see, about once every month or two, i find a good enough reason to order some books from france. it's almost like x-mas, the feeling of tearing into an amazon france or fnac box... uncovering the treasure burried within.
Yesterday, was such a day.
So my excuse THIS time to place a large enough order (i try to keep it to 4 books at a time) was that a co-worker of mine was thinking about ordering the enrique fernandez books that i got him hooked on. Of course, logic stepped in and i piggy-backed my order on his to "save on shipping" (even though i doubt i really saved much at all). oh well, it was justification enough for me :)
i have a major vice, and it is european comic books > bande dessine. the order included:
Le Magicien D'Oz : tome 3
Belladone: tome 2
Blacksad: tome 3
Blacksad: L'histoire des aquarelles
such bliss! i discovered enrique fernandez's work when i was aimlessly surfing french comic book (BD... no, not that kind) sites, and ran across a strikingly charming cover to Le Magicien D'Oz : tome 1.

I just love his use of color and dramatic/emphasized shapes. i was immediately hooked. so, obviously, books 2 and 3 in the series were a must buy for me. enrique also did a book before the oz series titled Les Liberateurs (recently released in french). i picked this up as well, and i'm rather overwhelmed by its awesomeness too. It turns out that Mr Fernandez has a blog as well that i've been checking regularly for the past several months... check it out
http://enriquefernandez0.blogspot.com/and the character design blog (
http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/) did a great interview with him here:
http://enrique-fernandez-interview.blogspot.com/Pierre Alary (artist of Belladone and Les Echaudeurs des Tenebres) also has a blog up and running here:
http://pierrealary.blogspot.com/interview, here:
http://pierre-alary-interview.blogspot.com/I love his style of drawing... i find it very reminiscent of the 2d Dreamworks animated features (intended as a compliment)
Blacksad is awesome as usual... but the first issue is still my favorite. L'histoire des aquarelles is a great companion book to the previously released Blacksad: sketch files (translated in english and released here by IBooks). this Aquarelles book (watercolors) deals entirely with the coloring of the 3 books in the blacksad series. it's amazing to see Guarnido do color study after color study, to find the perfect color theme before painting over the original inked page. this book has a lengthly commentary that i intend to slowly work my way through (me having not-the-best french translation skills).
well, to wrap things up, these books are an excellent addition to my ever growing library of BD books. i couldn't recomend them more highly, so if you're in to importing... don't pass these up!
wow... first blog post without a sketch... oh well, maybe next time
-B