"Lydie" French edition cover detail by Zidrou and Lafebre
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“Lydie” by Lafebre and Zidrou

Writer: Zidrou
Artist: Jordi Lafebre
Colorist: Jordi Lafebre
Lettering: Cromatik Ltd.
Translator: Mercedes Claire Gilliom
Published by: Dargaud/Europe Comics
Number of Pages: 60
Original Publication: 2012

Advance Warning

I need a content warning here, because “Lydie” is a book that might be tough for some: This book is about a woman who loses her baby at birth and spends the rest of the book not getting over it. Also, there’s a scene early on involving the drowning of some baby cats. I’m not even a cat person, but — ick.

It all makes sense in the context of the story and all, but it might be a showstopper for some.

The Return of the Child

The mustache baby at the end of the street

Somewhere in France, I presume, a short dead-end street is nicknamed after the ad painted on the fence at the end of it. It’s a close neighborhood, filled with residents who look out for each other and gossip about each other constantly. There’s the doctor and the train engineer and the old lady and all the little kids who are always getting into trouble.

Zidrou’s story is about the young woman named Camille, whose mother died having her, and whose fatherless baby dies during childbirth. There’s also something wrong with her mentally. She’s what they used to call “slow.”

Zidrou tells the story, most interestingly, through the view of a religious idol that lives up on the wall outside Apartment 3A. She’s got a good view to see everything going on in the neighborhood, and raises more questions about spirituality and death along the way. It’s an interesting narrative layer on top of the whole story.

The religious statue acts as the narrator

But here’s the big twist to the book: Two months after losing the baby, Camille’s convinced that the child has come back. She plays mom to a pretend invisible baby.

The neighborhood and the town rallies around her. They can’t break her heart by sticking to the truth and reality, so they play along. Over the course of the next six years, we watch her raise an invisible child, and we see most everyone around her captured by her plight and making this work, from the storekeepers to the school administrators.

But is there something else going on here?  Zidrou’s story raises some interesting questions, but purposefully doesn’t spell out their answers.  It’s a bittersweet tale of a difficult situation and how the neighborhood rallies around a hard-luck case.

And so the neighborhood starts taking care of the invisible baby

It’s heart warming and heart breaking all at the same time, and you can’t help but feel for these characters, even if you do occasionally question the wisdom of their decision.  Were they just too afraid to confront reality with Camille?  Or are they pro-actively doing something profoundly kind, no mater how much work it takes?

The Art of Lafebre

This is art that might not be remarkable to you at first, as you soak up the story and follow along with all the characters. But do go back and look through a second time to appreciate the work Lafebre accomplishes here.

Some random neighbors of Lydie's

First of all, he populates this street with all the characters the story needs without confusing the reader. There’s no colorful superhero costume here to act as a handy shortcut to identifying people. You need to have distinct faces and body shapes and sizes. Lafebre does all of that.

Even more impressively, when the story jumps ahead a few years at one point, the characters all age while still being recognizable. Papa Choo-Choo gains some weight, most noticeably, but that’s still him. Camille shifts a little bit. The neighborhood kids become teenagers. Many of the changes are subtle, but they work.

After that, take a look at how Lafebre draws people. Look at how the clothes drape over their bodies. See the folds on their sleeves and pant legs. See how articulate they are, and how strong their gestures are, without being over the top.

This isn’t the Andre Franquin school of acting with the large hands and the extreme poses. This is mostly in the faces, which convey the story better than anyone else I’ve read in recent years. This is people who are slouched in their chair when tired, or who perk up and stand a little straighter when excited, or who look around corners with the perfect curiosity.

The Colors of Lafebre

Lafebre colors his own work, and the results are beautiful. The nighttime blues nicely offset his predominant schemes of almost sickly yellows and greens.

The light pours into the room, highlighting all in its path

His shadow work, in particular, helps sell the art.  For the most part, it’s simple cut-in shadow shapes, but occasionally they work to frame a scene or specifically to show how a light is cast when it cuts through a window or a doorframe (see above).

Lafebre thinks about his color work, and doesn’t just fill in the lines with something that “feels right.”  Nor does he rely on Photoshop tricks and effects.

Camille in the rain, mourning Lydie to the religious idol on the wall

About as tricky as he can get is this panel where Camille is praying to the religious idol who is narrating the book. And even that is just in the circles.  Most of the work on this panel is still done in black lines, particularly with the downpour.

It’s so good that it’s the cover image to the French edition.

One Slightly Lighter Note

Lydie’s father’s name is Augustin.

Augustin is Camille's father, and Lydie's grandfather

Yes, we have another comic book Augie!

Recommended?

It’s not a blanket recommendation, but if the trigger warning doesn’t scare you off and you are looking for a done-in-one Twilight Zone type of story, this is a beautifully drawn book with some very emotional moments than can suck you right in.

This is more a literary short story than a pop art explosion of energy.

If that sounds interesting to you, give it a shot. If nothing else, you’re still getting better than 50 pages of Lafebre art.

— 2018.036 —

Buy It Now


What do YOU think? (First time commenters' posts may be held for moderation.)

12 Comments

    1. It doesn’t exactly hand you everything on a silver plate, but it’s an interesting character study of the neighborhood, with some beautiful art.

    1. Be sure to come back and let us know what you think. It’s a… heavier book than usual, but that seems to be the way things go with Zidrou and Lafebre together. The lighter moments seem almost hilarious when compared to the crazy deep darker parts. The last book I reviewed went to the Nazi occupation and the extermination of French Jews in the second volume.

      1. Read the book, art is amazing. The story is… it’s strange, different, I wouldn’t call it bad but that ending left me slightly confused even if the rest of it was good. It’s really hard give an accurate impression. But no regrets about reading it, except for the cat drowning part, I didn’t like that (though I had been warned). All in all, good recommendation

        1. That’s all fair. The ending is a bit of a literary device thing where you can read into it what you want, I think. Some people love that to pieces. I think I’m more with you. I kind of like the nebulousness of it, but would rather have had a definite answer. Call me a simpleton. 😉

      2. I thought I posted a while ago but it seems to not gone through (sorry if it ends up a double post)

        It’s a good book, the art is amazing, it looks alive; no wonder Lafebre is America’s favourite French artist.
        The story goes a bit odd in the last third or so, it’s still a nice tale and I don’t regret reading it but the last part feels a bit flat or hollow, not sure how to explain it (maaan, reviewing books is hard… 🙂 ); I guess it’s how it’s meant to be but it still left me wanting.
        I’d still put it down as a good read in my book

        1. Yes, reviewing books is HARD and I don’t recommend anyone else try it. I don’t want the competition. 😉 It is a bit of a weird ending, I admit it. Reminds me of some of those literary short stories I had to read in college that felt like they had no point, but my professor told me that WAS the point. I still don’t get that, but to each their own. Sometimes, you want someone to either make something CLEAR, or explain it so the reader can understand what the author is going for. Like I said somewhere else, skip “Vice Squad” if you don’t like this kind of ending. That one went worse for me, and I’m not sure why. I think it’s because I had more invested in the story, being spread out over two books…

  1. Hmmm ok. I finished it last night and I have to admit I am extremely disappointed.
    Luckily it’s only 60 pages so it reads very fast (not much text and dialogue, really). And it won’t spread over multiple volumes, which is a good thing.
    My take is this: It’s The Twilight Zone meets The Little House On The Prairie.
    Extremely predictable and marketed for the Young Women segment of readership to sob and shed a tear every few pages, by using every cliché in the arsenal of writers. This as as movie would be ROTFL ridiculous.
    I see no other reason to write a story like this. Since this book is from 2010 I looked online for articles or interview from the author to explain the genesis of the book. Apparently this guy is extremely prolific and has a very specific audience.
    He’s targeting it and pulling their strings appropriately. Rinse and repeat.
    The art is remarkable though. Earlier you wrote a piece about Guy Davis; this reminded me of him, from SMT, also a period piece. This one here is less scratchy than Davis but a bit more caricatural. His characters have noses and everything else is built around it, including the ‘filming’ angles. I like the art and it purposefully serves the story by making the main protagonists sympathetic, the mean ones meaner, etc. I want him to draw something else, something that makes sense. I’m not like you Augie and wouldn’t buy something solely for the art but this guy is good so look out for him.
    Finally, the colors. The scourge of modern BD is putting brown everywhere, this one book doesn’t escape the curse but since it’s meant to take place in provincial France in the 1930’s, it kind of makes sense. It’s not as overdone as other series so I can live with it.
    All in all, it wasn’t a terrible 25 mn read, but I’m glad I just borrowed it from my local library cause I probably wouldn’t have bought it.

    1. Over here, we’d call it the perfect Lifetime movie — a sweet or sappy family or romance movie that aims at the most obvious and tear-jerking female demo-friendly plot line possible. They are so cliche and formulaic by now, that you can make up one of your own over lunch, no doubt. Kind of like the Harlequin Romance of the cable TV world.

      I like the Guy Davis comparison. I love Davis’ work, obviously, and can see the comparisons. I like that style, in general, a lot.

      The browns-everywhere approach to comic book coloring was done to death over here in the 1990s with Vertigo Comics. Take a look at your typical Sandman or Preacher comic, and you’ll start to see it. It became a house style, and still gets reference to this day in the occasional review.

      Happy to hear your library had the book. And, yes, Zidrou writes a lot of stuff. I believe I’ve reviewed one or two of them in the past, too.

      1. I have been kinda fascinated by Hallmark Christmas movies recently, some showed up on streaming services and I’ve binged quite a few (should I be ashamed?). They seem to recycle semi-retired ‘Hey I know that guy from somewhere’ actors and actresses. The plots are so formulaic that I’m sort of mesmerized looking at the countdown clock at the bottom of my laptop screen waiting for the next predictable twist to drop. The Good Witch is my favourite, this Zidrou tale is the kind of story you could almost find there, minus all the nasty cat-drowning bits of course.
        I’m happy to see that French BDs rarely comply to an utilitarian 3-act structure, therefore are really unpredictable. Hit or miss as they may be.

        1. Oh, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we shipped Hallmark movies overseas, too. Your description is even better than mine. I’ve seen a few, but only because my wife force me to watch them with her. Given the right location and cinematography, I can find things to like about them. Otherwise, I tend to spend the time breaking down the story and the act structure and the character bits and try to analyze it. Sometimes, I can’t turn the review brain off!

          I’m enjoying discovering stories that aren’t all three acts, even when they partially frustrate me for that reason. I guess I’m just used to the three acts, and everything else still throws me for a loop…