« Le journal d’un ingénu » d’Émile Bravo

Note : Article from 2019 that I had not posted.

Dark reading with Le journal d’un ingénu by Émile Bravo. This volume, the first of a series by Bravo, is part of the “reboots” of Spirou by contemporary authors.

Émile Bravo tells here the genesis of Spirou, his unhappy childhood, why he chose to keep his hotel bellboy costume even as an adult, where his squirrel comes from… It’s quite dark in spite of the humor and the little love story, we are on the eve of World War II and Poland and Germany are secretly negotiating an agreement to avoid war in the hotel where Spirou works, in vain as we already know.

I liked this volume even though I never read Spirou and Fantasio in my life, I knew Émile Bravo by name, he is apparently famous in the world of children’s comics and one of his friends (Sfar or Trondheim, I don’t remember) said that he was unjustly ignored. He is now recognized thanks to this series, because the sequel in several volumes, L’espoir malgré tout, has very good reviews.

I recommend this comic and am thinking of buying the sequel.

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