Ralph Azham does not live in the same world as Dungeon . We’re pretty clear on that; this is not Terra Amata. But it’s the same kind of world: whatever Joann Sfar brings to the mix for Dungeon, that style of fantasy seems to be the way Lewis Trondheim operates.
So: we have a central smartass in a big, complicated world, full of anthropomorphic people who plot and scheme, with magic that really works and can do world-changing things but has very specific rules that need to be learned by trial and error. We have authorities who are corrupt or outright evil or just low-key incompetent – this is no surprise, since everyone is out for themselves, pretty much all the time.
Ralph Azham is our central character: another vaguely duck-like hero, like Herbert in Dungeon Zenith. He grew up in an isolated, unnamed mountain village out in the wilds of the kingdom of Astolia,...
So: we have a central smartass in a big, complicated world, full of anthropomorphic people who plot and scheme, with magic that really works and can do world-changing things but has very specific rules that need to be learned by trial and error. We have authorities who are corrupt or outright evil or just low-key incompetent – this is no surprise, since everyone is out for themselves, pretty much all the time.
Ralph Azham is our central character: another vaguely duck-like hero, like Herbert in Dungeon Zenith. He grew up in an isolated, unnamed mountain village out in the wilds of the kingdom of Astolia,...
- 11/16/2022
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
If I wanted to be dismissive, I’d describe this book as collecting daily watercolor comics pages about French cartoonist Lewis Trondheim’s vacations in 2007.
And that’s not untrue, but it misses the point. The whole Little Nothings series, as far as I can tell, is about quotidian life: small moments in a day that are interesting or evocative or representative. Trondheim didn’t seem to do this diary comic every day, and I haven’t seen any explanation of when he did do it. My guess is that he did it when he wasn’t working on something else: in between other projects, on vacations or trips to comics festivals or just random days at home. Maybe because he did these in small notebooks, so they traveled more easily than his usual art setup; maybe for entirely different reasons.
In any case, he stopped doing these a good decade ago – again,...
And that’s not untrue, but it misses the point. The whole Little Nothings series, as far as I can tell, is about quotidian life: small moments in a day that are interesting or evocative or representative. Trondheim didn’t seem to do this diary comic every day, and I haven’t seen any explanation of when he did do it. My guess is that he did it when he wasn’t working on something else: in between other projects, on vacations or trips to comics festivals or just random days at home. Maybe because he did these in small notebooks, so they traveled more easily than his usual art setup; maybe for entirely different reasons.
In any case, he stopped doing these a good decade ago – again,...
- 8/25/2022
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
Lewis Trondheim has done a lot of comics, in lots of different styles and modes. The ones that come closest to major US comics genres – funny books for kids, dark fantasy adventure , autobio stories – have been the most likely to be published well on my side of the Atlantic and to succeed here. The rest…well, publishers keep trying, but some things haven’t really clicked yet.
His first big popular series in his native France, nearly thirty ago now, was Les formidables aventures de Lapinot, a loose series of ten books which all had the same “characters” in which those “characters” often played different roles, as if they were actors cast in movies with each other a lot or the members of a repertory theater company.
Some time ago, Fantagraphics published two of the books in that series – Harum Scarum and The Hoodoodad – in paperbacks matching the size of the original French albums.
His first big popular series in his native France, nearly thirty ago now, was Les formidables aventures de Lapinot, a loose series of ten books which all had the same “characters” in which those “characters” often played different roles, as if they were actors cast in movies with each other a lot or the members of a repertory theater company.
Some time ago, Fantagraphics published two of the books in that series – Harum Scarum and The Hoodoodad – in paperbacks matching the size of the original French albums.
- 9/1/2021
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
Let’s say there was a little-known Disney comic: Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories: Mickey’s Quest, which was published somewhere obscure for most of the 1960s and entirely forgotten since then. And let’s say there was a serial in that comic, called “Mickey’s Craziest Adventures,” a single page a month for almost that entire decade, with an ongoing story of a crazy caper involving Mickey and Donald and their supporting casts.
We can say all of that.
It’s not true, though it seems like it could be. Writer Lewis Trondheim and artist Nicolas Keramidas are telling that story here — “re-presenting” the “surviving” forty-four of the original eighty-two pages of that serial. But Mickey’s Craziest Adventures is actually by the two of them, it was actually created new this century, and all of the “missing pages” are gaps because this is the way they wanted...
We can say all of that.
It’s not true, though it seems like it could be. Writer Lewis Trondheim and artist Nicolas Keramidas are telling that story here — “re-presenting” the “surviving” forty-four of the original eighty-two pages of that serial. But Mickey’s Craziest Adventures is actually by the two of them, it was actually created new this century, and all of the “missing pages” are gaps because this is the way they wanted...
- 7/11/2018
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
Dungeon Fortnight #2
Hyacinthe was still basically an innocent at the end of the two albums collected in The Night Shirt, but the back half of the Early Years sub-series, collected in the English-language book Innocence Lost , definitively turns him into the older, cynical Keeper that we see in Dungeon Zenith. He starts off still as the somewhat deluded and not-particularly-effective nocturnal vigilante The Night Shirt, but keeps learning the world has greater and greater depths of suffering and venality and nastiness than he ever expected.
Even what he thought would be his triumphant moment — saving his love, the assassin Alexandra, and falling into bed with her — is sordid and twisted. This is the point in the long Dungeon series when that Gallic fatalistic philosophy really starts to kick in: that the world is horrible and will never be right, and that random events toss us around, no matter what we want.
Hyacinthe was still basically an innocent at the end of the two albums collected in The Night Shirt, but the back half of the Early Years sub-series, collected in the English-language book Innocence Lost , definitively turns him into the older, cynical Keeper that we see in Dungeon Zenith. He starts off still as the somewhat deluded and not-particularly-effective nocturnal vigilante The Night Shirt, but keeps learning the world has greater and greater depths of suffering and venality and nastiness than he ever expected.
Even what he thought would be his triumphant moment — saving his love, the assassin Alexandra, and falling into bed with her — is sordid and twisted. This is the point in the long Dungeon series when that Gallic fatalistic philosophy really starts to kick in: that the world is horrible and will never be right, and that random events toss us around, no matter what we want.
- 6/2/2018
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
Welcome back to another installment of Panel Discussion – this time featuring a rundown of my picks of the Top 30 comics released in March 2018. This is part one, a countdown of books 30-16… But first the caveats:
First and foremost this is simply my list and with that comes a great deal of subjectivity. Any art form is a subjective medium and taste plays a major role. So if you feel my rankings are way off you probably have a legitimate point. My hope is to simply to highlight great books that deserve attention. We too often focus on the negative so why not take some time to celebrate the positive.
Since this is my list that also means I can only rank issues I have actually read. There may be a book that is in your top five that does not make the cut. Please let me know. I try...
First and foremost this is simply my list and with that comes a great deal of subjectivity. Any art form is a subjective medium and taste plays a major role. So if you feel my rankings are way off you probably have a legitimate point. My hope is to simply to highlight great books that deserve attention. We too often focus on the negative so why not take some time to celebrate the positive.
Since this is my list that also means I can only rank issues I have actually read. There may be a book that is in your top five that does not make the cut. Please let me know. I try...
- 4/9/2018
- by Dan Clark
- Nerdly
Brigitte Findakly’s childhood was a challenging journey through the cultures of two very different countries where she never felt she truly belonged. This journey is chronicled in the new Drawn & Quarterly graphic novel, Poppies Of Iraq, a collaboration between Findakly and her cartoonist husband, Lewis Trondheim.…
Read more...
Read more...
- 9/5/2017
- by Oliver Sava
- avclub.com
Cr Review: Monster Christmas
Creator: Lewis Trondheim
Publishing Information: Papercutz, hardcover, 32 pages, 2011, $9.99
Ordering Numbers: 9781597072885 (ISBN13)
Cr received this holiday effort from Nbm kids’ line Papercutz in late August, meaning that any number of North American writers-about-comics will have likely written a review between the time this was written (early September) and the date it was posted (early December). It’s hard for me to imagine it won’t be generally well-received, and that many of you out there reading it won’t have some sense of it by now. This is a funny, sweet and gently unhinged story about a pre-Christmas rolling encounter with monsters and Santa Claus by characters representing what seems to be the Trondheim family, told from the vantage point of their then (it was created in the late ’90s) young children.
(Read the rest at The Comics Reporter!)...
Creator: Lewis Trondheim
Publishing Information: Papercutz, hardcover, 32 pages, 2011, $9.99
Ordering Numbers: 9781597072885 (ISBN13)
Cr received this holiday effort from Nbm kids’ line Papercutz in late August, meaning that any number of North American writers-about-comics will have likely written a review between the time this was written (early September) and the date it was posted (early December). It’s hard for me to imagine it won’t be generally well-received, and that many of you out there reading it won’t have some sense of it by now. This is a funny, sweet and gently unhinged story about a pre-Christmas rolling encounter with monsters and Santa Claus by characters representing what seems to be the Trondheim family, told from the vantage point of their then (it was created in the late ’90s) young children.
(Read the rest at The Comics Reporter!)...
- 12/3/2011
- by Tom Spurgeon
- Comicmix.com
Something of a national treasure in his native France, Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat) is the award–winning author of graphic novels, comics, and children’s books, including the New York Times bestseller Little Vampire Goes to School and a fresh re-imagining of Saint-Exupéry’s classic Le Petit Prince. Sfar was a serious student of philosophy at the University of Nice despite his strict religious upbringing (his mother is Ashkenazi and his father Sephardic), but decided to chase his youthful dream of publishing comics. He studied under painter Jean-François Debord at the School of Fine Arts in Paris (Aderf) and eventually became one of the rising young stars of an underground comics movement that included Lewis Trondheim and Christophe Blain. Recently, Sfar has immersed himself in the world of filmmaking, transforming his whimsical comics (think Marc Chagall meets Will Eisner) into equally fanciful, story-based films. Earlier this year in France,...
- 8/31/2011
- by Damon Smith
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Before the panel starts at San Diego Comic-Con, we hope somebody addresses the issues of potential for confusion in the marketplace and possible violation of trademark.
To start, we have First Comics. First Comics was a publisher co-founded by ComicMix’s own Mike Gold in 1983, notable for series like GrimJack, Jon Sable Freelance, Nexus, Badger, Whisper, Dreadstar, Shatter, Munden’s Bar, Classics Illustrated, and American Flagg! It published early work from John Ostrander, Timothy Truman, Norm Breyfogle, Mike Saenz, Mike Baron, as well as the first color appearance of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It went out of business in 1991, and has published nothing in the twenty years since. Some of the series previously published by First have found their way to being published elsewhere, including ComicMix publishing GrimJack, Jon Sable Freelance, and Munden’s Bar.
It has been announced that will be a panel at this year’s San...
To start, we have First Comics. First Comics was a publisher co-founded by ComicMix’s own Mike Gold in 1983, notable for series like GrimJack, Jon Sable Freelance, Nexus, Badger, Whisper, Dreadstar, Shatter, Munden’s Bar, Classics Illustrated, and American Flagg! It published early work from John Ostrander, Timothy Truman, Norm Breyfogle, Mike Saenz, Mike Baron, as well as the first color appearance of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It went out of business in 1991, and has published nothing in the twenty years since. Some of the series previously published by First have found their way to being published elsewhere, including ComicMix publishing GrimJack, Jon Sable Freelance, and Munden’s Bar.
It has been announced that will be a panel at this year’s San...
- 7/21/2011
- by Glenn Hauman
- Comicmix.com
ComicCon.org have revealed the full list of nominees for this years Eisner Awards, or to give them their full name: The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Considered by many to be the premiere comic awards (think the comic equivalent of the Oscars), the Eisner Award winners will be announced at this years San Diego Comic-Con in July.
The Nominees:
Best Short Story
“Because I Love You So Much,” by Nikoline Werdelin, in From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the 3rd Millennium(Fantagraphics/Aben maler) “Gentleman John,” by Nathan Greno, in What Is Torch Tiger? (Torch Tiger) “How and Why to Bale Hay,” by Nick Bertozzi, in Syncopated (Villard) “Hurricane,” interpreted by Gradimir Smudja, in Bob Dylan Revisited(Norton) “Urgent Request,” by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim, in The Eternal Smile (First Second)
Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
Brave & the Bold #28: “Blackhawk and the Flash: Firing Line,...
The Nominees:
Best Short Story
“Because I Love You So Much,” by Nikoline Werdelin, in From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the 3rd Millennium(Fantagraphics/Aben maler) “Gentleman John,” by Nathan Greno, in What Is Torch Tiger? (Torch Tiger) “How and Why to Bale Hay,” by Nick Bertozzi, in Syncopated (Villard) “Hurricane,” interpreted by Gradimir Smudja, in Bob Dylan Revisited(Norton) “Urgent Request,” by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim, in The Eternal Smile (First Second)
Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
Brave & the Bold #28: “Blackhawk and the Flash: Firing Line,...
- 4/9/2010
- by Phil
- Nerdly
The list is out. Pretty straightforward, with a few surprises (No Todd Klein or John Workman for lettering? And was Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader not eligible?)
Our congratulations to all the nominees. We'll be starting the betting pools in 3... 2...
Best Short Story
• “Because I Love You So Much,” by Nikoline Werdelin, in From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the 3rd Millennium (Fantagraphics/Aben malen)
• “Gentleman John,” by Nathan Greno, in What Is Torch Tiger? (Torch Tiger)
• “How and Why to Bale Hay,” by Nick Bertozzi, in Syncopated (Villard)
• “Hurricane,” interpreted by Gradimir Smudja, in Bob Dylan Revisited (Norton)
• “Urgent Request,” by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim, in The Eternal Smile (First Second)
Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
• Brave & the Bold #28: “Blackhawk and the Flash: Firing Line,” by J. Michael Straczynski and Jesus Saiz (DC)
• Captain America #601: “Red, White, and Blue-Blood,” by...
Our congratulations to all the nominees. We'll be starting the betting pools in 3... 2...
Best Short Story
• “Because I Love You So Much,” by Nikoline Werdelin, in From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the 3rd Millennium (Fantagraphics/Aben malen)
• “Gentleman John,” by Nathan Greno, in What Is Torch Tiger? (Torch Tiger)
• “How and Why to Bale Hay,” by Nick Bertozzi, in Syncopated (Villard)
• “Hurricane,” interpreted by Gradimir Smudja, in Bob Dylan Revisited (Norton)
• “Urgent Request,” by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim, in The Eternal Smile (First Second)
Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
• Brave & the Bold #28: “Blackhawk and the Flash: Firing Line,” by J. Michael Straczynski and Jesus Saiz (DC)
• Captain America #601: “Red, White, and Blue-Blood,” by...
- 4/8/2010
- by Glenn Hauman
- Comicmix.com
Of course, we all know that comics can be for adults now…but they don’t have to be. Some of the best books out there now were made for kids – which is just the way it was fifty years ago, come to think of it. Now, I’m not claiming that these three books are the best out there – my reading has been slipshod and random this year – but they’re all worth reading for the right audience:
Tiny Tyrant: Volume One: The Ethelbertosaurus
By Lewis Trondheim and Fabrice Parme
First Second, May 2009, $9.95
Trondheim is a prolific French cartoonist for both younger readers and adults, with books like Kaput and Zosky and A.L.I.E.E.E.N. for the rugrats, the Dungeon series (with Joann Sfar and others) for various audiences, and books like his diary comics (Little Nothings) for adults. Tiny Tyrant sees Trondheim in full kid-pleasing mode,...
Tiny Tyrant: Volume One: The Ethelbertosaurus
By Lewis Trondheim and Fabrice Parme
First Second, May 2009, $9.95
Trondheim is a prolific French cartoonist for both younger readers and adults, with books like Kaput and Zosky and A.L.I.E.E.E.N. for the rugrats, the Dungeon series (with Joann Sfar and others) for various audiences, and books like his diary comics (Little Nothings) for adults. Tiny Tyrant sees Trondheim in full kid-pleasing mode,...
- 12/2/2009
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
The impulse to anecdote is ubiquitous in mankind; we all want to tell our own stories. Since those stories happened to us, we naturally think that they’re fascinating…and sometime are surprised when the rest of the world doesn’t agree with us. Comics creators have been spilling out their lives onto their pages for a few decades now – since the undergrounds, if not before that – and the autobiographical comic is now its own cliché. But there’s still room to do interesting things with autobiographical materials – at least, I hope there is, since it seems that we’re destined to be deluged with books of true stories…
Little Nothings, Vol. 2: The Prisoner Syndrome
Lewis Trondheim
Nbm/ComicsLit, March 2009, $14.95
Trondheim mostly makes fictional comics – Dungeon and Kaput and Zosky and Mister O and many more – but he also has kept a comics blog in French, mostly focused on...
Little Nothings, Vol. 2: The Prisoner Syndrome
Lewis Trondheim
Nbm/ComicsLit, March 2009, $14.95
Trondheim mostly makes fictional comics – Dungeon and Kaput and Zosky and Mister O and many more – but he also has kept a comics blog in French, mostly focused on...
- 10/19/2009
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
For those not in the know, Heeb Magazine is the cleverly titled magazine for mostly young people (and me) of Jewish, and generally Ashkenazi, descent. It’s clever, relevant, and not terribly religious. They regularly cover the comics scene; I know of at least one comics shop that carries the magazine: Comix Revolution in Evanston Illinois.
For the past several years, our friends at Heeb have been ranking their favorite graphic novels on an annual basis – defining “annual” by the Hebrew calendar. Ergo, here’s their Top 10 list for the year 5769. More info here at the Heeb site.
1. The Complete Essex County by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf Comix)
2. Tales Designed to Thrizzle by Michael Kupperman (Fantagraphics)
3. Asterios Polyp by Dave Mazzucchelli (Pantheon)
4. The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames & Dean Haspiel (Vertigo/DC)
5. Little Nothings Volume 2 by Lewis Trondheim (Nbm Publishing)
6. A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly)
7. Brat Pack by...
For the past several years, our friends at Heeb have been ranking their favorite graphic novels on an annual basis – defining “annual” by the Hebrew calendar. Ergo, here’s their Top 10 list for the year 5769. More info here at the Heeb site.
1. The Complete Essex County by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf Comix)
2. Tales Designed to Thrizzle by Michael Kupperman (Fantagraphics)
3. Asterios Polyp by Dave Mazzucchelli (Pantheon)
4. The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames & Dean Haspiel (Vertigo/DC)
5. Little Nothings Volume 2 by Lewis Trondheim (Nbm Publishing)
6. A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly)
7. Brat Pack by...
- 9/21/2009
- by Mike Gold
- Comicmix.com
Kids aren’t just short adults; if you spend any time around them, you’ll learn that quickly. (This is also the reason why many people choose not to spend much time around children.) And, similarly, books for children aren’t the same as books for adults, nor are they adult books simplified or dumbed down.
This week, I’ve got five books – parts of three series – all of which are for kids in some way or another. I’ve got two books that are for “all ages” – and I’ll see what that actually means in this case – two that are solidly aimed at tweens, and one that’s for…well, a very particular audience, as far as I can tell, and I’ll get to that.
Dungeon: Zenith, Vol. 3: Back in Style
Written by Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim; Art by Boulet
Nbm, May 2008, $12.95
Dungeon Monstres, Vol.
This week, I’ve got five books – parts of three series – all of which are for kids in some way or another. I’ve got two books that are for “all ages” – and I’ll see what that actually means in this case – two that are solidly aimed at tweens, and one that’s for…well, a very particular audience, as far as I can tell, and I’ll get to that.
Dungeon: Zenith, Vol. 3: Back in Style
Written by Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim; Art by Boulet
Nbm, May 2008, $12.95
Dungeon Monstres, Vol.
- 6/19/2009
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
The School Library Journal named eight graphic novels in its list of 30 adult titles that “will appeal to high school readers and provide a bridge into the vast world of adult publishing.” The selected books had to have been published between September of 2007 and November of 2008, and were chosen by Slj’s Adult Books for High School Students Committee made up of librarians from public and school libraries who work with teens in a variety of rural, urban, and suburban settings across the U.S. and Canada.
The eight graphic novels on the list include Lewis Trondheim’s pirate saga Bourbon Island (First Second), Lynda Barry’s What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly), Andrew Helfer’s Ronald Reagan: A Biography (Hill and Wang), Akira Hiramoto’s Me and the Devil Blues (Del Rey), Mat Johnson’s Incognegro (Vertigo), G. Willow Wilson’s Cairo (Vertigo), Marc-Antoine Mathieu’s The Museum...
The eight graphic novels on the list include Lewis Trondheim’s pirate saga Bourbon Island (First Second), Lynda Barry’s What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly), Andrew Helfer’s Ronald Reagan: A Biography (Hill and Wang), Akira Hiramoto’s Me and the Devil Blues (Del Rey), Mat Johnson’s Incognegro (Vertigo), G. Willow Wilson’s Cairo (Vertigo), Marc-Antoine Mathieu’s The Museum...
- 12/3/2008
- by Robert Greenberger
- Comicmix.com
Bourbon Island 1730
By Appollo and Lewis Trondheim; Art by Lewis Trondheim
First Second, October 2008, $17.95
Bourbon Island is a small but real place – it’s called Réunion these days, but it’s there, hanging near the east coast of Madagascar – and several of the characters in this graphic novel either carry the names of real people or are very similar to real people. But Bourbon Island 1730 is a work of fiction – it’s primarily about people who never were real and about events that never happened.
It’s a looser and less tightly defined story than the reader expects at first: it begins with young Raphael Pommery, the assistant to ornithologist Dr. Despentes, traveling with his boss to Bourbon, hoping to find one last dodo. But Raphael is more interested in stories of pirates than in birds, living or possibly extinct. Raphael looks like our protagonist – young and more than a little romantic,...
By Appollo and Lewis Trondheim; Art by Lewis Trondheim
First Second, October 2008, $17.95
Bourbon Island is a small but real place – it’s called Réunion these days, but it’s there, hanging near the east coast of Madagascar – and several of the characters in this graphic novel either carry the names of real people or are very similar to real people. But Bourbon Island 1730 is a work of fiction – it’s primarily about people who never were real and about events that never happened.
It’s a looser and less tightly defined story than the reader expects at first: it begins with young Raphael Pommery, the assistant to ornithologist Dr. Despentes, traveling with his boss to Bourbon, hoping to find one last dodo. But Raphael is more interested in stories of pirates than in birds, living or possibly extinct. Raphael looks like our protagonist – young and more than a little romantic,...
- 11/24/2008
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
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