Cory Doctorow recently reviewed a newer book from Lubchansky, which I’d love to read. I can’t easily get a copy, though, so I checked this one out again from the library. It is bonkers and beautiful, and there should be more comics like it.

Ça faisait des années que j’avais l’intention de lire cette bande dessinée, et j’ai enfin trouvé un exemplaire en français il y a quelques semaines, grâce à mon beau-frère.

On a tellement l’habitude de diaboliser l’Iran aux États-Unis qu’il est même facile d’oublier qu’il y a de quoi diaboliser ! L’histoire personnelle de Satrapi est très émouvante, et je suis bien content de l’avoir lu. Je vois pourquoi c’est une classique parmi les bd.

A relatively short comic with good art and a compelling story. In some ways, I would have liked a written memoir more, but this was a good read.

J’aime bien les « Chroniques » de Guy Delisle, et j’étais content de pouvoir acheter cet album-ci. Pourtant, je l’ai trouvé moins intéressant que les autres que j’ai lus. C’est peut-être que le Myanmar a beaucoup changé depuis—même si je suis loin d’être expert sur le pays, ça fait bizarre d’entendre parler d’Aung San Suu Kyi avant sa libération, et avant le commencement de la tragédie des Rohingya.

En tout cas, je continue à aimer le style de Delisle (en écriture et en dessin), et ça fait que je pardonne beaucoup même si je m’ennuyais plus que prévu.

This is an excellent graphic novel adaptation of the earliest of Mormon history. The art is good, the story is compelling, and I enjoyed reading it. I came close to buying this twice in the past year after finding it in comics shops, and I was delighted to find that my local library had a couple of copies.

I do wish that I either knew a lot more history or a lot less history going into this. The details of Joseph Smith’s life and early Mormon history are sometimes sparse or ambiguous; more importantly, they’re hotly contested. I don’t mind at all a critical take on Smith, but even though the author is clearly respectful of the historical figure even with his warts and all approach, there’s a deeply ingrained Mormon skepticism in me that wonders if any of the choices verged on the salacious. That’s not a critique of the book so much as a personal observation and a wish that I could have enjoyed the story while setting aside the instinct to be skeptical of non-LDS tellings of the history (which is all the more ridiculous given that I’m going on 5 years of not practicing in that faith).

J’aime beaucoup les albums de Guy Delisle, et j’avais comme objectif de m’en offrir un lors de ma visite en France. J’aurais préféré acheter « Chroniques birmanes » car je ne l’ai pas encore lu, mais en trouvant celui-ci, je me suis dit que je ne l’avais jamais qu’en anglais, une fois, trop vite dans une bibliothèque.

J’aime bien sa façon de parler de son travail, sa vie, et ses expériences dans un seul album. En plus, c’est intéressant d’avoir une perspective qui date de 1997-1998, et je me demande combieb l’album aurait été différent s’il avait vécu cette expérience plus récemment.

Comme d’habitude, je suis impressionné par le nombre de bd francophones disponible en traduction chez ma bibliothèque municipale, mais j’aurais préféré lire cet album en français. En tout cas, je connaissais le nom Josephine Baker, mais je ne connaissais pas vraiment le personnage. J’aurai appris beaucoup plus en lisant une vraie biographie, mais une bd, c’est quand-même sympa !

It’s weird to rate this so highly given how much anxiety it gives me to read it. Reading it four years ago is what forced me to confront how much baggage I had from my own Mormon missionary experience, but I know the author has her own complicated feelings about the book, and that helps some. At any rate, the book is so well done that I can’t help but rate it highly.

It’s been less than a month since I read the English translation of this, which I already gave full marks. Yet, the original French version was even better. Delisle captures this city and its conflicts in a comic book better than any news story ever could.

I’ve read this a number of times already, but after reading Delisle’s “Jerusalem,” I had to revisit it. It’s the wild, literally incredible story of the two months he spent in Pyongang supervising a team of North Korean animators who were doing work for the French animation studio Delisle worked for. The art is excellent, the writing is good, the story is bonkers. One of my favorite comics.

I have been a fan of Delisle’s for quite some time, but I’m still blown away by how good this is. The book isn’t political or polemical, but a slice-of-life comic done by a cartoonist living in East Jerusalem for a year brings walls, checkpoints, rockets, and attacks on Gaza to life in a subtle, compelling way. I used to follow this news a lot more, and Delisle made me feel like there was a lot I missed even then. I’d love to pick up a copy in the original French.

I wish I had read this before Gharib’s second comic memoir, because there’s a progression there (in terms of both the quality of art and adding detail to story) that makes it unfair to judge this one after reading it second. I think “It Won’t Always Be Like This” is better, but this comic is so good, too. Great story, distinctive art, great overall product.

Everything about this is good: The writing, the art, the mix of the external story and the personal elements that Yang puts in. I wasn’t sure about a basketball comic, but I knew I could trust Yang to pull it off, and I was right.

I find memoir (and other non-fiction) comics to be hit or miss; I’ve even passed up Gharib’s earlier memoir a number of times because I just wasn’t sure. I don’t know what stood out to me about this one, but I went for it and I loved it. I love getting a taste of meaningful events in someone else’s life, and Gharib does such a great job telling her story. It even made me wish I’d taken more Arabic classes in college so I could follow some parts better.

This comic memoir of (same-sex) marriage has excellent art, tells a good story, and hits on very important points for the time we’re in. I picked it up on a whim and really enjoyed it.

This is a frank, vulnerable memoir that I learned a lot from; I’m glad for Kobabe’s willingness to share eir story. I also appreciated the art style. I’d been meaning to read this in print a while ago but had checked out too many books from the library and had to return it before I got to it. I’m glad it was available on Hoopla so I could read it on my phone instead of mindlessly scrolling through TVTropes.

J’ai déjà lu la traduction anglaise de cet album magnifique—Delisle est assez connu aux États-Unis pour paraître (en traduction) dans les bibliothèques près de chez moi. Pourtant, il y a toujours quelque chose de decevant quand je sais que j’aurais lu le lire en français. Quand une ami a visité Bruxelles récemment, je lui ai donc demandé de m’acheter l’album en français. Ayant passé quelques étés dans des usines, l’expérience de Delisle m’a beaucoup marqué. J’ai aussi apprécié la couleur qu’il a ajouté à ses dessins (pas trop, mais plus que ses autres albums) et la façon dont il a raconté des souvenirs de jeunesse.

I’ve wanted to read this book before—I believe I read the whole thing once in high school, and we read a portion of it in a French Civ class before discussing the Bayeux Tapestry. I recently saw it at the library and decided to give it another go.

Because I took a while to get started, the due date snuck up on me, and I had to rush through most of it rather than give it the critical read it deserves.

I found this translation of Delisle’s latest graphic novel at the Jessamine County Public Library and decided to give it a try. I don’t remember how I discovered Delisle, but I love his book Pyongyang, I’ve read a couple of his other books, and I loved this one.

Delisle’s art is great—his style is consistent, simple, and appealing. I like the way that he did color in this book, which is mostly monochrome but with bursts of yellow here and there.

I grabbed this book at the library while dropping off some overdue items and read the whole thing that night before going to bed. Reread, rather—I’ve read this book at least once before. It made a big impression on me at the time, even though I’m sure I wasn’t particularly anti-racist then, and I loved it even more this time.

The art is great and the story is even better. It’s an amazing comic with a powerful message, and I think I ought to buy a copy for kiddo to read when she’s older. I already own Yang’s Superman Smashes the Klan, which is one of my favorite comics, but I think this one might be even better.

This took me a while to read: not because i didn’t like it, but because there were some parts that enraged me (in a productive way), so I couldn’t trust myself to read it before bed for fear of getting too wound up to sleep.

I appreciated the book’s straightforward approach to laying out problems with American democracy and its optimism that we can do something about it. This year, I’ve been wanting to think—and engage—more in politics, and I think I’ll find the last chapter of this book particularly helpful for giving me the motivation to do so.

Having survived one Backderf book and knowing that this is his more famous work (it won an award at Angoulême in 2014), I decided to give it a try.

The story is of Backderf’s childhood association with Jeffrey Dahmer, who grew up to be a serial killer. Dahmer’s crimes are horrifying—I had to put the book out of my mind before going to sleep—but he was caught when I was 3, so I wasn’t really aware of the story.

I picked this graphic novel from JCPL just over a week ago. I think that Backderf’s art is weird, and I have mixed experiences with non-fiction comics, but I don’t know much about the 1970 killing of four students at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard, and I decided it was worth knowing more about.

The story was compelling, and Backderf’s art didn’t bother me as much as I worried it would, so I’m glad I tried it. The story of the Kent State shootings stuck out to me as a difficult tale of the importance of non-violent protest and of curbing state power.