MadInkBeard | Derik A Badman

I spent a few days last week in Montreal for vacation. Of course, one of the highlights for me was getting to shop for French bande dessinee, being able to browse (hard to do online), and not have to pay expensive shipping costs. I hit a few stores and picked up a few books (some great finds, too).

Here’s what I found:

Fresnault-Deruelle, Pierre. Recits et Discours par la Bande: Essais sur les Comics. Hachette, 1977.

This is a classic in French bd criticism/theory/study, so I was thrilled to find a used copy. This is the type of thing I have to get from another library and then have only a limited time to read it, which is tough with the dense language.

Communications no. 24: La Bande Dessinee et Son Discours. 1976.

Another classic French bd book. This is a whole journal devoted to bd and analysis (primarily semiological, I believe). Includes essays by Fresnault-Deruelle and Umberto Eco (what may be the first appearance of his “Myth of Superman” essay) among others.

Baudoin, Edmond. Le Voyage. L’Association, 1996.

Baudoin originally made this work for the manga magazine Morning. According to this Baudoin site, it’s a good introduction to his work (I’ve only read a few short pieces elsewhere), and was also recommended to me by the guy at Fichtre (I wanted a Baudoin book but wasn’t sure which one to get). The artwork is lovely and expressionist, loose, a bit surreal. The story is less exciting and, in my opinion, is problematic in its dealing with women. More on this one later.

Baladi, Alex. Petit Trait. L’Association, 2008.

My wife found this one and pointed me in its direction. One of L’Asso’s “patte de mouche” books (they are like professionally done minicomics), it’s an abstract comic. I’ll be posting about this soon on the Abstract Comics blog.

Ruppert, Florent and Jerome Mulot. Safari Monseigneur. L’Assocation, 2005.
Ruppert, Florent and Jerome Mulot. Le Tricheur. L’Assocation, 2008.

I specifically went looking for these guys books, as I’ve been wanting to read them for a long time after reading Bart Beaty on their work. The only English work by them I am aware of is the piece with all the stairs in Kramer’s Ergot 7. More on these when I read them.

Gipi. Ma Vie Mal Dessinee. Futuropolis, 2008.

I think this is Gipi’s latest work. I recall seeing images from it in the Comics Journal interview with him. I haven’t been the biggest fan of Gipi, but… damn, this book visually impresses (haven’t read it yet). It seems to be combining two narratives, one is contemporary and drawn in a black and white, sketchy style with lots of text, while the other is a pirate tale done in watercolors. I love stylistic shifts like that. Also, there is this beautiful minimal swimming scene at the end.

Pratt, Hugo. Mu. Casterman, 2001. (Orig from 1989)

This is the last of Pratt’s Corto Maltese books. It looks a lot looser and more abstract than others in the series I’ve read.

Nanni, Giacomo. Chroniquettes. Cornelius, 2008.

A translation from Italian, this very thick comic is all about the author/cartoonist and his cat. It’s a very disjointed narrative (journal-like) that mixes reality and fantasy. Great use of repetition, and there is a whole discontinuous series of beautiful pages showing the cat in black silhouette shifting position from panel to panel.

I visited a few stores in Montreal, so I thought I’d mention them too:

1) Fichtre. I’ve mail ordered from here in the past, so this was one store I knew not to miss. They have a great selection of bd, with a lot of more independent publishers and less a focus on the mainstream genre material (though they have some of that too). A big local section (though I didn’t see anything in it that looked too exciting (or that wasn’t already available in English)). The store is hidden off a main street, but it’s well worth the visit. Most of the stuff above, I got from there.

2) Drawn and Quarterly. The other store I knew I had to visit. They have a real nice store that is a mix of comics and prose, with a mix of English and French (though more English) books.

3) Marche du Livre. This was a normal bookstore with a second floor that was all bd. Lots and lots of mainstream genre material, lots of manga, and a smaller selection of indie stuff (most of which seemed to be English translations). They had some less mainstream manga here. I was sorely tempted by the French volumes of “The Times of Botchan” since the english translation has been so slow in coming out. All in all, I was surprised at the manga offerings in all of the stores I visited. There was not much offered that isn’t also available in English with a few exceptions (more Tezuka books, some Shinichi Abe, that crazy manga about wine that was getting so much press).

4) Chapters. This is a Canadian large chain store that had both English and French books. Their English comics section was large and well stocked with all sorts of books (way more impressive than Borders or B&N). Their English manga section was also nicely large, with the books sectioned out by age rating, which nicely put most of the decent stuff in one section. The French section was much less interesting, consisting primarily of mainstream bd and translation of English comics. The French manga section was small and rather boring.

I also went into a bd/bookstore on Rue St Denis that we happened to wander by. It had a lot of new and used bd, but the organization was a bit cryptic to me and the stock seemed very mainstream. There was another used bookstore I went to that had a large selection of very mainstream bd albums.

It was interesting to go to comic (bd) stores and see the French version of the “mainstream”: all those series of albums of various adventure genres (sci-fi, western, spy, etc.) instead of the vast shelves of superhero comics in most US comics stores.

Anyway, I thought I’d share in case anyone else is headed to the city. I know I missed a bunch of stores, perhaps there are others that are more alt friendly. Other than Fichtre and D&Q, these were just the stores I happened to run into while walking around.