This is the first comic book by Joanna Hellgren a Swedish artist who studied in Stockholm and in Paris. It’s about a boy, Jakob, who grows up in the shadow of his dead brother Jakob. He lives alone with his mother who is always talking about the other Jakob who died at the age of ten. For his mother Jakob is like a reincarnation of her dead son. Now that he is about to become 10 years old he’s afraid that history will repeat itself and he’ll have to die on his 10th birthday. During his piano lessons he meets a girl, Miranda, who encourages him to assume his destiny. The book is written, or should i say drawn, in French. There’s also a Swedish version of it. My French is definitely not the best and I was very surprised that I actually understood the whole story (though not every word). The black ink drawings are just amazing and the writing becomes a drawing itself. I like the different ways she’s using the ink to support the story. (more pictures here)

“Mon frère nocturne” was in the official selection at Angouleme 2009 and was followed by two more comic books: Frances 1 and Frances 2 which was released in France this February. This is definitely a reason to improve my French. Both books are on my wishlist now.

I found this link to an interview with her, translated from Swedish to (bad) English via google here. There’s also a great interview on du9, which is in french. Here’s the interview and there’s a youtube video, also in french here . I could’t find any English material. Maybe Julia could ask her to do an interview in English? That would be great!

You can get the book here.

© Julia Rothman 2007