Morning,
Seems like weeks ago that I was in France. I’m back at the daily grind and have yet to go through the Angouleme haul properly.
If you have a listen to the ACP this week I give some tips about going to the festival next year if you fancy it. I’m also guesting on the Mega City Book Club on Sunday (4/2/24) with Eamonn from a small French cafe in Angouleme. We had a great chat about the festival and the news that had just landed about the first ever British creator to win the Grand Prix. What a time to be alive. You can catch up on this brilliant podcast right here.
Walking back into the ACP we also had the magnificent Bob Fingerman on the show. He has a retrospective art book funding on Zoop that you really need to see. Bob is one of my favourite comics creators and Minimum Wage is a masterpiece. Now they need to reprint it! Get on his new book by jumping on here. It’s proving to be quite the hot property! And hear Bob talk about his career and influences on the new ACP here.
So, to the task at hand. For those new to this weekly column. I choose the comic that I have most enjoyed and the one that I have least enjoyed. I’ve been keeping a record of everything I read and grading them out of ten. I go back over the previous week and pick the one I’ve most liked and the one I didn’t.
Tops.
Easy one. I may not have a full handle on the language, but with this book you can sink into the art and use Google translate for the bits you need.
You can hear me try to give a summary of the Thorgal story on the new ACP. It’s both pretty complicated and more than a little wacky. The French version is an oversized hardback and I really wish Cinebook invested in that size for their English language reprints. But I make do.
Bottoms.
I’d actually forgotten that I had bought this. I found it hidden in the To Read Pile. It is pretty slim and feels more like a pamphlet so was easy to miss.
This was a strange one. The title is mostly unreadable and could do with a fix. Including cover it is 20 pages at A5 at a price of £7 (although the person sending it did throw in a free A5 print). And it only gave you an option of First Class at £4 or Tracked at £6. Check out online how much a first class letter costs and you’ll see one of the reasons this comic made it to the bottom of my list.
I really did not enjoy this. A shame as I’d been told that Corbel was a good illustrator. In fact the print I received as a freebie looked pretty good, but the comic itself was seriously not to my taste. Not recommended.
See you next week, many thanks for reading.
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