Non Album Collections 303

Shakespeare World (2020)

by Jules Stromboni, Astrid Defrance. A small dog slips into William Shakespeare's vault, steals a bone, and unleashes a terrible curse. Soon England is under water, civil war threatens, and British citizens possessed by Shakespeare's theater are trying to organize and survive in chaos. 

Magritte - This is Not a Biography (2017)

Charles embarks on an exploration of Magritte's imaginative landscape, examining the ideas and penetrating the mysteries of a paradoxical figure: a painter who didn't like to paint; an instinctive anarchist who lived a suburban, petty bourgeois existence; a lonely, melancholy soul never far from his friends and collaborators. In Magritte: This is not a Biography, Vincent Zabus and Thomas Campi paint a panoramic and revealing portrait of the great Surrealist, employing a playfulness and wit reminiscent of Magritte himself.

ABC of Typography (2019)

by David Rault (Author). Typography confronts us everywhere: in books and newspapers, on road signs, in product packaging, and on political leaflets. It is ubiquitous to the point of mundanity. But while the typeface might be secondary to the message, it remains crucial to the way we respond. Fonts spark emotions; they evoke eras and ideologies. Some, like Edward Johnson’s for the London Underground, have become iconic. Others, like Comic Sans, are loathed. Each one has its own place in history.

Louisiana

Louisiana, 1961. The elderly Louise shoos away questions from granddaughters eager to know more about the family's distant past. But what is she hiding? As she unburdens herself to Hazel, the maid, memories and legends come pouring out from the years following the birth of the American nation: a sugarcane plantation, an abusive patriarch, a fearful wife, a headstrong daughter, and a mysterious voodoo priestess. What other dark secrets lurk, long-repressed, in the recesses of history? Léa Chrétien and Gontran Toussaint deliver a vivid, atmospheric story of generations of strong women and the secret things they do to survive, from the Civil War to the civil rights era.

Non Album Collections 302

Forever (Europe Comics 2021)

Script by Assia Petricelli - Art by Sergio Riccardi. What is this “love” everyone talks about? Viola doesn’t yet know. But it is a question she is asking herself more and more, because at her age there are some kinds of problems you feel even in the air that you breathe: your self-image and the way you think others see you, the relationship between you and your body and the other gender, couple issues, the freedom to follow your aspirations, and the need to fit in socially accepted categories. On vacation with her parents, during the idle hours of the afternoon while everyone is sleeping, Viola’s encounters and experiences will help her grow as a person and get answers to the hard questions that everyone has to face sooner or later, and she will reshape her identity, in a summer she’ll never forget.

Sapiens - A Graphic History, Volume 1. The Birth of Humankind (2020)

The first volume of the graphic adaptation of Yuval Noah Harari's smash #1 New York Times and international bestseller recommended by President Barack Obama and Bill Gates, with gorgeous full-color illustrations and concise, easy to comprehend text for adult and young adult readers alike.

The Metamorphosis (Kuper) (2004)

Acclaimed graphic artist Peter Kuper presents a brilliant, darkly comic reimagining of Kafka’s classic tale of family, alienation, and a giant bug. Kuper’s electric drawings—which merge American cartooning with German expressionism—bring Kafka’s prose to vivid life, reviving the original story’s humor and poignancy in a way that will surprise and delight readers of Kafka and graphic novels alike.

Sirens of the North Sea

Fierce Vikings and mystical Sirens face each other in a never-ending battle to claim the most significant natural resource their world has to offer: the sea itself. For generations, Viking clans have faced Siren tribes in battles waged on land and sea—battles that pit brute strength against sorcery and cunning versus charm. Their war has torn apart the very world they fight over while filling graveyards that span farther than the eye can see.

These are the tales of their mythical encounters. These are the tales of the Sirens of the Norse Sea. by Françoise Ruscak (Author), Gihef Gihef (Author), Phil Briones (Illustrator), Marco Dominici (Illustrator)

Non Album Collections 301

In the Flesh (2009)

A graphic novel for the twenty-first-century featuring tales of tortured souls and tormented passion—brilliantly etched in words and striking visuals Some people fall in love, get married, and thrive in happy relationships—and then there are others. From Israeli enfant terrible Koren Shadmi comes a wickedly literate, darkly poetic, beautifully illustrated story collection that exposes with nightmarish clarity the sorrows of love and desire.

What If We Were… (Top Shelf 2020)

Story and art by Axelle Lenoir. Teen girls rewrite the universe on a daily basis! This comic collection proves there's nothing better than using your imagination... except maybe talking nonsense with your friends. Hey, why not both?

Young Leonardo (2021)

by William Augel. Meet Leonardo, a curious little boy whose comical adventures examine the inner and outer workings of the world around him. As an adult, Leonardo will produce some of the world's greatest masterpieces and usher in the Renaissance, but as a child, he’s simply precocious, brilliant, meddlesome, exasperating...and unbelievably entertaining.

King of the Flies

Set in a suburb that is both nowhere and everywhere, King of the Flies is a glorious bastard, combining the intricacy and subtlety of the best European graphic novels with a hyperdetailed, controlled noir style derived from the finest American cartoonists. Mezzo and Pirus, previously best known in Europe for a series of cynical, brutal gangster stories, have abandoned their guns and gals for this cycle of suburban stories, but in King of the Flies the violence has just (for the most part) been interiorized.

King of the Flies first appears to be a series of unrelated short stories, each starring (and narrated by) a different protagonist, but it soon becomes obvious that these seemingly disparate episodes weave together to form a single complex narrative, with events that are only glimpsed (or even referred to) revisited from different perspectives—revolving around Eric, a ne’er-do-well, drug-taking teenager at war with his stepfather and, apparently, the whole world. (He is the titular King.) King of the Flies is designed as a trilogy of albums, which will combine to form a single graphic novel of stunning intricacy and intensity. (Vol. 2, “The Beginning of All Things,” will be released by Fantagraphics in the Summer of 2010.) Color comics throughout

Non Album Collections 300

Bionic (Top Shelf 2020)

Story and art by Koren Shadmi. An eerie and beautiful graphic novel from the stunningly creative mind behind Highwayman and Love Addict. Bionic is a coming-of-age tale for the digital generation, taking place in the near future. It's the story of Victor, a geeky teenager on a hopeless quest to win the love of the gorgeous Patricia -- but when she returns from a horrible accident with astonishing new robotic parts, both their lives will be changed forever. Koren Shadmi (Highwayman, The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television) presents a hypnotically illustrated story of warm flesh and cold metal. It's the story of a love that was never meant to be, of overwhelming emotions, trauma, rebellion, loss of innocence, and the fear that wanting something may not be enough.

The Secrets of Chocolate - A Gourmand's Trip Through a Top Chef's Atelier (NBM 2021)

by Franckie Alarcon. Following Jacques Genin for a year, Franckie Alarcon hobnobbed with one of the biggest chefs of Chocolate. Former chef and pastry chef for prestigious restaurants, this super-talented autodidact shares all his passion and knowledge of chocolate and his process for creating recipes. In this docu-comic, we travel with the starry-eyed author, satisfying many a craving from the chef's amazing atelier above his store, trying his hand as an apprentice, all the way to the Peruvian cocoa plantations where another chef shows how one carefully chooses the beans.

The Man for the Job (Europe Comics 2021)

Script by Lou Lubie - Art by Lou Lubie. Manu always embraced his role as a strong, protective man, until one day his world is turned upside down. In quick succession, his girlfriend walks out on him, and he’s passed over for a position at work in the name of gender parity. In an effort to regain his bearings, he clings to a family of seven troubled children, determined to rescue them from their social misfortunes. Thus begins a long descent into the heart of his fears…

Brindille

A young woman wakes up in a humble town. He doesn't remember anything, not his name, or how he got there. As he tries to regain his memory and learns from the inhabitants of this world, he gradually awakens powers he cannot control. by Federico Bertolucci , Frédéric Brrémaud. 

The Lions of Leningrad

On January 27, 1962, a concert at the Maly Theatre in Leningrad is interrupted by a gunshot and an ex-state prisoner is arrested. At the police station, the mysterious gunman recalls the early summer of 1941... When the German army begins its invasion of Soviet Russia, four children are evacuated to the countryside: Maxim, the son of a senior Communist Party official; Pyotr, the son of writers; Anka, the daughter of a concert violinist; and Grigory, the son of a pilot that was executed for insubordination. The farm where they are staying is attacked and the train that is supposed to take them to safety is blown to bits by German planes. The four children must find their way back to Leningrad through enemy lines. This adventure will test their friendship to the limit... Created by Thomas Du Caju, Jean-Claude Van Rijckeghem.

Non Album Collections 298

Spooky and the Strange Tales - Monster Inn (2017)

by Élian Black'Mor, Carine-M. Once upon a time, in the heart of the kingdom of Fairy Tales, a king and a queen had the strangest of children: Spooky! The traditional-fairy tale tropes turn topsy-turvy in this lavishly illustrated storybook as Spooky explores her dark, enchanted world. And when her uncles the Three Little Pigs offer a trip to their London hotel, Spooky trades one improbable setting for another! Monster Inn shines a charming, childish light on contemporary goth culture for a rich and unique story that’s like nothing you've seen before.

Parenthesis (Top Shelf 2021)

Story and art by Elodie Durand. A triumph of graphic memoir, Parenthesis narrates the author's experience with tumor-related epilepsy-losing herself, and finding herself again. Julie is barely out of her teens when a tumor begins pressing on her brain, ushering in a new world of seizures, memory gaps, and loss of self. Suddenly, the sentence of her normal life has been interrupted by the opening of a parenthesis that may never close.

A Sister (2021)

A coming of age story in the tradition of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Tillie Walden's Spinning, and Mariko Tamaki's This One Summer. Antoine, a teenager, is on holiday at the seaside with his parents and his younger brother, Titi. Both spend most of their time drawing, at restaurants and on the beach. But one day Helene and her mother come to spend a few days with the family and her presence will change Antoine's life. In A Sister, Bastien Vive's, a master storyteller, conveys the stumbling awakenings of adolescent feelings.

The Straw King

Egypt, 7th century BCE. Neith and Sennedjem are two of many royal children too far down the inheritance ladder to matter. Facing limited prospects - she's likely to wind up in her own father's bed, and he won't even wind up an advisor - they set out instead to see the world. But the ancient world is full of dangers, and soon enough, the royal pair find themselves sold off to the court of Babylon by slave traders. As a lady-in-waiting, Neith becomes entangled in another royal family's power struggles, while her brother falls victim to a bizarre religious ritual: the Straw King.

Non Album Collections 297

Elecboy 01 - Birth (Europe Comics 2021)

Script by Jaouen Salaün - Art by Jaouen Salaün. In a devastated cityscape, a lone man fights off creatures of fearsome power: white, winged, serenely impassive, and capable of terrifying transformations… Decades later, in a desolate American southwest, a meager colony of human survivors ekes out a precarious existence between dwindling water supplies and magnetic shields that screen them from roving bands of aerial attackers. An ancestral upper class presides, while in the lower city, laborers do the hazardous work of keeping everyone alive. But all that may be about to change when the mysterious Joshua comes of age…

Elle(s) 01 - The New Girl (Europe Comics 2021)

Script by Kid Toussaint - Art by Aveline Stokart. Elle is just another teenage girl… most of the time. Bubbly and good-natured, she wastes no time making friends on her first day at her new school. But Elle has a secret: she hasn’t come alone. She’s brought with her a colorful mix of personalities, which come out when she least expects it… Who is Elle, really? And will her new friends stand by her when they find out the truth?

The Lost Ages 01 - The Fort on the Moors (Europe Comics 2021)

Script by Jérôme Le Gris - Art by Didier Poli. In the year 1000, the foretold apocalypse comes to pass, and humanity enters an age of darkness. Countless generations come and go before the sun reemerges; all of humanity’s once great knowledge is lost. Now, at the mercy of roaming packs of animals, the inhabitants of Anglia have formed clans that work together in a delicate balance to survive the harsh wilderness. Primus, one of the clan leaders, may just hold the key to their salvation, to secure a better future for his daughter Elaine and everyone else. But will his secret unite the clans, or tear them apart? And how much will Elaine have to sacrifice to see her father’s dream fulfilled?

Wahcommo

Each new generation, the bravest youth of the tribe must face the challenge of traveling to the Lost Kingdom of the North, to bring with them part of the treasure that their ancestors, driven from their homes by cold and hunger, abandoned in ancient times.

The young contestants must pass six tests to prove their worth: stealth, cunning, speed, strength, courage, and cleverness. This time, however, the chosen one is a young woman, but the weight of tradition will force her to be escorted by a male partner.

Fox and Kaya undertake the journey equipped with two halves of a map and the amulet that will help them navigate the mysterious ancient kingdom. Their journey will be plagued by orcs, goblins, giants, and ghosts, against which these two young warriors will measure themselves, compete with each other, and will ultimately have to unite against to rewrite their people's history. by Luis NCT (Author, Artist).

Non Album Collections 296

Nevertheless (2020)

This is Jordi Lafebre's first outing as a writer, you might know him as artist (with Zidrou doing the writing) on Glorious Summers, Vice Squad and Lydie. I reckon he's done a good job on this one, seems to have learned a lot working with Zidrou. What we have here is a cute little romance story, with the twist that it's told in reverse and begins with the pair ending up together and ends with the meet-cute.

In Pieces (Marion Fayolle) (2013)

A man comes home to his lover, his hands tainted by the dress of another woman. A few pages later, a couple fight for the custody of their daughter until she's cut in two. In Pieces is a beautiful book of visual poetry, in which all common metaphors are explained through images only.

The Tenderness of Stones (Marion Fayolle) (2019)

“We buried one of dad’s lungs,” announces the narrator of The Tenderness of Stones. The lung is so large it takes three men to carry it—and that is just the beginning. The family looks on as, under the dispassionate orders of anonymous white-clad strangers, their father is disassembled, piece by piece: His nose is removed from his face and tied, temporarily, to his neck; his other lung is pulled out and he is forced to lug it around in a cart; his mouth is pried off and stored away, leaving him mute. Beneath it all is one devastating truth: Soon, he will be gone entirely.