Get a Life

A couple of weeks ago I bought a copy of Get a Life at the Brunswick St Bookstore and quickly devoured it's contents. I'll admit I'm a huge fan of the clear line school of storytelling that comes out of France and Belgium. It all started as a boy with a chap called Tintin of course, then many years later when I landed in Paris I picked up a copy of Soirs de Paris by Francois Avril and Philippe Petit Roulet I was hooked from that moment on. It has been hard to find English translations of Dupuy & Berberian's work (as well as Chaland, Clerc, Trondheim etc) but thanks to the talented folk at Drawn and Quarterly and Fantagraphics etc we are starting to see more and more fantastic bande dessinee come across our shores.

I emailed Dupy & Berbian many years ago with a really, really sloppy fan letter in the vain hope that they would forgive my terrible, mangled French (and eventual collapse back into English) they did - and not only that - Charles Berberian emailed back (even now that makes me excited in a fan boy way) he then went and had a look at my website (the one I had ages ago - before the one I now have which is in dire need of an overhaul and some new content). I was in heaven after that. I bought Barcelona Carnets when I was in Leuven alongside a whole bunch of wonderful work from all sorts of artists. One day I will go back to France and stalk everyone until they sign all my books - then I can die happy (in a Paris jail no doubt for stalking poor defenseless artists).