Comics to slip into your suitcase this summer

In July and August, there are more opportunities to catch up on the comic strip. Manga, comics, Franco-Belgian comics, graphic novels... The embarrassment of choice is such that it is sometimes difficult to know where to turn. The editorial staff of Le Figaro presents its favorites here. Here are eight essential albums, for all tastes, released in recent weeks. What bubble all summer.

Nine years have fans been waiting for the release of the 14th (and final?) book in the Soda series. The pitch does not take a ride. We find with pleasure David Solomon, still unable to admit to his cardiac mother that his real job is not a pastor, but a cop. Don't rush her, mom. It is true that she would have reason to worry. New York City is still as dangerous as it is violent. And it must be said that Lieutenant Soda is not in great shape. He sleeps badly, has nightmares, loses his memory and - to top it off - is accused of murder...

Screenwriter Olivier Bocquet (who has the heavy task of replacing Tome who died in 2019) is showing great audacity. The author takes pleasure in losing our hero on the border between good and evil. It's clever. We begin to doubt: to make one of the leading characters of Franco-Belgian comics of the last 30 years an assassin would be cheeky.

In the drawings, Bruno Gazotti succeeds with great talent in making this Soda which hits rock bottom credible. He knows the recipe well, since he drew 10 volumes released between 1991 and 2005. This new album allows fans to find this real false pastor who is becoming rare (3 albums published in 20 years). The youngest can discover the universe of the series: Dupuis takes the opportunity to reissue all the previous volumes.

Soda, volume 14, The Bloody Shepherd, by Olivier Bocquet and Bruno Gazzotti, Dupuis, 56 pages, 14.50 euros

As we know, Riad Sattouf is a shrewd and knowledgeable observer of contemporary society, often impertinent, always full of humour. For seven years, in parallel with his autobiography The Arab of the future, the director of Les Beaux gosses has undertaken to tell the life of a young girl named Esther.

In this 8th volume, we realize that the young girl has grown up. With her long black hair and pointed nose, the heroine seduces without delay. Parisian, student in an "elite" private school, her family is much less wealthy than her classmates. Every week, always full of charm and effrontery, Esther tells Riad Sattouf about her daily life, her dreams, her sorrows, her vision of the world. She still sleeps in a room with her little brother, the big Antoine having become a “right-wing business man”.

She does a little partying, but mostly babysitting evenings to make some pocket money. She always confides in Cassandre, her first class friend. She stresses for the French Bac, recounts her Bafa internship and her participation in the "defense and citizenship day".

She observes her aging parents, watches Macron's election on television, witnesses the beginnings of the war in Ukraine, or evokes the evolution of gender criteria and representation. Above all, Esther evokes her more or less chosen celibacy at the dawn of adulthood. Through the eyes of the one who is slowly becoming a woman, Riad Sattouf takes the opportunity to take a look at the evolution of our society. It's still as far-sighted, moving, modest... without ever forgetting, of course, to be hilarious!

Les Cahiers d'Esther - Story of my 17 years, by Riad Sattouf, published by Allary, 56 pages, €17.90.

Caring for seniors with a loss of autonomy is a noble task. But it is also a challenge, especially in Japan, known for its many centenarians and its record life expectancy (88 years for women, 82 years for men). Fortunately, the archipelago can count on dedicated home caregivers, like Yukie Sakai, the tireless heroine of the delirious manga Dementia 21.

Throughout the chapters, the caregiver confronts a haunted house with unexplained fatal accidents, a dwelling where new bedridden people accumulate every day - until they form a monster made up of hundreds of bodies! –, a senile granny who involuntarily blows up those she forgets... The misadventures follow one another, more and more improbable (did you know that wrinkles are contagious?), in a wickedly funny and terribly inventive exhilarating escalation. In essence, the author pays tribute to health personnel, denounces the lack of humanity in families and the commodification of old age, questions technical progress and euthanasia. Like what, entertaining does not prevent you from taking a sharp look at society and its developments.

Winner of the 2022 ACBD Asia Prize for The Princess of the Endless Castle, also published by Huber, Shintaro Kago is historically published by IMHO, which has just released the excellent collection of short stories Cities and Infrastructures. A unique mangaka to (re)discover urgently.

Dementia 21 (volume 1), by Shintaro Kago, translated from English by Baptiste Neveux, Huber, 288 pages, 23 euros.

For the 12th volume of the adventures of Michel Vaillant, the trio Denis Lapière, Marc Bourgne and Benjamin Benéteau offered our legendary F1 driver a thriller set in the heart of the centenary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The queen race for the king of drivers! To spice up the plot, this new album, carried out at three hundred miles an hour, doubles the bet by putting a formidable American sniper on the road to the Vaillantes. Dosed to the millimeter like a cocktail mixing the adrenaline of the sports suspense of the "24 hours" with that of a vengeful thriller, La Cible shines with its racy clarity, both graphic and script. On the front of the Vaillant family, another intimate drama awaits Françoise, the dear and tender wife of Michel (who looks like Sophie Marceau from the pen of the designers).

As for Steve Warson (whose face now evokes Paul Newman, actor and emeritus pilot, let us remember), who has become, to defend his ideas, an American senator in the running for the vice-presidency, he is fed up with this basket of crabs and announces leaving politics after the presidential elections to return to motorsport, his true passion. It is of course him the objective of this funny couple landed in Roissy. This formidable blonde hitman and the indescribable Bob Cramer have made it their target, precisely in the Mulsanne Straight. Reassembled like a cuckoo clock, the suspense is at its height. The design is precise, elegant and modern, following the precepts enacted by the unforgettable Jean Graton, creator of the series.

Michel Vaillant, season 2, volume 12, La Cible, Graton publisher, 56 pages, €14.50.

It all starts with tragedy, when Cobrasun accidentally kills Yua Steelrose in a wrestling ring. Ten years later, his daughter Lona tries to take over, with moderate success. Until a certain Willard Necroton offers him to participate in a very special tournament, where all shots are allowed. The reward ? Bring his mother back to life! The problem is that you will have to team up with Cobrasun…

For neophytes, wrestling can seem like a grotesque spectacle populated by hypertrophied athletes dressed in tight costumes in flashy colors. But for many others, this mixture of sport and theater allows above all to “see someone putting their life at stake for a story”, tries to explain Daniel Warren Johnson in the preface. The least we can say is that the American cartoonist has found the miracle recipe for injecting the energy and intensity of wrestling into his comic book. Articulated around an epic and grandiose tournament, where the power of each blow and each cry is increased tenfold by gigantic onomatopoeias, Do A Powerbomb! benefits from a dynamic cutting and an undeniable sense of framing. If humor and fantasy are present, with many extraterrestrial creatures on the menu, there is no question of falling into lazy parody or losing sight of the essential, namely emotion.

This comic, one of the funniest of the year, confirms the great form of Daniel Warren Johnson, whose Beta Ray Bill had already impressed us in 2021.

Do A Powerbomb! by Daniel Warren Johnson, translated from English by Cédric Calas, Urban Comics, 192 pages, 19 euros.

In a suburb of Barcelona, ​​Yanira and Kilian have to stay home to watch their little brother while mum is away for a few hours. “If you mess with me, it will heat up your ears!” she warns. As they play "Scarred Billy vs. Sheriff Makenrou" on the couch, the (imaginary) gunshots ring out and the boy bangs his head hard against the table. Blood flows, the sister goes to look for the neighbors, who agree to take them to the hospital by car. On the way, the driver smokes a big firecracker… "I need to relax." What could go wrong?

Drawing inspiration from her own memories or those of those around her, Ahora Travé paints an unfiltered portrait of a working-class neighborhood at the height of a child. The overflowing imagination of the kids, whose innocence crumbles over the course of the experiences (meeting with a junkie in an abandoned factory, story of a pedophile priest, homophobia at school, etc.), gives a great freshness to the story, divided into chapters both independent and connected. Special mention to the volcanic temperament of the mother – whose extreme vulgarity proves to be proportional to the love for her offspring – and to the very expressive faces of the kids, with or without snot on their nose.

A first comic strip that is both tender and raw, startling and hilarious, supported by a salutary freedom of tone and a very successful semi-caricatural graphic design. The Spaniard Ahora Travé is clearly an author to follow!

Cannon flesh, by Ahora Travé, translated from Spanish by Thomas Dupuis, FLBLB, 92 pages, 15 euros.

“If one day we win the lottery, we open a herbal tea bar and we call it Pisse-Mémé! We need beer too, and yoga classes, and a bookstore corner, organic and local beer!”. These words uttered by four friends during a drunken evening, open the pretty album imbued with fantasy, Pisse-Mémé. Marie, Nora, the sisters Camille and Marthe half believe in it, but the arrival of an impromptu inheritance will make their desire come true.

Funny, light and moving, Cati Baur's book recounts the odyssey of business creation while painting the tasty portrait of four contemporary women. A hardened bachelor, defector from an over-educated class with a workaholic appetite, freelance artistic director, single mother who accumulates odd jobs, the author presents four profiles, firmly rooted in their time, driven by the same desire for change and autonomy. The reader follows them in their steps punctuated by moments of exaltation and blows of fate. Relayed by the delicacy of a simple graphic design and soft pastel colors, Cati Baur's story without boxes is full of optimism without falling into sentimentality.

With humor and lightness, the author implicitly evokes a harsher reality, between midlife crisis, mental load, professional exhaustion... So many daily worries softened by a dynamic line and the characters' joie de vivre. With Pisse-Mémé, Cati Baur tenderly exalts the delights of friendship and the exhilaration of leading a common project. Beneficial these days.

Pisse-Mémé, by Cati Baur, Dargaud, 120 pages, 19 euros.

The Arab Jew of Asaf Hanuka is first and foremost a family story. A powerful personal story disguised as a graphic novel of beautiful clarity and rare psychological acuity. This deep dive in the form of a Columbo-style investigation is due to Asaf Hanuka, an inspired designer, born in Israel to Iraqi Jewish parents. A graduate of the Émile Cohl school in Lyon, having worked on Ari Folman's animated masterpiece Valse avec Bachir, Hanuka first made a name for himself for his autobiographical albums, The Realist and K.O. in Tel Aviv. . He also recounted the life of Roberto Saviano, the author of Gomorra who became the target of the Mafia in I'm still alive, an album whose sober mastery can never be said enough.

With The Arab Jew, Hanuka sets out to tamper with a family secret linked to the death of a great-grandfather. "I don't know much about my father's family. There was a murder too, a murder you can't forget, "he wrote in the preamble. Hanuka makes this original mystery the object of her quest for identity. The assassination of the great-grandfather is apparently a cornerstone in the construction of the family genealogical tree, generation after generation. However, no one has so far wanted to shed light on this tragic event.

Returning to Tel Aviv to live with his parents after studying comics in France, the Israeli author portrays himself with honesty. A somewhat lost young man who seeks to find his roots in a country he has long left.

Asaf Hanuka's investigation has several temporalities. His story unfolds like a double helix, and the reader follows the two narrative frames in parallel from one page to the other. Each left-hand page is illustrated in shades of black and white, while the right-hand pages are in color. On the left, the present time, introspection, uncertainty and the desire to know more. On the right, the history of the family told in the past in shimmering colors. Two temporalities confront each other. First in opposition, but soon intertwining in a beautiful way, and echoing each other.

With exemplary graphics, imbued with the clear Hergéenne line, Asaf Hanuka highlights the entanglement of his own heritage. By following Ariadne's thread of his intuition, he will end up going back to the Minotaur, unmasking the true from the false, and getting out of the labyrinth. A feat applauded by a reader dumbfounded by so much intellectual foresight and graphic virtuosity.

The Arab Jew, by Asaf Hanuka, translated from Israeli by Rosie Pinhas-Delpuech, Steinkis editions, 120 pages, €20.