This year, we’re expanding our horizons beyond our shores and taking an international look at the comics medium. From journalism to imaginary worlds, our featured creators provide gripping stories told through comics. Join us for lively conversations on our literary trip around the world!
We’ll be meeting, as always, at Bookhouse Brewing in Cleveland at 6:30 pm on the first Thursday evening of each month!
February 6: The Strange
by Jérôme Ruillier (France, translated by Helge Dascher) (France)
The Strange follows an unnamed, undocumented immigrant who tries to forge a new life in a Western country where he doesn’t speak the language. The story is deftly told through myriad viewpoints, as each narrator recounts a situation in which they crossed paths with the newly arrived foreigner. Many of the people he meets are suspicious of his unfamiliar background, or of the unusual language they do not understand. By employing this third-person narrative structure, Jérôme Ruillier masterfully portrays the complex plight of immigrants and the vulnerability of being undocumented. (From the publisher)
March 6: Daytripper
by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon (Brazil)
What are the most important days of your life? Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá answer that question in the critical and commercial hit series that took the industry by storm, winning praise from such comics veterans as Terry Moore, Craig Thompson and Jeff Smith. Follow aspiring writer Brás de Oliva Domingos as each chapter of Daytripper peers in at a completely different moment in his life. Moon and Bá tell a beautifully lyrical tale chronicling Domingos’s entire existence – from his loves to his deaths and all the possibilities in between. (From the publisher)
April 3: How War Begins: Dispatches from the Ukrainian Invasion
by Igort (Italy)
In 2022, Igort, an acclaimed Italian cartoonist, began taking down the testimonies of Ukrainians during the Russian invasion. He turned them into online comics journalism, collected here for the first time in English. In this real-time work of graphic journalism (posted serially on Facebook), the cartoonist Igort uses the medium of comics to depict the telephone testimonies of Ukrainians as Russia invaded in 2022. In vignettes that grow ever more horrifying — infiltrating spies, bombed cities, recorded accounts of children whose parents were murdered in front of their eyes, and more — Igort also relays the events that led up to the invasion, such as the torture and killing of human rights activists. (From the publisher)
May 1: The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye
by Sonny Liew (Singapore)
Meet Charlie Chan Hock Chye. Now in his early 70s, Chan has been making comics in his native Singapore since 1954, when he was a boy of 16. As he looks back on his career over five decades, we see his stories unfold before us in a dazzling array of art styles and forms, their development mirroring the evolution in the political and social landscape of his homeland and of the comic book medium itself. With The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, Sonny Liew has drawn together a myriad of genres to create a thoroughly ingenious and engaging work, where the line between truth and construct may sometimes be blurred, but where the story told is always enthralling. (From the publisher)
June 5: Year of the Rabbit
by Tian Veasna (Translated by Helge Dascher) (France)
Year of the Rabbit tells the true story of one family’s desperate struggle to survive the murderous reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Immediately after declaring victory in the war, they set about evacuating the country’s major cities with the brutal ruthlessness and disregard for humanity that characterized the regime ultimately responsible for the deaths of one million citizens. Cartoonist Tian Veasna was born just three days after the Khmer Rouge takeover, as his family set forth on the chaotic mass exodus from Phnom Penh. Year of the Rabbit is based on firsthand accounts, all told from the perspective of his parents and other close relatives. (From the publisher)
July 3: The Underwater Welder
by Jeff Lemire (Canada) With July 1 being Canada Day, this month we’re discussing a work of one of the premiere Canadian comics creators.
Pressure. As an underwater welder on an oilrig off the coast of Nova Scotia, Jack Joseph is used to the immense pressures of deep-sea work. Nothing, however, could prepare him for the pressures of impending fatherhood. As Jack dives deeper and deeper, he seems to pull further and further away from his young wife, and their unborn son. But then, something happens deep on the ocean floor. Jack has a strange and mind-bending encounter that will change the course of his life forever. … Equal parts blue-collar character study and mind-bending science fiction epic, The Underwater Welder is a 250-page graphic novel that explores fathers and sons, birth and death, memory and truth, and treasures we all bury deep down inside. (From the publisher)
August 7: Alone
by Christophe Chabouté (Translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger) (France)
Available in English for the first time—the internationally bestselling graphic novel and an Official Selection at France’s prestigious Angoulême Internaional Comics Festival by master illustrator-storyteller Chabouté. On a tiny lighthouse island far from the rest of the world, a lonely hermit lives out his existence. Every week a supply boat leaves provisions, its occupants never meeting him, never asking the obvious questions: Who are you? Why do you hide? Why do you never leave? What is it like to be so alone? Filled with stunning and richly executed black-and-white illustrations, Alone is Chabouté’s masterpiece—an unforgettable tale where tenderness, despair, and humor intertwine to flawlessly portray how someone can be an everyman, and every man is someone. (Excerpted from the publisher)
September 4: The Many Deaths of Laila Starr
by Ram V and Filipe Andrade (UK/India/Portugal)
Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality. As a result, the avatar of Death is cast down to Earth to live a mortal life in Mumbai as twenty-something Laila Starr.
Struggling with her newfound mortality, Laila has found a way to be placed in the time and place where the creator of immortality will be born. Will Laila take her chance to stop mankind from permanently altering the cycle of life, or will death really become a thing of the past? (From the publisher)
October 2: Gyo
by Junji Ito (Japan) In honor of Halloween, we discuss one of the masters of Japanese horror manga this month.
The floating smell of death hangs over the island. What is it? A strange, legged fish appears on the scene… So begins Tadashi and Kaori’s spiral into the horror and stench of the sea. Here is the creepiest masterpiece of horror manga ever from the creator of Uzumaki, Junji Ito. Hold your breath until all is revealed. Something’s rotten in Okinawa… (From the publisher)
November 6: Shubeik Lubeik
by Deena Mohamed (Egypt)
Three wishes that are sold at an unassuming kiosk in Cairo link Aziza, Nour, and Shokry, changing their perspectives as well as their lives. Deena Mohamed brings to life a cast of characters whose struggles and triumphs are heartbreaking, inspiring, and deeply resonant. Although their stories are fantastical—featuring talking donkeys, dragons, and cars that can magically avoid traffic—each of these people grapples with the very real challenge of trying to make their most deeply held desires come true. (Excerpted from the publisher)