Episode 7: 5 Books To Start BD
Never read a European comic before? Haven’t dipped your toes into the waters of Franco-Belgian comics? I have some suggestions for you.
There are literally thousands of books out there. Not all are great. Not all are going to be to your liking.
But I have read a lot of them, and have found certain books I’ve recommended to people in the past that they’ve enjoyed.
Today, I have five series I’d like to recommend to you. They may not all be to your liking, but so long as at least one sparks your interest, I’ve done my job here.
Plus it’s a listicle, and all the internet loves a listicle!
Ken Games
It’s the first book that I read and got REALLY excited about three years ago when I started down this path of BD reading.
Written by Jose Manuel Robledo, It’s the story of three friends who are all liars. They lie to each other about their jobs. The math student is a pro boxer. The teacher is a waitress hiding the fact that she’s a hitwoman. The banker is a poker player.
This is the story of what happens when those walls fall down, when the lies come out into the open. When all hell breaks loose. It is a twisty-turny adventure tale with three great friendships, and some ludicrously cool action pieces.
And it is beautifully drawn by Marcial Toledano. I’m not even sure who to compare it to. There’s a little Frank Quitely in there, maybe a touch of Art Adams..
The initial story runs three books. They came back to do a fourth a little while later that helps tie up some more questions you might have, but the art was in a different style.
Still, this is a book that people have loved when they’ve taken me up on this recommendation. I think it’s page-turning nature, twist-filled narrative, and gorgeous art helps it appeal to a superhero comic loving audience.
The same creative team did a follow-up book named Tebori: Another three parter, this time set in the world of Japanese organized crime and high end tattoos.
The Campbells
This one is probably my favorite. Written and drawn by Jose-Luis Munuera, it’s a dramedy about a pirate who’s a single father. After the death of his wife, he quits the pirating game to take care of his children.
Over the course of the five volumes in the series, he, of course, gets dragged back into the game, and we learn what happened to his wife. It’s classic slapstick and verbal comedy — think Marx Bros — mixed with strong drama. It’s a lot of shorter stories/chapters that add up beautifully, with each book ending in a game-changing way to drag you further into the world.
Jose-Luis Munuera’s art is wonderfully animated, like something in those old Bugs Bunny cartoons with a touch of Disney movie magic to it. He ‘s really good at selling those Vaudevillian comedy beats, using characters who straddle the line between dangerous and goofy in a great way.
But the thing that will propel you through the story is the drama part, learning more about these characters and how they’re all interrelated and how past actions affect future conflicts, how seemingly easy and harmless decisions made now might still put you in big trouble not long from now. etc. etc.
Plus, you know, PIRATES! Who doesn’t love pirates?
If you want a more serious pirate book, recommendation #3 is for you:
Long John Silver
This is a four part series available in print through Cinebook, but also digitally on your favorite distributors websites, i.e. Izneo.com and Comixology.com
Written by Xavier Dorison and drawn by the always amazing Matthieu Lauffray, it’s a story about Lady Vivian Hastings, a British woman who’s out for revenge against her husband who was – well , just a mean and bad son of a bitch. He became obsessed with finding a golden city overseas, and destroyed her life in the process, to make a long story short. He needed money to fund one more expedition, so he sold everything out from under her to fund the trip.
So she hires Long John Silver and his crew to help get her revenge on her husband over the course of his next trip, take his gold, and leave him behind.
This is not a funny book. This is a serious period drama, but it’s a very literary one. Dorison does an amazing job in working everything out in this book. There are major events in her life that are never expressly pointed out, but obviously hinted at. Everyone’s motivations are clear at the end of the story, even if they were questionable or murky at the start. It all makes sense, it all comes together, and it’s gripping.
It’s another one of those books where you can’t put it down once you start.
Lauffray’s art is amazing, a sort of mix of Tom Mandrake, Lee Weeks, and Gene Colan. There are even hints of Rick Leonardi. The look Lauffray achieves with his inks in this book is amazing. It’s a dark and heavy book, with lots of shadows and scratchy ink lines to sell it.
Lauffray also did a one-off Valerian and Laureline book called “Shingouzlooz, Inc.” that’s worth looking into if you’re a Valerian fan down the road…
Glorious summers
Every year, the Falderault family of Belgium takes a road trip to a French beach. And every summer, something weird gets in their way.
That’s the loose outline for “Glroious Summers,” from writer Zidrou and artist Jordi LaFebre.
Obviously, as someone with a bit of Belgian blood in him, I’m susceptible to this book’s grasp, but I think every comic fan will love it for plenty of other reasons.
First, the book skips around in time. Each story is a different year, and not always in chronological order. You get the see the family grow and how their relationships change over time, particularly as the older children grow into teenagers and college students. If you read between the lines, you can start piecing together the “continuity” of the series, so to speak. It’s not necessary, but it’s fun finding the connections whenever a piece of innocent dialogue is meant to harken back to a previous book.
Second, the father is a comic book artist. We see the volatile career he has through the books, from assistant to a jerk of a big name artist, to creating his own properties with limited degrees of success, and on up. There are some comic references along the way to keep comic fans happy, and he is also an avowed Asterix fan.
Third, this is the most pleasant comic I’ve ever read. While there are a couple of “ dramatic” moments along the way, the characters are all pleasant, particularly the children when they’re younger. There’s no bloodshed or hyper melodrama. There’s a lot of family love. They get into little spats here and there, and make the best of bad situations. But there’s a love there for each other and for the family traditions. Even when personalities clash, you’ll likely see it as a mirror for something you’ve seen in your family, too. It’s a universal book in many ways.
Fourth and final: It’s drawn by Jordi LaFebre, who to me looks like the European version of Joe Quesada. And if you follow him on Instagram, you’ll see he has lots of North American artist fans of his work, too. He’s an artist’s artist. And he draws like a dream.
Gag a Page Books
I’m cheating here. For my fifth pick, I want to recommend a format. This is the gag-a-page format. These are all humor books where each page is a separate gag, more or less.
A lot of albums start as serials in magazines like Spirou or Bamboo Magazine, then get collected later. There’s a LOT of them that are humor books, and I’ve enjoyed a bunch.
Some quick recommendations in this department:
“Josephine” by Penelope Bagieu, who you might know from her other award-winning works like “Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World” or “California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before The Mamas & the Papas.”
“Josephine” is a funny and, I assume, at least partially autobiographical series of gags about a young single woman in Paris and her neurotic point of view of the world. Everything from dating to going to the gym to working — all those every day things. She milks lots of humor out of those situations.
There are three books in this series, which later got made into two movies.
“Back to Basics” by Jean-Yves Ferri and Manu Larcenet is a somewhat autobiographical comic strip based on Larcenet’s life. It’s the time when he moved with his wife and child to the suburbs from Paris. It’s all about him getting situated in his new more rural life, getting used to working on a gigantic art board in his new studio, and navigating the craziness of his neighbors and other townsfolk.
There are five books available now. Ferri and Larcenet recently released a sixth book in French, so I’m hoping we get that in English soon. I love this series, in part because it’s SO different from the other stuff of Larcenet’s that I’ve read, and has a very friendly, cartoony look to it.
“Dad” by one-named wonder Nob, is the story of a single Dad raising four daughters he had from four different women. That story unfolds as the books go by. This series is still in production. The irst two or three books are out now, while the sixth, I believe, just hit stores in France.
It’s a funny book, but it also has a wonderful color palette to it and soft lines that make it attractive and help it to stand out from the crowd.
More Show Notes
- Marcial Toledano’s Instagram page
- Jordi LaFebre’s Instagram page
- Buy Your Comics Here: Izneo.com, Comixology.com
