Broken Frontier

Manu Larcenet's need for privacy rivals the reclusiveness of that other great European comics creator, Lewis Trondheim. Where Trondheim is known for his great sense of humor and accurate depiction of mankind as a struggling beast, Manu Larcenet excels in depicting the small moments of life, of Man, of the universe. That second of the day when you stand still and step out of the routine drone-like behavior of every-day life to contemplate your actions. Couple this with his sense of comedic timing and you get a creator who aspires to bare naked our highs and lows.

Born at the 6th of May 1969, in les Hauts-de-Seine he chooses the path of the arts early in life. He studies graphical design at the Sevres lyceum and enlists himself afterward in art-school. From the words of the master: "I played a lot of punk rock while in high school but since that didn't seem to impress the girls, I started drawing although that didn't seem to impress them either. Than I got old." But the older the better. Starting with illustrations for WIND magazine, rock fanzines and political fanzines he started working on albums for Fluide Glacial where he worked on such series as Bill Baroud and Soyons fous. From there on, the proverbial rock started to roll up the hill and hasn't stopped yet. He has worked for such French powerhouse publishing companies asGlénat, Dupuis and Les Rêveurs de Runes. For Dargaud he is currently busy on his semi-autobiographical humor comic Le retour à la terre which would roughly translate as Return to the countryside.

Return to the countryside seems to be a continuation of sorts of his other semi-autobiographical and most famous series to date Le combat ordinaire, translated and published as Ordinary victories by NBM Publishing. You can stuff an elephant's stable with the prizes this series has accumulated. A father with Alzheimer, the rise of extreme right, a neurotic protagonist who constantly doubts his own abilities as an artist, loneliness and the trouble with girlfriends. All these things float to the surface when photographer Marc and his girlfriend move away from the city for a sabbatical year. Manu Larcenet flows it all into one neat package combining humor with drama and a flair for expressing emotions in the most solidly packed affective drawings one has ever seen.

His stories are real and his dialogue is fluid and razorsharp at the same time. It exposes our natural flair for drama and displays our introjection as our central viewpoint of the world, our idios kosmos .  

The line work of Larcenet is often deceptively simple. A product of the French big nose-style, he converts the style and bends the rules for maximum effect. Another ambassador of this style would be Christophe Blain, known from his sublime Isaac the pirate .

 Larcenet likes to contrast fore- and background by applying a busier more illustrative style for backgrounds and when necessary he implements this approach in his characters and foreground as well to put the emphasis on the drama, enlarging the emotions of the subject.

The dissonance between the two styles create an emotional resonance within the reader and - in combination with the subject matter - reading Larcenet's comics can be a very moving experience. There is a short video of Manu Larcenet drawing on YouTube and you can see the way he constructs a panel.

Manu Larcenet is truly one of the comic creators of this day. His intelligent take on emotions and characterization is combined with an excellent sense of humoristic timing. This combination leads to stellar comics that are entrenched in the everyday world that shows an insight into the multilayered complexity of ... ordinary life.

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Originally published in three different oversized volumes, NBM has collected Le combat ordinaire volume 1 and 2 into one paperback. They are waiting for publication in France of the fourth volume to publish Ordinary victories vol 2. Both volumes are the the only known translated works of Larcenet in English.
You can follow the artist at his blog, located here.