Updated in April 2021 with “Dark Victory”. A Long Halloween Batman: A long Halloween (Un long Halloween) by Jeph Loeb & Time Sale was recommended to me by Batman fans in the Bubble Family & Friends Facebook group, a forum used by users of the excellent Bubble application that I use to manage my BD/Comics/Manga collection. Note: This book is a fantastic American comics, I will therefore write this critics in English although I read it in French 🙂

Here is an autobiographical book, in a style very different from what I usually read, darker but with a remarkable writing. Once I started it I hardly let go of it. It is " Le Lambeau " by Philippe Lançon. Lançon is a journalist at Libération and a columnist for Charlie Hebdo. He was in the newsroom on January 7, 2015 and is one of the rare survivors… He was shot twice in the hands or arms and especially one bullet in the face which tore off part of his face (jaw, lower lip…).

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’m not a big reader of American Comics, I really have very few of them, but since a few months ago our local comic bookstore (BD Geek in Antony, I highly recommend it) was celebrating Batman’s 80th birthday by offering a comic for the purchase of 2 Batman comics, I went there with my daughter, and we each chose one book. My choice was this “reboot” of the genesis of Batman by Frank Miller.

Let’s dive in comics and Sci Fi at the same time with Métal Hurlant (Heavy Metal in English)! For those who don’t know, Métal Hurlant, published between 1975 and 1987, then briefly from 2002 to 2004, is the reference comic / Sci Fi magazine that revolutionized contemporary comics at a time when comics were rather aimed at children, nice, familial, polished, smooth (Tintin, Asterix, Tanguy and Laverdure…). Mythical authors such as Moebius, Caza, Bilal, Druillet, Giger, Tardi… have written and drawn in it.