2024 - Five musical comics to take away this summer

Well-crafted stories, funny anecdotes, little-known episodes, reflections and comments from musicians with hindsight: there is always something to learn about our favorite bands. Including in comics and graphic novels whose authors are often very well-informed fans themselves. Take note, with these five albums released since the beginning of 2024, to savor this summer if you missed them.

1 “The Last Days of Robert Johnson”

Bluesman Robert Johnson is more than just an influential musician, he is a myth that has caused much ink to flow. The author of Cross Road Blues and of Sweet Home Chicago is said to have signed a pact with the devil, says the legend, and his death, which occurred at the age of 29 in August 1938 in a town in Mississippi, as well as his personality, remain mysterious. Frantz Duchazeau, who wrote the script and drew it, is a lover of the blues, to which he has already dedicated an album with The Dream of Meteor Slimpublished in 2008. In it, he tells the story of Robert Johnson’s wandering life on the dusty roads and in the lukewarm racist South, from bars to gambling dens, from bottles of bourbon to one-night stands. But the story also navigates between the eras of the brilliant bluesman’s life, returning to scenes from his childhood, his adolescence and the death in childbirth of the love of his life.

The author’s charcoal line in Indian ink flourishes in powerfully cinematic black and white framing and perspectives. Fascinated by the aesthetics of the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, Duchazeau meticulously draws buildings, roads, signs, cars and logos, and in doing so restores the whole atmosphere of an era when it was not good to be black, even if dressed to the nines like Robert Johnson.I don’t want to wake up in the morning and think: “Fuck, I’m black, fuck it! Everything’s ruined!”he makes the rebellious musician say, who refused to pick cotton.I’m not a victim, I know what I’m worth!”. What he doesn’t know, however, and which feeds the suspense of the story in parallel, is that white producers who believe in him are tracking him on the roads to take him to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York. Will he be there for this announced glory? ?

“The Last Days of Robert Johnson” by Frantz Duchazeau (Éditions Sarbacane, 29.90 euros) was published on January 3, 2024

2 “Live Free or Die – Punk and Alternative Rock in France 1981-1989”

This album is a true document on a decade of the French alternative rock scene, as rich as a 300-page book. It tells the story of French punk rock through the voices of those who lived and carried this youth movement during the 1980s. The authors Arnaud Le Gouëfflec (screenplay) and Nicolas Moog (drawing) met countless actors of this movement for this comic strip, from Didier Wampas to Spi d’OTH, from Jean-Yves Prieur, founder of Bondage Records, to Marsu, manager of Bérurier Noir, including the writer and director Virginie Despentes, the documentary filmmaker and journalist David Dufresne, Éric Debris of Metal Urbain, Olivier des Sheriff, or Éric Sourice des Thugs. All of them dig into their memories to tell this bubbling story, without mincing words and with hindsight, without ever falling into nostalgia. The genesis, advent and end of the flagship group Bérurier Noir constitute the common thread of this chronological choral story, but the authors make room for the entire scene and its lesser-known formations. The drawing, precise and inventive, ideally serves this story that pulsates on every page. Indispensable.

“Live Free or Die – Punk and Alternative Rock in France 1981/1989” by Arnaud Le Gouëfflec and Nicolas Moog (Glénat, 22.50 euros) was released on March 13, 2024

3“The Velvet Underground – In the effervescence of the Warhol Factory”

This is neither the first book nor the first comic about the Velvet Underground. So why read it? Because Koren Shadmi’s (author and illustrator) approach to Lou Reed and John Cale’s creature is rather psychological and his story is very well documented. He returns to the difficult childhood and adolescence of these two musicians born thousands of kilometers from each other, the first in the United States and the second in Wales. He then tells of their meeting in New York in the 1960s and how these two tortured souls will make music their outlet, and the Velvet an unconventional band with an assumed darkness. The author chooses to open his story with the funeral in 1987 of the pope of Pop Art Andy Warhol, who counted a lot in the rise of the band, and on whom he also imposed his new muse, the German singer Nico, on the microphone. Koren Shadmi shows above all the fault lines of each other, and how the antagonisms fed the singularity of this major group, precursor of punk. Because soon Lou Reed and John Cale fiercely dispute the leadership of the Velvet, the first defending the rock side and the second the experimental side. The author knows how to use all the details he gleaned while researching to finely advance the story. Punctuated with little-known information and anecdotes, his scenario is a treat to read.

“The Velvet Underground – In the effervescence of the Warhol Factory” by Koren Shadmi (Éditions La Boîte à Bulles, 26 euros) was released on February 15, 2024

4“My Infractus (When I was a DJ)”

In June 2022, comic book author Hervé Bourhis nearly died. He had a heart attack – Surprisingly, it was his “wonderful” doctor who pronounced “Infractus”. In the aftermath of this intimate cataclysm, everyone around him saw it as a good theme for his next work. But don’t count on the modest and funny cartoonist to come up with one of those books of testimonies like “My spleen dilates” or “My depression my love”.“Narcissism is the real pathology”he believes.I will never fall into that trap. I have my dignity. That’s why I’m going to tell you about my memories as an amateur DJ instead.”his hobby for decades. So he takes us on board a big mix, where experiences and anecdotes of both DJ’ing and heart attacks are combined. We thus go from a famous album cover – of Heart of Glass from Blondie to Grenadine Heart by Alain Voulzy – to celebrity heart attack stories – from Gainsbourg to Goscinny via Trugoy de De La Soul. The two themes even merge on occasion, when it comes to the perfect BPM hits (130) to perform a cardiac massage – Crazy in Love of Beyoncé, for example. We also come across Philippe Katerine, Roméo Elvis and the DJ Rubin Steiner in this offbeat story, which does not forget to pay tribute to doctors and health workers. Colorful (mostly blue and red), this comic strip wards off stress and anxiety by approaching things with perspective and humor. Recommended to all music lovers whose hearts have been mistreated.

“My Infractus (When I was a DJ)” by Hervé Bourhis (Glénat, 20 euros) was released on February 3, 2024

$The cover of "My Infractus (When I was a DJ)" by Hervé Bourhis. (EDITIONS GLENAT)$

5“The Beatles in Paris”

Sixty years ago, in 1964, the Beatles stayed in Paris for three weeks to give a series of concerts at the Olympia. This comic strip tells the story of this little-known episode in the history of the Fab Four, for whom the French capital was an enchanted interlude, at the dawn of their dazzling global success. Because this stay on the 16th January to 4 February, planned six months earlier, that is to say well before the explosion of their notoriety across the Channel, was a pivotal moment : John, Paul George and Ringo arrived in the City of Lights as the most popular group in England and left as a cultural phenomenon that was conquering the world. When they were not on stage, where they struggled on the first nights to win over the crowds who preferred the singer Trini Lopez, what were the Four Boys in the Wind doing in Paris? ? Youthful, creative and full of desires, they chain together photo sessions, on the Champs-Élysées and in their hotel room at the George V, also compose and record, more or less studiously. A comic strip whose clear line-inspired drawings will satisfy both connoisseurs and neophytes.

“The Beatles in Paris” by Vassilia and Philippe Thirault, Christopher and Degreff (Robinson editions, €20) was published on March 6, 2024