Saturday and Sunday v1: “Rock Heaven”

This book is an odd duck, er, lizard.

And I mean that in a very delightful way.

Let’s question the meaning of life, the universe, and everything in 50 pages or so. It’ll be fun!

Where Do Credits Come From?

What’s It All About

Saturday and Sunday start the book as two lizards enjoying a nice day of fishing off the end of their atoll.

But, then, Saturday asks the important question: “What exactly are we doing here?”

They have no long term memories of anything other than fishing off their atoll. And aren’t they just a little bit curious about where they came from, and what else is out there?

That kicks off a journey of discovery and (light) adventure. Saturday and Sunday, best friends, walk to the other side of the atoll and have many (mis)adventures along the way. Their quest for answers takes them to the place of ultimate happiness that threatens to kill them, an Answer Fest that is a complete sham, a tyrannosaurus rex businessman, and a mad scientist who wants to help but has an ulterior motive.

It’s a very surreal book in some ways, but a very cute and pleasant one. This is a book done for laughs, which might occasionally have a deep and meaningful point pop out here and there to give it gravitas. But, really, it’s a silly tour of the island with an actual mission behind it.

No, really, I mean it: It can get very silly:

Structurally, it kind of reminds me of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Sure, there’s a point to where they’re going or what they’re looking for, but the fun of the book is meeting all these weird characters and creatures, each one a little crazier.

What Fabien (“Alone“) Vehlmann creates with his script for this book is a light-hearted buddy movie filled with every crazy idea he came up with while writing the script. He can occasionally hang a little philosophy onto it, or even a bit of social satire. But, for the most part, it’s just zany fun.

Ultimately, it’s a vehicle for the art of Gwen De Bonneval, who does a great job with his style in conveying the story. The character designs are super simple and pleasant. In some ways, it reminds me of “Bone.” There’s a very smooth ink line at work and some creative backgrounds behind two lead characters who are lizards, but really look almost like amorphous blobs half the times.

I just realized who else De Bonneval’s art reminds me of — William Van Horn. He’s best known for his Disney Duck books, but also did some black and white independent work once upon a time. In fact, one featured a T. Rex (“Nervous Rex”), much like this book does in one of its chapters. It’s that same round line and inky brush style.

There is, in the end, a story with a lesson in this book. Without that, it would have felt pointless and self-indulgent. Stick around to the end and you’ll get a satisfying conclusion. A lesson is learned, life goes on, Saturday and Sunday go back to living.

It’s a fun read, goes very quickly, and will have you paging back to favorite moments for a second laugh at one of the good jokes.

I found myself returning to this guy at the Answer Fair:

I feel like that will need to be at hand for a meme in the future, somehow…

The Colors of the Weekend

The coloring is great. The work from Walter and Yuka is satisfyingly flat.

There are no gradients, save a few distant skies. There’s no airbrushing. There’s no attempt to mold a simple drawing into a three dimensional, rendered item. There are no specular highlights. There’s the occasional bit of texture in the backgrounds, but that’s it.

It’s nothing flashy, and that’s a huge sigh of relief. It doesn’t need any of that nonsense. de Bonneval’s style is purposefully open to color, with the occasional ink work to create shadows. You could add more to it, but I think they did the right thing in keeping it straight ahead and flat.

The One Major Shortcoming of the Book

It’s the lettering. Specifically, I have a font issue. Here’s a larger example:

The font works well for the art style and the tone of the story. It has a certain zany bounciness to it. Those bowl shapes on top of the “Y” letter forms stand out. The way all the horizontal lines lean up at an angle together keeps the style from looking purely orthogonal and mechanical. It even has the lowercase “i” in place of the standard crossbar-less “I” in the middle of words, a la “Asterix.”

But the “G” kills everything. This isn’t me being nit-picky. This is me misreading the “G” for an “S” several times over the course of the book Every time a word ended in “ING”, I misread it as “INS.” That “G” shape needs a little extra space in the middle of it to better enunciate itself.

I do love the word balloons and tails, though. They’re a little thicker and not perfect circles. If they’re not hand drawn, they’re well done approximations of it. They have a certain wobbliness to them both in shape and line form that also fits the tone of the book. Everything stays organic.

Recommended?

I find it charming and likable, creative and occasionally witty. Not everyone is going to like it. Ultimately, it’s a silly little thing that’s creative and fun. If you’re looking for hard philosophy or heavy social commentary, you really won’t find that here.

But the silly fun of a T. Rex in a business suit with a short temper? The occasional bit of mindless philosophy which maybe means something, but not really?

That’s my kind of fun.

You can pick it up at Izneo or Comixology today.

After that, you can pick up “Saturday and Sunday” v2, which I’ve also reviewed.

Bonus Random Fact

Vehlmann and de Bonneval jointly won the 2020 Goscinny Prize (for best writing) for “Last of the Atlases,” which is also available in English. You can get it as a series of ten 30-page chapters.

That’s Vehlmann (left) and de Bonneval (right) on the right half of this picture: