls her every year!) then, out of curiosity, that of his childhood home. Surprise! There’s someone on the line, a 10-year-old kid named Samuel… For the adult, it’s an opportunity to do a painful examination of conscience on the life he has chosen. And to take a lucid look at what happened to his childhood dreams.

Despite some twists and turns that we see coming from afar, this luminous graphic novel turns out to be a most comforting read. A real balm for the soul in this not very happy time! A past master in the art of scattering his works with silent boxes that breathe new life into the story, the cartoonist has also been able to add a nice dose of humor with aside drawings that show us the (sometimes sadistic!) thoughts of his hero. An album that we close with a smile on our lips.

someone to talk to

Gregory Panaccione

The Lombard

256 pages

★★★½

feminine resistance

Madeleine Riffaud was born in 1924 in the Somme, a region in northern France hard hit by the Great War. As World War II looms on the horizon, she has already chosen her side: she will join the Resistance, no matter the cost. Madeleine Riffaud is not just a paper heroine; she did indeed exist and remains one of the last living witnesses to have known the French Resistance from the inside. What’s more, this woman with a strong character took part in the anti-colonialist struggles in Algeria and Vietnam, in addition to leading a career as a reporter (but also as a poet and recently, co-author of comic strips!).

The extraordinary life, strewn with exploits and pitfalls, of this eternal resistant would have been passed over in silence without the work of cartoonist Jean David Morvan, who collected the words of a woman with a memory still very sharp despite her advanced age. The result is overwhelming: a first-person account of a freedom-loving woman.

The story of his first steps in the Resistance, in 1942, is captivating. And Dominique Bertail’s very controlled bluish drawing adds an aura of mystery to the story, but also gives a certain coldness to the decor, which suits the purpose well. A very promising documentary series, planned in three volumes.

Resistant Magdalenet.1: The unpinned rose

Bertail, Morvan and Riffaud

Free area

128 pages

★★★½

The soul of the Bauhaus

The history of the Bauhaus, an artistic movement focused in particular on architecture and design, is told here by the voice of the museum dedicated to it. It is she, the narrator of the story that begins in 1919, at the founding of the Staatliches Bauhaus, the school of applied arts set up by Walter Gropius, who will have marked the XX^and century during its short existence. It tells the story of life in this institution resolutely turned towards modernity, which had the ambition to rethink the configuration of the houses as well as the production of aesthetic everyday objects that it would be possible to manufacture in series.

Through these pages, with their sometimes astonishing composition and clean lines, we discover the principles that guided the Bauhaus movement, but also the debates that animated it and the contributions of creators who were to have a lasting impact on the last century, including Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. It’s not as technical as it sounds: the story, mostly chronological, dwells on the great moments of the institution, until its closure when the Nazis came to power, and above all seeks to evoke the irrepressible desire for artistic innovation and open-mindedness. Only downside, by dint of wanting to name everyone and make room for all the arts, the comics of Valentina Grande and Sergio Varbella do not always go deep enough in their exposition of the Bauhaus philosophy, its concrete applications and its influence. . We would have taken more than this introduction.

Bauhaus – The idea that changed the world

Valentina Grande and Sergio Varbella

Editions du Seuil

128 pages

★★★

Bagieu by herself

Pénélope Bagieu, author of The culottes among others and winner of an Eisner Award, is told in Strata, his first autobiographical comic strip. In fact, it’s not exactly an autobiography in that it dwells instead on moments from his childhood and adolescence, evoking in turn his love of cats (and the mourning of his first pet), his friendships and loves. In short, she paints a composite portrait of what formed the woman and the designer she has become. It’s often anecdotal, sometimes touching, often comical and always well served by a fairly simple black and white sketch. It’s lively, entertaining, and the author is extremely adept at telling her story without just looking at her navel and at tackling very delicate subjects.

Strata

Penelope Bagieu

Gallimard

144 pages

★★★½

Other outings

Under the pebbles the beach

Rabaté, a prolific author to whom we owe the immense Hibiscus, tells how, in 1962, a boy from a good family ended up moving away from the trajectory that was taking shape in front of him. Out of love, first, but perhaps also out of conviction, since the story opens with a quote from Proudhon (“Property is theft”). It’s not a great account of Rabaté, but visually, it is successful.

The cell — Investigation into the attacks of November 13, 2015

The cell — Investigation into the attacks of November 13, 2015

Reconstruction of the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris where 130 people were killed by jihadists at the Bataclan, at the Stade de France and in Parisian cafes. An in-depth documentary investigation by Soreen Seelow and Kevin Jackson illustrated by Nicolas Otero, in the vein of documentary comics.

The Year of Garbage

The brilliant American cartoonist Derf Backderf has taken out of his archives this short album published 20 years ago, where he recounts the hellish summer he spent working as a garbage collector in a small town in Ohio. A precursor text to his graphic novel Trashedwhere unsavory anecdotes are threaded at breakneck speed. Sensitive hearts, abstain!