November Graphic Novel Recommendations - Graphic Literature from Around the World

Translated into English for the first time, You Are There (Ici Même) is a darkly humorous, satirical romp through French politics and greed. The poor Arthur There’s ancestral land has been usurped by a number of wealthy citizens. However, through a number of lawsuits and trials, Arthur takes control of the walls which surround each estate and seem to wind their way through every part of the small island. From these walls Arthur controls the comings and goings of the wealthy land owners by opening gates for a small fee. Tardi’s bold black and white cartoony style perfectly captures the humor of the writing.

Jiro Taniguchi’s art is of a quality rarely seen in comics. Like any superb draftsman he can render any building, landscape and especially a cityscape with such realistic precision you will no doubt be amazed. But this is no simple draftsman—he’s an artist and a storyteller. In A Distant Neighborhood, Hiroshi Nakahara is transported back in time, to when he was fourteen. Nakahara spends his days as he remembers them, at school, studying, spending time with his friend Takashi Hamada, but not everything is the same, he now enjoys schoolwork, he excels at track and he now has the courage to ask the prettiest girl in his class on a date! Taniguchi renders Nakahara’s time as his old self with compassion, revealing slowly the problems he’d so long ago forgotten. Volume Two of this great story will be out soon!

Taniguchi's superb art and elegant storytelling goes in a new direction in this enticing drama. Shiga is a mountaineer and spends all his time at his alpine "Refuge," but when his niece goes missing in the city a long held promise to his dead friend is awakened and he must go down into the city to recover his niece. Taniguchi’s peerless drawing style is matched with a tight wound mystery, from mountaintops to dance clubs, illicit affairs, and hard-boiled action, The Quest for the Missing Girl is a well written, compact story.