MadInkBeard | Derik A Badman

This post originally appeared at The Hooded Utilitarian as part of a roundtable of eurocomics. The comics (or should I say bande dessinee) duo of Florent Ruppert and Jerome Mulot have made only two appearances in English: a two page spread in Kramer’s Ergot 7 and also a short comic (“The Pharaohs of Egypt”) that [...]

Somehow I missed this book when it came out. It’s a kind of textbook for students and general readers on reading comics and the history of bande dessinée in particular. The book as a whole is quite good, covering a wide area though, because of this, occasionally lacking in depth. I’ll admit I didn’t read the whole book. There were sections I skimmed. Miller covers history, followed by a variety of approaches to comics: formal analysis, cultural studies, nationalism, gender, autobiography, psychoanalysis. I read the parts I’m interested in and skimmed the others.

Le Voyage brings on these thoughts. Baudoin is a wonderful visual stylist–his art is dynamic, engaging, lovely to behold–but his writing, or at least the story of this volume, is far less interesting, in fact it seems rather clichéd to me. Simon, the protagonist, one day leaves his wife, child, home, and job and starts off on a voyage. This flight is unplanned, rather at the breakfast table his head strangely opens up and starts showing images above it.

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 [...]

Apollo and Lewis Trondheim. Bourbon Island 1730. First Second, 2008. 288 p., $17.95. ISBN: 9781596432581. I’ve felt hit or miss with First Second’s releases to this point. But they’ve got two great releases this season, one of them is Alan’s War (which I’ve had since July and haven’t managed to write about yet) and the [...]

A look at two comics from Electrocomics.

Yukiko’s Spinach by Frederic Boilet (2001). Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 2006. $18.99. The opening scene in Frederic Boilet’s nouvelle manga Yukiko’s Spinach consists of seven pages, each divided into three vertical panels. They show bright lights, buildings, and gaudy signs but not people. The lights are blurry white circles. In one sequence at the end, a hotel [...]

My Boy (Mon Fiston) by Olivier Schrauwen. Bries, 2006. Following last week’s review of The Hero’s Life and Death Triumphant, I’ll take a look at a second book from the Belgian publisher Bries, this time translated into English. My Boy is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is in black and white borderless panels, [...]

The Hero’s Life and Death Triumphant / Vie et Mort du Héros Triomphante by Frédéric Coché. Fremok/Bries, 2005. 136p. (Text in French and English) I read most comics with some kind of context. Often I know the artist’s work or the publisher has a familiar style. Sometimes just the cover or the blurb on the [...]

Tintin and the Secret of Literature by Tom McCarthy. Granta, 2006. 14.99 pounds (UK only as far as I can tell) A rare book about Tintin in English, Tom McCarthy’s Tintin and the Secret of Literature so far is a UK only publication (you can order it from Granta’s website though), a 200 page hardcover [...]

Les Bijoux Ravis by Benoit Peeters. Bruxelles: Magic Strip, 1984. (Out of Print and quite rare) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the more I read Tintin, the more I appreciate it. In a similar way to Peanuts, what at first appears rather slight, takes on greater significance through repetition and careful [...]

Le Combat Ordinaire 3: Ce qui est precieux by Manu Larcenet. Dargaud, 2006. 64 p., full color. (Available for 21.95$C from Fichtre.) When I first read the translation of Manu Larcenet’s Le Combat Ordinaire in the form of NBM’s Ordinary Victories (my review), I had no idea that the story continued past the two volumes [...]