European Graphic Novels+

Credit to my genius Reddit friend-- u/dunkelbunt235.

Theme song: Charline Mignot, et Dormir:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTx7Skm30uQ

I think this Spanish webcomic is worth mentioning, so let's do just that.

Now, as with great webcomics, like the ingenious, thoroughly-awesome Back, as well as Aethernaut), this one has a unique, undeniable charm for the ages. ('he said, hoping to sound unpretentious,' lol)

First off-- the author ("Inky") doesn't want the content shared around (see the bottom text?), which is part of why I'm only offering a few stills:

https://i.imgur.com/MiVyIFF.jpeg

Anyway, what we have here is a naughty, gentle, light-hearted comic about two young women spending a funny, adventurous summer with their cousins (the two boys). They're about 20yo, so I shouldn't really call them "boys" and/or "girls," sorry.

To be clear-- it's naughty in nature, but playful and clever; a thoroughly unique delight.

------> https://inkdolls.com/comic/0100/ <-------

Grandma?!?
https://inkdolls.com/comic/0304/#comic

...I also find it kind of cool and interesting to me (I'm middle-aged), thinking back about those days... about the silly, ridiculous, and (haha) sexy fun we once had.

Oh, and our theme song, "Frisco Blues" by Ofman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpCOGyh9YFE

"C-H" is an outrageous, absurdist Flemish-Belgian comic published for over 40 years.

https://i.imgur.com/UKWjSM4.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/FtxBmFT.jpeg

Believe me, the three above are the barest, most-kid friendly examples that still contain some chuckles that I could find at the moment.

Also, and I hesitate to say this, but-- CH is also about shitting. I mean, the characters delivering excrement and making jokes out of it. I don't think I'm going to post that stuff, but if you like, you can search on all that.

(even "Mr. Hankey" from Southpark is somehow more appropriate XD)

. . .

[WARNING] [MATURE] [WARNING-BELOW]

. . .

The lead comic from the Dental Floss tome is this:

That seems to be the only image released so far.

Also, there seems to be a new film: Astérix, the Kingdom of Nubia launching the year after. [news link]

Just bumped in to this artist's work the other day, and I find them both hilariously pleasing and pleasingly hilarious. A bit like Lewis Trondheim's style.

Check out all the goodies:
https://www.tumblr.com/caloucalou
http://caloucalou.unblog.fr/

TAGS: Lucky Luke

It's a non-standard vampire-thriller (4 tomes) by a great writer-artist duo, Jean Dufaux & Enrico Marini. [BDT]

Just before the above, our two detectives leap for their lives:

https://i.imgur.com/AIPNTa6.jpeg

While two raptors comfortably watch, a brother and sister:

https://i.imgur.com/S18uBSo.jpeg

Hundreds of years before, a ruling council of vampires decided that in order to better manage humans, they should embrace the light, renouncing their traditional, raw meat & blood-loving ways.

Now, one member of the council vehemently objected, the father of the two we see above. He was destroyed, and his children became bitter enemies of the 'new-age' vampires, who went on to rule humanity in secrecy.

Over time, the new-age vampires developed vulnerabilities that the raptors used to assassinate them, conducting a vendetta-based campaign of terror. Meanwhile, detectives Lenore & Spiaggi are assigned to investigate...

https://i.imgur.com/xIqqr5A.jpeg

...later, Lenore somehow manages to straggle home. (just above)

https://i.imgur.com/DkYoZzW.jpeg

On top of the fact that this was a cool, movie-like thriller, I enjoyed the added historical and political elements, plus the existential questions posed against the two vampire factions.

I also found the ending shocking but satisfying, in which there's a tragic, yet uplifting 'changing of the guard.'

It's a minor classic I'd say (it's really good), and another feather in the cap of Dufaux, who consistently churns out fascinating series. Same for Marini, really.

You never know what will happen on a first date -_-

That's Black Bittern above, which represents the bird.

Sheyenne's from Alberta, Canada, and their art reminds me just enough of certain Euro art that I think it's worthy to be added here.

https://i.imgur.com/nCcVMyz.jpeg
We stare into each other's eyes

https://i.imgur.com/zl5RNSc.jpeg
Banana Deer and friends, from the game Fin Fin: On TEO, the Magic Planet

https://i.imgur.com/hxZzKCV.png
Ocean Procession

https://i.imgur.com/jDTOdP8.jpeg
This Moment in Time

https://i.imgur.com/q5EVXd8.jpeg
"Fast Food!"

https://i.imgur.com/48smKFz.jpeg
Kestrel

https://i.imgur.com/mowcXpn.jpeg
Snake in Grass (can you spot all the bugs?)

Oh, and they are also known as "Uzon":
https://www.tumblr.com/uzon
https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/uzon/

"I'm fearing the worst, but hoping for the best!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pif_le_chien

I mean, seriously-- walk in the water, and... suffer the consequences?

Oh, HEY, my old 80's favorite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12bM1CqHoBY

Imladris was also known as "Rivendell" in the J.R.R. Tolkien mythos. Interestingly, both The Hobbit and LotR used this Elven refuge as a key staging-point, but somehow it felt like I was discovering it afresh, each time. (are you taking notes, Peter Jackson & Disney?)

I'm also a little sheepish to admit that all the lovely pieces here are, to the best of my determination, AI-created! (damnit, but they fooled me at first)

Ahhhh, so what the hey-- let's empty out this drawer and move on. Now, the reason I chose to lead with the above is because we'd been sorta talking about Tolkien's stuff recently, and the above piece reminded me a lot of his early illustration work (yes, he was also a pretty-decent artist who worked in a 'turn-of-the-century' style).

Okay then, the following might be a bit random, but--

https://i.imgur.com/MVArIH8.jpeg
Now where might that be..?!

https://i.imgur.com/pEkNSNx.jpeg
Another stained-glass style lighthouse, sorta-kinda.

https://i.imgur.com/FLI2Zk1.jpeg
As someone who used to sail a bit, I love these. Of course, being AI-generated, there are a slew of similar pics out there, for better or ze wurst.

https://i.imgur.com/D5D2DSb.jpeg
San Francisco streets, credit to MidJourney specifically!

I'd say hold on to your hats, though! In retrospect, there's a bunch of art here that helps explain its origins, but in future? I would say all bets are off. *gulp*

(i.e. AI-art will doubtless keep improving, so stuff like this which fooled me initially but which I later managed to bust, will likely bust ME, in future)

https://lemm.ee/post/7895573
Hello, @[email protected]!

EDIT: Corrected a couple typos & errors, plus added a little context to help make things clearer.

Welp, I had something of a personal catastrophe this past weekend, but am finally recovering. I must say, though-- when there are little gaps like that, it sure would be nice if one of the readers could step in and post whatever.

Okay, enough whining.

So, I just finished re-reading the first color work by the fascinating "Blutch" [BDT], made in 2002. TBH, I feel like I need to re-read it a couple more times to get a better sense of it, but for now I can say that it's a surreal series of interconnected scenes that have a movie-like touch, not unlike the work of David Lynch or Fellini, perhaps.

Two women are the lead characters, with the one above ("Lola") struggling to deal with her merciless dance instructor, her absurdly eccentric father, and of course, a big galoot of a celloist chasing her skirts. Oh, and also Renée, the other lead, an obsessed writer who wants to do a book about Lola. The overall tome however is really about the absurdness and even scary sides of humanity, as reflected nicely in the drawing style. Blutch is definitely NOT after pretty, conventional LC here!

Here then are the first six pages of Vitesse Moderne:

-----> https://imgur.com/a/tHqiinO <-----

Btw, I find some major similarities between Blutch's work and that of the great Frederik Peeters of Switzerland and Grégory Mardon of France. All three seem willing to look at the human beast straight in the eye and give you notes that you might not have thought about or wanted to see in comics. In conclusion, I don't know if I'd call this book a 'classic,' but it's a mature work, worthy of many re-reads, that might just feed some part of your soul (or intellect).

The finished work was designed for the box-cover of the anthology series Norman Stories and Legends.

Béatrice shared these pieces on her FB page, and I upscaled them and stitched the one together above. I really like 'before and after' works like this.

https://i.imgur.com/DWLcQco.jpeg
Whoops, the upscaling kinda borked up her mouth, but overall it's much clearer now.

https://i.imgur.com/Lpq3NDx.jpeg
Some Lady of the Lake vibes!

https://i.imgur.com/qyQ8hPe.jpeg

I haven't read this series yet, or anything by Tillier so far, but I like her art a lot. Hopefully more later.

Many people seem familiar with Lord of the Rings via the Jackson movies, but there's a much longer tradition of artists depicting scenes from the books. Plus of course, two TV / movie series that bring some great voicework & songs (Rankin-Bass' version) and fascinating animation (Ralph Bakshi's), despite their overall flaws.

But in terms of alternate illustrators, check out the Brothers Hildebrandt, for example.

Personally, I'm enjoying this Argentinian master's version because the characters are no longer as wholesome-looking as in other depictions, giving the scene slight horror overtones. The ammonite is a nice bonus, too!

Some more Chichoni art here:
https://lemm.ee/post/27712402

Based on the story of Noah's Ark, this shows humans and a tiger doomed by the flood, futilely attempting to save their children and cubs. Full version here.

It's a wood-engraving from the mid-to-late 1800's, evidently finished by Adolphe François Pannemaker, one of Doré's assistants. I love the fine line-work here, certainly reminding me of figures on currency.

Doré (1832 – 1883) was a French printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravings illustrating classic literature, especially those for the Vulgate Bible and Dante's Divine Comedy. These achieved great international success, and he became renowned for printmaking, although his role was normally as the designer only; at the height of his career some 40 block-cutters were employed to cut his drawings onto the wooden printing blocks, usually also signing the image.

He created over 10,000 illustrations, the most important of which were copied using an electrotype process using cylinder presses, allowing very large print runs to be published simultaneously in many countries. --WP

https://www.artstation.com/alariko

It's from the superb, two-tome series Through the Walls, by Jean-Luc Cornette & Stéphane Oiry.

So this is just a ramble, but in terms of the thumbnail, I really liked the transition between the 'dinner and the road' just above, plus the theme-shift from red to yellow to blue/green, again above.

Indeed, overall across the series I found that there were light, playful (yet somehow precise) touches everywhere. Almost like a chortling intelligence at work, just playing little sandbox games for us to enjoy, haha.

Oh rabbits, and I'd completely forgotten about Stéphane Oiry in terms of his art projects. In fact, he's one of the two geniuses involved in perhaps my favorite GN of all time, i.e. Maggy Garrisson.

Alright, alright, let's read the story, chapitre deux:

------> https://imgur.com/a/UjIMe14 <------

Btw, the writer Cornette is another good one to follow. We should really get to more of his work, too.

Oh it's ON, baby!!

Nah, it's mainly just a silly goof-con, in which case almost every sci-fi series one might possibly imagine has plainly borrowed from earlier ones in one way or another. At least, I THINK so.

That said, I seem to recall Mézières being pretty upset about this at some point. In any case, he passed on a couple years ago, so hmm...

EDIT: Whoops, pardon. This specifically appeared in the annex of the Cinebook edition of v2, The Empire of a Thousand Planets. There was a text accompaniment that I could post, if necessary. It was pretty rubbish, frankly.

Altho these don't have the precision line work of LC art, I did find them pleasing in other ways.

https://i.imgur.com/ccwd4Kq.jpeg

For example, I liked the historical context --all those little details-- as well as the lush, varied and warm color schemes.

https://i.imgur.com/LyO3oKD.jpeg

New York, 1950s. Josuah Harrison, a former member of the 101st Airborne and decorated with the prestigious Purple Heart, works as an investigator for a law firm. In fact, he mainly works for James Layton, the former commander of his company. Josuah is tasked with finding out who is blackmailing a real estate tycoon. Ronald Husler, a handsome self-made man in his forties, is in fact the victim of blackmail linked to his wife's troubled past. --BDT

https://i.imgur.com/K3qxNDp.jpeg

This excellent series is four tomes long, with "Raives" (Guy Servais) handling colors, but also collaborating with the writer Éric Warnauts upon the art, an unusual but fruitful arrangement, Belgian-style.

https://i.imgur.com/0Bxjh06.jpeg

Book two is mainly set in Hawaii, and in my mind the above was a great little M*A*S*H tribute. :-)

https://i.imgur.com/d0u8Cda.jpeg

The series distinctly reminded me of Fabien Nury's fabulous "Silas Corey" and "Tyler Cross" works. The strong plots, stylish art, measured pace, frequent danger and historical context were things the series all had in common.

https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-66720-BD-Purple-Heart.html

Alright, this one's a little bit of a stretch to be posted here, but what the hey.

Knight Bus: a magical bus that appeared whenever a witch or wizard was in urgent need of transportation, all they had to do was stick a wand arm out at the curb for it to instantly appear. Distinctive in appearance, the Knight Bus was purple and triple-decker with seats during the day and beds at night. --WizardingWorld.com, covering the British series Harry Potter

In Mary's tribute here, I can see a couple anime and gaming characters.

Her site:
https://www.maryguo.com/fanart

Show your support for the show and increase the chance to get a second season by signing the petition!

Long overdue update, baby!

So... wow. Step-by-step, we’re on our way. And wouldn’t you know it, our one-year anniversary is coming up on August 1st. For a little background– we were founded directly in response to Reddit cracking down on 3rd-party app creators, which was the beginning (or possibly continuance) of Reddit essentially monetizing its volunteer labor. More on all that in the FAQ's comment section.

So what's new, matey?

• Matey, the Resources page has been updated with lots more info and links, specifically to help future posters.
• Some of the older posts had lost their lead-images due to server ("instance") glitch. They've now been fixed.
• Some of the older reviews still lack internal picture content. I (Johnny) work on that when I have time, such as by adding new content to the Hilda review (https://lemm.ee/post/2740095).
• The site's been added to the Wayback Machine tracking. Hopefully if something happens to me, Lemm.ee or the FV, the community can carry on somewhere else, preserving the best content.
• More clickable #tag searches have been added in the sidebar. The searches will by default search this specific community here on this instance, but you can adjust those factors as you like.
• The banner! Its resolution is higher now, noticeable perhaps if one zooms in.
• There was a linked-image issue the past few weeks that was frankly driving me up the wall, but fortunately, with the help of our instance-runner, the bug now seems squashed. A bunch of recent posts have now been fixed so that images will appear right in the body of the post, without needing to click a link, altho just to be cautious, I’m now adding the Imgur links underneath as a failsafe.
• One of these was a temporarily-deleted POST that’s now been fully restored, dedicated to the art of Alexander Petela, celebrating PRIDE month. I feel bad that more people didn’t see it, so check it out if you like. The art is pretty gorgeous and unique IMO.

I'm a newcomer. Any advice?

Welcome, welcome! ^^
Feel free to simply enjoy the new posts as they're published! But more than that, feel free to keep paging back through the archives or use the tags / search. As of the moment, there are over 360 postings to enjoy.

And of course, feel free to create your own topics, share your favorite stuff, discuss various comics, or just ask questions from the knowledge-base of our members.

Volunteer opening: News Reporter

I (Johnny) spend most of my 'BD time' reading, researching and writing, but what I'm not so good at is keeping up with the latest news. For this reason, we could use someone to keep an eye on the latest Euro comics news and post some interesting bits from time to time. If someone's willing to do that on a regular basis, it's worth a mod position.

There are many good sources with news (we have a ~dozen listed in Resources), most of which tend to get updated on a ~weekly basis. It's a job that probably only requires 30-40min per week. About one post per week of something interesting would be ideal.

Volunteer opening: Archivist

Proof-checking and fact-checking are needed on older posts that contain significant text content. There are no doubt some spelling, grammar and phrasing errors here and there, but probably even more needed is to: 1) properly organise and supplement our "master list," and 2) yell at Johnny for not including enough picture content in whatever posts that seem long and dry, with only text. If that makes sense.

Indeed, I'd say the "master index" greatly needs to be updated with new content, which should probably become a new, pinned post created and maintained by the future archivist. This is also worth a mod position.

Job opening: Publicist

I make a point of dropping semi-regular links to our content on Reddit, while not trying to go overboard. What's needed far more than that is posting our content around the web to appropriate communities in a non-aggressive, friendly way. I'm talking about Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and other major sites, as well as various BD communities and wherever else seems receptive. Not in a spamful way, but simply in a 'hey, here's some cool, recent content,' such as the reviews. Maybe 1-2 links per week to each type of site.

Since this strikes me as a pure service, I'm thinking it's probably appropriate to PayPal such a publicist per link generated, or something like that. Anyone interested, feel free to message me about this.

Final thoughts

Averaging over a post per day for an entire year is not something I thought would be *remotely* possible in the beginning, yet it somehow happened, with huge thanks to Nacktmull, and with proper thanks to a handful of others.

Still, to be clear-- ultimately, the goal here is to create a self-sustaining community in which the mods do not themselves need to create the lion's share of the content. TBH, I’m not a big fan of administration myself, and would prefer to be just a content-creator, at the end of the day.

Now, yes-- I realise those are goals for down the road, when the community is bigger, but I also happen to think they're good, healthy goals. So I want to let everyone reading know that we really *do* need more regular posters, even if it's only to post on an occasional basis, such as once per 1-2 mos. Every little bit helps, hey?

Thank you for reading

I hope it wasn't too hard to get through all that, and I also hope that you might consider my requests. They are sincerely intended for the good of the sub/community, not just me personally.

Now, if you liked the artwork (by Simon Stålenhag), here's a big, bonus gift:

https://imgur.com/gallery/collection-of-prehistoric-art-by-simon-st-lenhag-2015-rthOp

Kriek's a super-illustrator who works in a variety of styles and formats, but some of my favorites are these 'woodcut-style' pieces with their limited color palettes. For a nice big intro on Kriek and more sample pics, see: https://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/kriek.htm

As for this particular work, it's his latest, and one can see a load of sample pages here. That's in Castellano, so hit your translate button!

After the tragic loss of their son, Huub and Sara move into an old, isolated family home in the Veluwe woods. They hope to put the grief behind them and get their lives back on track. But is it really a good decision?

In the forest, at the bottom of their garden, there is a mysterious pond, filled with stagnant black water. The waterhole is surrounded by old beech trees with strange markings carved into the bark.

Sara hopes to rediscover her taste for creativity, and paint new canvases in this new environment. She abandons her psycho-medical treatment to achieve this. When she discovers old sketchbooks left by Huub's great-uncle, she gradually sinks into darkness... --BDT