SATA

• No Man's Land Nobrow (London, England), 2011
• Ballad Enchanted Lion Books (New York, NY), 2013
• Vacation Enchanted Lion Books (New York, NY), 2018
• The Magicians Enchanted Lion Books (New York, NY), 2023

1. The magicians LCCN 2023029108 Type of material Book Personal name Blexbolex, 1966- author, illustrator. Uniform title Magiciens. English Main title The magicians / Blexbolex ; translated from French by Karin Snelson. Published/Produced Brooklyn, NY : Enchanted Lion Books, 2023. Projected pub date 2311 Description pages cm ISBN 9781592704040 (paperback) Item not available at the Library. Why not? 2. Vacation LCCN 2018008138 Type of material Book Personal name Blexbolex, 1966- author, illustrator. Uniform title Nos vacances. English Main title Vacation / Blexbolex. Edition First edition. Published/Produced New York : Enchanted Lion Books, 2018. ©2017 Description 1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 23 cm ISBN 9781592702466 (alk. paper) CALL NUMBER PZ7.B618653 Vac 2018 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 3. Ballad LCCN 2013030048 Type of material Book Personal name Blexbolex, 1966- author, illustrator. Uniform title Romance. English Main title Ballad / Blexbolex ; translated by Claudia Z. Bedrick. Edition First American edition. Published/Produced New York : Enchanted Lion Books, 2013. Description 1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 18 cm ISBN 9781592701377 (alk. paper) CALL NUMBER PZ7.B618653 Bal 2013 LANDOVR Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 4. No man's land Type of material Book Personal name Blexbolex, 1966- Main title No man's land / Blexbolex. Published/Created London : Nobrow Ltd, 2011. Description 1 v. : chiefly col. ill. ; cm. ISBN 1907704183 (cloth) Item not available at the Library. Why not?

• The Holidays. - 2018 Gecko Press, Wellington, New Zealand

• Wikipedia -

  Blexbolex

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  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Bernard Granger
  Born 1966 (age 57–58)
  Douai, France
  Nationality French
  Area(s) Cartoonist, illustrator
  Pseudonym(s) Blexbolex
  Awards Best Book Design (Book Fair of Leipzig)
  Blexbolex (born 1966[1]) is a French comics artist and illustrator. Born Bernard Granger in Douai, he studied screen printing (sérigraphie) at the School of Fine Arts (L'école européenne supérieure de l'image) in Angoulême. His first works were self-published, and later he contributed to Popo Color, Fusée, and Ferraille. His highly stylized, ligne claire illustration, inspired by the films of Jacques Tati and whodunits of the 1950s and 1960s, gradually gained an audience. In Germany, he directed an art studio at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee (School of Art and Design Berlin-Weissensee)[2] and he also worked regularly with a number of editors, including Thierry Magnier, Pipifax, United Dead Artists, Les Requins-Marteaux, and Cornélius. Blexbolex has contributed to the American publication The Ganzfeld.

  In 2009, he received a prize for "Best Book Design of the World" for his L'Imagier des gens (2008) at the Book Fair of Leipzig.

  Works
  Children's books
  Les Souvenirs d'Elmir Grömek et de son chien Pikü : Rogaton Man / written by Frau Mental. Éditions du Seuil jeunesse 2001
  L'Affaire Noël/ written by Gérard Moncomble. Nathan jeunesse, 2003.
  Bim de la jungle. Thierry Magnier, 2004. (Coll. "Tête de lard"; N° 43)
  Petites et Grandes Fables de Sophios/ Michel Piquemal. Albin Michel jeunesse, 2004.
  Les Petites Malices de Nasreddine / written by Jihad Darwiche. Albin Michel jeunesse, 2005.
  La Longue-vue. Thierry Magnier, 2005. (Coll. "Petite poche BD").
  De vert de rage à rose bonbon : toutes les couleurs de notre langue / Annie Mollard-Desfour, Bénédicte Rivière; illustrations de Blexbolex. Albin Michel jeunesse, 2006. (Coll. "Humour en mots")
  L'Oncle américain d'Achille Pellison / Didier Lévy; illustrations by Blexbolex. Oskar jeunesse, 2006. (Coll."Histoires à lire et à écouter"". Benjamin; 3)
  Peindre. Thierry Magnier, 2006. (Coll. "Petite poche BD")
  Mon ami triangle. Albin Michel jeunesse, 2007. (Livres de bain).
  Mon ami rond. Albin Michel jeunesse, 2007. (Livres de bain).
  L'Imagier des gens. Albin Michel Jeunesse, 2008.
  Saisons. Albin Michel Jeunesse, 2009.
  Seasons. Gecko Press, 2010 ISBN 9781877467622[3]
  People. Gecko Press, 2011 ISBN 9781877467783[4]
  Romance. Albin Michel Jeunesse, 2013.
  Nos vacances. Albin Michel Jeunesse, 2017. English translation: Vacation. Enchanted Lion Books, 2018.
  The Holidays. Gecko Press, 2018 ISBN 978-1-776571-93-2[5]
  Graphic novels
  Bad boy boogie. Paris : Vermine, 2000.
  L'Enclos. Cornélius, 2001. (Coll. "Louise"; 3)
  Dats Fun. Éditions Le 9 Monde, 2006. (Livre en sérigraphie; 120 ex. numérotés & signés par l'artiste)
  L'Œil privé. Albi : les Requins-marteaux, 2006. (Coll. "Inox")
  Destination Abecederia. Les Requins Marteaux, 2008.
  Crime chien. Pipfax, 2008 (Livre en sérigraphie)
  La Fêlure. Ouvroir Humoir, 2009, 24 pl. ISBN 978-2-913063-36-5 (screenprinting, 1000 ex.)
  "No Man's Land" Nobrow Press 2012
  Other
  "I Know How To Cook" by Ginette Mathiot, designed English language edition, Phaidon Press, 2009

• From Publisher -

  Blexbolex is an award-winning book illustrator. Born in France, he has lived in Germany since 2008, where he teaches and also gives workshops. In 1992, he started work as a printer, allowing him to both create and print his own first books. From 1996 to 2005, he worked at Éditions Cornélius in Paris. Since 2005, he’s worked as an illustrator and author of children’s books, while also creating comics and books for adults. His experimental approach to illustration, industrial printing techniques, and book production makes him a pioneer in his field. Blexbolex has received many prizes and distinctions, including New York Times Best Illustrated recognitions for Seasons (2010) and Ballad (2014). The Magicians is his fifth book with Enchanted Lion.

  TITLES
  Vacation
  Ballad
  Seasons
  People

  The Magicians

• The Comics Journal - https://www.tcj.com/an-interview-with-blexbolex/

  AN INTERVIEW WITH BLEXBOLEX
  JooHee Yoon | October 17, 2022 | 0 comments

  Photo courtesy of Enchanted Lion Books.
  Blexbolex is an experimental printmaker and bookmaker revered for his distinctive approach to visual storytelling. He is the author-illustrator of Seasons, People, Ballad, Vacation, and many other works which playfully bend the conventions of narrative, as well as the formats of picture book and graphic novel. JooHee Yoon is an illustrator and printmaker whose complex and vibrant illustrations reinterpret existing poems and stories in picture-book form: Beastly Verse, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and The Tiger Who Would Be King. Her book Up Down Inside Out portrays familiar idioms in new and electrifying ways through innovation within the construction of the book itself. In this interview, which took place in the fall of 2017 as a prelude to the publication of Vacation in February 2018, these two highly original and wildly imaginative bookmakers discuss the book as object, "the trouble and magic" of childhood, and the word associations that create the underlying structure of Blexbolex's stories. Blexbolex's answers to JooHee's questions were translated from the French by Allison Charette.

  * * *

  BLEXBOLEX: Hello JooHee, and many thanks for your kind interest for my books and your questions about them. I will try to answer as honestly as possible. Sadly, my English far away from good and answering the questions in another language as my mother-tongue would be a too much difficult task. I hope that you won't mind it too much.

  JOOHEE YOON: You have worked on many book projects, ranging from illustrating the cookbook I Know How To Cook by Ginette Mathiot to your own comics and graphic novels. Are children’s books something you’ve always wanted to do, or was it something that that happened naturally over the course of your career? (How did your first picture book come into being? Did a publisher contact you first or did you have an idea you pitched?)

  I’ve loved books since childhood. Specifically, though, I’ve loved books as objects, more than for what’s inside, because a book might contain things that I don’t understand or don’t interest me.

  From Vacation, 2018.
  But these strange boxes have always fascinated me, although I don’t know why. They only open one way (normally) and as a flat surface (usually), yet can be constantly refreshed whenever the pages are turned. My parents had many of them, but most of the time, I couldn’t make heads or tails of them. So, naturally, I focused on what the pictures had to offer.

  Later, in the '70s, graphic novels became extremely popular in France. They had been before, but several innovations had made the media more interested in the people making them. That’s how some authors started becoming even more famous than their characters. Mœbius, the artist, represents that time period perfectly, and he’s certainly the most well-known. Jacques Tardi is another good example.

  That was notable because it gave me a purpose for drawing. It’s a demanding discipline, drawing. I’d like to say that I enjoy drawing, but not beyond what my patience allows, and I have to admit that I have a bit of a deficit there.

  From Vacation, 2018.
  So really, I love pictures, but not so much the way they have to be made. I often prefer other people’s drawings to my own.

  I scribbled down my first book around the age of 13. It was a tiny, very thick book with lots of pages, kind of like those pocket-sized travel encyclopedias. I had one myself, and it was one of my favorite toys, one of my favorite things. That was also the era of fanzines, and I made several with a classmate, using the copy machine at school. Not too many people wanted to buy one from us, but that happens.

  I’m sorry if this is a bit long, but I had to sketch out the background of that era before I could answer the other questions, because everything essentially follows from the context.

  I did think about doing graphic novels for a living, and I focused my efforts to that end, but life had other plans for me. The larger context was changing in the '80s, without me really realizing it. New talent was always appearing, and my constant daydreaming couldn’t have helped anything.

  From Vacation, 2018.
  Following the more or less sound advice of my professors at the Beaux-Arts school, I refocused myself toward the artistic sector. That was both a very good and a very bad thing. But enough about that.

  Among the good things, the best was printing practice. First metal engraving, and then silkscreen printing. Learning those techniques allowed me to redirect my efforts and attention.

  And later, I got to work as a printmaker, which was practically unheard of in the economic crisis that started to hit in the early '90s. The fact that I worked in a professional workshop helped me to print and publish my first books using the best possible materials, with—as much as it was possible—the same level of professionalism. I’ve never again had access to such good tools, which I’ve always been sorry about.

  So, no: children’s books, like graphic novels, were never really part of the plan. Without a salaried job, I tried to do illustrations for the press, and that was a very challenging experience.

  From Vacation, 2018.
  My enormously lucky break was the Un Regard Moderne bookstore in Paris, which sourced and sold that kind of “underground” work. Jacques Noël, the bookseller, was the reason for everything that happened afterward (not just for me): his strategies and support were unwavering and unstoppable, and everyone who worked in the business of making pictures stopped by the bookstore at one point or another. That’s how I slowly stopped being an unknown.

  I owe him a lot. My debt is immeasurable, and I will never be able to repay him.

  I remember seeing your books People and Seasons for the first time and being struck not only by the brilliant images, but the open-ended nature of the narrative. Even though a simple word accompanied each image, I felt the pictures related to one another through association and the reader was able to create their own story. What inspired this format?

  It’s odd, actually. Although I think of myself more as an artist than an author, the instant I sit down to create something I always put some narrative element into my works. The graph’zines being produced in the '90s certainly didn’t require that. Quite the opposite, in fact: I very often thought it was a flaw that we could only produce images that had purely graphic elements. In fact, I should have shed that tendency—for, like in art, pure graphics should be clearly distinguished from narrative production (comics, movies, etc.) to make a true statement. I never managed it, and that ended up leading to a fair amount of misunderstandings and unfortunate consequences.

  From Vacation, 2018.
  And yet, I slowly started to discover a picture-based language that was unlike graphic novels, films, or theater—it was more closely related to pantomime and could be best expressed through the curiosities that I spoke of earlier.

  The form you refer to was certainly inspired by classic picture books. In People, I just endeavored to make it as clear and explicit as possible, perhaps a little more purposeful than what already existed. But I don’t really know, because I’m so far from knowing everything that exists in that category. Far be it for me to set down some sort of law. Rather, perhaps I presented it that way as if to say, “Look, here’s a picture book, it’s not some weird thing!” I wasn’t at all sure if that book would be received well or not, and I probably needed to just reassure myself, too.

  From Vacation, 2018.
  Your sequences of associations seem very intentional even while there is an element of chance to them. How do you decide what to EXCLUDE? Given the specific nature of your included materials (e.g. for People: cat burglar, bystanders, corpse) how do you decide what to leave out?

  Excellent observation. In order to make a book like this doable, it has to have a structure. A plan. Even if it’s not visible by the end, the book is divided into sections, and each section has a place in an overarching theme. In this case, the form I chose (or the form that chose me) was a spiral moving out from its center.

  From that point forward, it becomes much easier to place each element, because they’re all part of a particular section. It’s impossible to show or say everything, so I have to choose what I think is best to illustrate each section’s ideas. That’s where I have to make difficult choices. Compromises have to be made sometimes, even if the book is already quite long for the type of publication it is. The subjects generally come to me from either my own childhood or my environment—whether my real and direct surroundings, my cultural environment, or my imagination. And they all depend on my own experiences, and thus on the limits thereof. I learned quite a lot about my own limits as I made that book.

  From Vacation, 2018.
  The truly difficult thing here is not so much in showing, but in suggesting that what isn’t shown is in fact there. Excluding something from this book for whatever reason it may be... that doesn’t really mean anything. Otherwise, the book wouldn’t have any reason for existing. So we must conclude that what we see is only a tiny part of what exists, what has existed, what will exist. That is where the expressions between characters and figures are the most essential. That is the only true way that I have to express things, and it’s the only way that readers can overlay their own imagination and experiences, even if it’s as a critique.

  But I have to decide, as an author or artist, what I will show: that is my risk, my responsibility, and my privilege. And I exist, too, as a human being. For better and for worse.

  Is there an aspect of being an illustrator that you find difficult?

  The fact that I have to keep going. Doing this work year after year is extremely difficult. I often doubt myself, but I can’t imagine switching to another career or line of work anymore, I’m too old.

  From Ballad, 2013.
  Is it correct to say most of your work is created on the computer these days? You did traditional screen printing earlier in your career. Do you still? And what are your thoughts on working traditionally by hand vs. using digital tools?

  Yes, the computer is a wonderful tool with many useful functions. That is also one of its faults, as all of the tasks end up feeling the same—I spend most of my time sitting between a keyboard and a screen, like most of my contemporaries. I continue practicing the traditional techniques to refresh my abilities, try new things, give myself room to fail without too many consequences. Reconnecting with the experience of failing, really, in a simple, bearable manner. That’s very important.

  All tools are good tools. It’s more a question of mastery. Out of all the possibilities that are offered by the programs I use, I only work with a few of them. I want to focus on those until I find their limits. And once I find them, well, that’s when the fun begins, there’s something interesting about that, and I can start playing around.

  From Ballad, 2013.
  I am a great admirer of not only your artwork, but your consideration of the book as an object and using the spot color printing process in making your books. Is this a natural progression from your experience with screen printing? Or were there other factors that contributed to this method of working with spot colors?

  I imagine you’ll be able to figure out the answer to this question from my previous answers.

  I’ll just add one thing, which is very significant for me. It’s a little complicated, because I don’t fully understand it myself.

  For me, a book is like a painting or a piece of music. In composing or executing it, one must think not only of what it contains, but also of its form, of its volume, and of the methods used. You can never know enough about the paper, the printer, about the way that the images are prepared for printing, about the inks, the colors, etc.

  Or about the book culture, or the people who make them, or about the reasons and methods of different people, etc.

  I believe that one must at least try to be a proper artisan in order to become a good artist. But that’s probably a slightly classic vision of things. Perhaps a little idealistic, a dream of how things could be.

  But that’s where real quality comes from and is expressed, I believe. And a note: sometimes amateur books or books by children are of such high quality, which is staggering to me. A great artist can be born anywhere and at any time, even if it’s only for one work. That’s what can be interesting, as well.

  From Ballad, 2013.
  Do you make books with a specific audience in mind? Your books have wide appeal to both adults and children, so I’m curious to know how children and adults factor in for you. Do you trust children as readers more than adults because they are more open? Or do you just make work and trust that whoever needs to find it will?

  Never. That would be a fatal mistake for me. Incidentally, I do sometimes think of a particular person when I’m making a book, but only for certain bits. I have other problems, like how to make a composition that will hold up, mostly. If I start thinking about other people at that point, I’ll be screwed.

  I don’t trust anyone. I listen to what people have to say, mostly people I live with or my editor (of course) if necessary, but that’s about it. Otherwise, it gets too complicated. It might not be very nice of me, but that’s how it is.

  From Ballad, 2013.
  My books aren’t intended for anyone in particular, so maybe they’ll be lucky enough to have someone find them.

  I know you have worked for editorial and advertising clients. How do you view these projects in relation to your books? Do you prefer one more than the other? Do you find it hard to balance both? (I have found that it can sometimes be difficult when working on a book to be pulled out of the flow with quick deadline assignments. Do you find this to be the case? Would you say editorial work is a welcome break or a bothersome interruption?)

  Ever since the beginning, this has been clear: illustration is how I pay my bills. Nothing to brag about.

  Now, illustration work is interesting for several reasons. First off, it helps me keep in contact with the rest of the world. See what’s happening. Clients’ requests also usually make me get off the beaten path, either in form or content—sometimes, I have no idea what they’re asking, and I have to do some very interesting research.

  An illustrator’s responsibility is not at all like an author’s. It’s shared, or nonexistent—it’s a contract and a commercial transaction with limited responsibility.

  From Ballad, 2013.
  Sometimes, it can be a breath of fresh air to see the demands and specifications of the people I work with. It’s a rare occurrence, yes, but sometimes it establishes a real creative teamwork between illustrator and client or art director, and that sets the bar very high. It can escalate the art. When that happens, it’s a wonderful thing.

  Sometimes, interruptions can be welcome, when I’m lost on the winding paths of production. Sometimes, there’s a difficult bit taking all of my attention, and I won’t even hear what people are saying two feet from my face. There’s no hard and fast rule. I’ve had to refuse work, even very good work, when I’m in certain phases. I always regret it later, when I’ve overcome the obstacle. I always need money. Always. More.

  Can you share a few books that you find particularly inspiring? Books that have made a lasting impression on you over the years? Also, what kinds of books did you like to read as a child? Are there books from your childhood that have informed your life and work as an adult?

  Oh, I should have made a list! There are so many, or so very few, depending on your point of view.

  In short: Gary Panter’s series Jimbo: Adventures in Paradise, shocked me completely. In every sense. Same thing for Mœbius’s Airtight Garage: before those books, I didn’t know that people could make and then publish things like that. Those are both masterpieces. Sadly, Mœbius’s book never got a nice hardcover release.

  Two books by Richard McGuire stood out to my eyes and my mind: What's Wrong with This Book? and Popeye & Olive, for which I was extremely honored to be the editor. I unfortunately couldn’t edit it as well as I wanted to: the paper I chose had just ceased production.

  One of Tomi Ungerer’s books: The Three Robbers. Found it in the school’s library-bus. Good God! The bad guys were the heroes! A beautiful book, beautiful drawings, a beautiful story. Wonderful author. A wonderful person.

  The Blue Lotus, by Hergé. A perfect book. The old editions (black and white and color) are gorgeous. The modern ones have kept the story and drawings, but they don’t have the same charm. Too cold.

  A series of very well done little books, published by someone who ended up becoming one of my best friends: Frédéric Debroutelles. Pascal Doury was one of the heroes!!!

  Agony, by Mark Beyer. Also perfect. It’s in one of those formats that I loved when I was a child. His drawings can also evoke that creation. But then disillusion and horror follow, and it’s wonderful.

  Land of 1000 Beers by David Sandlin: the woven quality, the sensuality of Ben-Day.

  El Borbah, by Charles Burns. And he was never so close to the childlike fantasy as in those very adult stories. Those books were published in the same collection as Jimbo and were extraordinarily well done, despite their apparent simplicity.

  A Passionate Journey, by Frans Masereel. No explanation needed. The narration! A small book that has stayed with me for a long time.

  Face to Face by Jean and François Robert. Such clear form, such rigorous models serving such a simple but brilliant idea. Well produced.

  Graph’zines, the pioneering work of some of the artists from an era that seems so long ago now. Some are as gorgeous as a firecracker.

  Wir Junge Pioniere, by Keiti Ôta. A book as improbable as it is perfect. Der Polarforscher, by Henning Wagenbreth, is also a masterpiece. I still read both of them, and I always cry, they’re so good.

  Popular pictures from around the world!

  Etc. I can’t reasonably list everything, I’d have to show you my library, and I don’t own everything as it is.

  Ballad and Vacation represent a deep commitment to narrative exploration and storytelling. What led you here from your work as a screen printer? How did you become obsessed by narrative and committed to playing with its form?

  Same thing here. Nothing specific to add.

  Did Miyazaki and Japanese aesthetics serve as an inspiration to Vacation?

  Haha! I think Miyazaki is one of the greatest artists of our time. Unquestionably. There is great humanity in him and his works, and I admire him greatly.

  But I don’t think that he influenced me directly for this book. My influence was a writer and poet: Kenji Miyazawa, who is a genius, and also, I believe, influenced Hayao Miyazaki.

  Why Kenji Miyazawa? I stumbled upon a collection of his texts one day and I instantly found myself transported back to my childhood. I don’t know how the connection could have been made, but it was there. I wouldn’t be able to illustrate his stories, though, because my own memories are mixed inextricably in. The simplest thing would be to demolish and reconstruct the whole thing as best I could, to translate it into my own language—which I’d have to reinvent or rediscover... which is what I did with Vacation.

  The trouble and magic of childhood are elements within almost all of Hayao Miyazaki’s films. But they are also my own elements. The true challenge of this book was expressing them as best as I could. I needed ample material, richly detailed, with enough depth for backgrounds, which could suggest a vaster world, both familiar and unknown. All these qualities are of course present in Miyazaki’s films, far beyond what I can do. Once again, it’s in the choice of what is not shown and in the expressions and silences of the book that is created by real space, the resonance chamber. It’s not at all the way things are expressed in films; it happens differently there. I am a director... of books! That’s all.

  E.T.A. Hoffman was also another inspiration for this book, and another person who I wouldn’t be able to illustrate, and who tells me this: life only has one dimension. Bruno Schulz also whispers this to me... as does existence, always.

  Do you have 5 favorite words in the French language? In German? In English?

  No. I have a bit of a fetish for books, but not vocabulary. That doesn’t mean I don’t care, though. Every language has its own particular flavor.

  If you had no restraints in terms of time and money, what would you do?

  Nothing at all. I’d read, do some work around the house. Eat. Sleep. Watch life pass by. I already do all of that. I’d just be able to do it better.

  WRITTEN BY
  JooHee Yoon

  POSTED
  October 17, 2022

• Gecko Press - https://geckopress.com/qa-with-blexbolex-about-the-holidays/

  Q&A with Blexbolex about “The Holidays”
  Posted January 30, 2018 by Gecko Press

  Blexbolex creates books that compel us to keep coming back, and images—and thoughts—that remain with us long after the book is closed.

  The Holidays, has been awarded Pépite 2017—the French most prestigious children’s book award—at the Montreuil Children’s Book Fair.

  Blexbolex answered our questions about The Holidays:

  How would you describe what the book is about?
  Here is a simple synopsis: at the end of the summer, a girl spends time at her grandfather’s place in the countryside. Then an unexpected guest arrives, who the girl doesn’t like.

  Through images and the characters’ actions, the book tells the story of those few days and what happens. More generally, the story is about missed opportunities. It’s about the assumptions we make that aren’t always right.

  The girl likes to control and enjoy her space and her time, and decides these can’t be shared. She isn’t mean, she just doesn’t understand that this time and space exist for others as well. She chooses to ignore it. She makes a mistake and will eventually regret it – the mistake is revealed, true faces are shown.

  So, it’s the story of an experience.

  How do you write a book without words? Do you only think in pictures? What is your story-writing process?

  First, you must build a plan. Here it’s the characters and the scenery. The secluded location of the house makes this little drama possible. We are in an imaginary area, similar to a fairytale or to what could be a puppet show. This is the frame for the action, which plays out like a fable. The entire story takes place within an area of around three square kilometres. This is very small, but it offers many possibilities.

  Then I think about characters’ roles and functions, about the topography of the place, to build a credible setting, and then the timeframes in which actions occur.

  I see this book as a sort of theatre. Usually the double-page image is a scene and the vignettes – generally at the rim of the pages – are actions that take place within it. The book is – very classically – divided in four acts and (almost) each double page is a scene. It’s a play that takes place in a book rather than on a stage.

  In the book, I use styles of narration from the cinema and from comics. I choose these to fit with what I want to say.

  I had to build a grammar – both visual and narrative – that was clear enough for the pictures to entice a reading.

  What do you say to someone who says you can’t read without words?
  I would probably ask them to define “reading”!

  A text doesn’t mean anything without context. What’s the link between me, a lettuce and the word “eat”? What’s the link between past, present and future? What’s the link between doubt, certainty and probability? Without those links – which are organic – all of the world’s vocabulary is useless. We must build nets of connection to make sense. These connections can be through common sense or dramatic construction.

  As a linear system, text seems the ideal medium to make sense, but reading depends on our ability to link things together through memory, thinking or imagination.
  It’s not so different with images. It’s a different language, but it is still a language. Would you turn down the chance to go to the opera or to a concert, a play or a movie, to look at a painting or to read a poem, on the pretext that there is nothing to understand or to feel? I don’t think so. Text itself doesn’t guarantee you will understand or feel something. Reading is performative and demands effort from the reader.

  What is your work process?
  I have no idea! I’d love to know…

  How do you come up with new story ideas? What is your inspiration?

  I read, listen to music, go to shows when I can, and I like when people tell me their experiences – you have to take time to understand them, and it can be enriching. When I have time to take a walk, I try to mentally record every detail – the daylight colour, the clouds’ shapes, the plants, the attitude or clothing of a passerby. I don’t take notes or sketches; I try to retain what hit me. That’s a way to keep up my visual memory and my imagination.

  Ideas find me. I never find them. These miscellanies of memory and impression make me think that yes, there is something to do here. So I don’t have any methodology. This comes only when I’m about to start creating the idea and plan out my work.

  Adults love your work as much as children… Who do you have in mind when you work?
  Nobody. I have too much to do thinking about what I’m doing. Occasionally a book or part of a book, or even just an image or a fragment of this image is intended for somebody in particular. But even then I want to make it accessible to others as well.

  Is the response the same from adults as from children?
  I can’t really tell. I publish my books – which means that everybody has the opportunity to read them or not, to like them or not. Sometimes, my books seem difficult to some adults, but not at all to children.

  The adult audience seems to enjoy the graphical finish or the colours and the production effort. This aspect may be less interesting to children, who seem to be interested in images and their contents more than their form. Note that I say “seem”, because some children will be more aware of the materials, the format and the sensory experience.

  A book has to live its own life and try to enter the minds of those who read it. Sometimes it can fail, other times it can work very well. I don’t know the recipe. My books are for everybody, which doesn’t mean that everybody can or must like them.

  Why did you choose this format for The Holiday and can you describe some of the detail of production and printing, how you got the colours exactly right, etc?
  I chose this format because I wanted something small and robust. The book has 128 pages, so there is a relationship between its height, width and thickness. I chose the page size to suit the characters and the figures – how they had to be depicted to hold the action. And finally because large surfaces would have forced me to enrich them too artificially – and that would have threatened the readability. For instance, when the girl takes up the whole page, the emotional relationship between the character and the reader is kept: she is still a character, similar to a doll or puppet. A few extra centimetres could be enough to break this relationship.

  Sometimes, working on a computer makes scale, space and positioning objects in the space complicated. If I want to have an overview, I need to reduce the window, so I don’t see the detail. The small format gives me better control of those issues.

  The control of colours has been a real challenge with this book. When we were testing the printing, we discovered that what I saw on my screen had no reality when printed. The colour is complex, which required us to anticipate what could happen during the production. We changed the process right at the end to a simplified system that I had tested with a previous book.

  The choice of materials is important. They define an atmosphere, almost more tacitly than visually. Through the sense of touch, we pass on information that would be long and complicated – even impossible – to pass on by other means. A book can talk to your senses as well as your intellect.

  What are you working on now? Can we have a sneak preview?
  Hahaha! No. This will be kept secret. I don’t make only children’s books. And I don’t make only books. But I know that those activities will generate new ideas sooner or later. We just have to wait – which I also do. I wait for the next book that will come to me. And I’ll be delighted when it is there, in front of me – asking to exist.

• Enchanted Lion Books - https://enchantedlion.com/blog/2023/11/07/a-conversation-with-blexbolex-author-and-illustrator-of-the-magicians

  A Conversation with Blexbolex, Author & Illustrator of THE MAGICIANS

  Blexbolex is an award-winning book illustrator. Born in France, he has lived in Germany since 2008, where he teaches and also gives workshops. In 1992, he started work as a printer, allowing him to both create and print his own first books. From 1996 to 2005, he worked at Éditions Cornélius in Paris. Since 2005, he’s worked as an illustrator and author of children’s books, while also creating comics and books for adults. His experimental approach to illustration, industrial printing techniques, and book production makes him a pioneer in his field. Blexbolex has received many prizes and distinctions, including New York Times Best Illustrated recognitions for Seasons (2010) and Ballad (2014).

  The Magicians—published on November 7, 2023, and greeted with a flurry of starred reviews—is his fifth book with Enchanted Lion. We asked him a few questions about this visually stunning, 200-plus-page tour de force.

  Enchanted Lion: Blexbolex, thank you so much for agreeing to answer our questions. We’re excited to discuss The Magicians with you!

  Blexbolex: Before we get started, I’d like to thank Enchanted Lion for choosing to publish this book and proposing it to your readers. It’s a somewhat challenging book in the sense that its format isn’t immediately identifiable: it’s in between graphic novel and picture book.

  Personally, I tried to think of The Magicians as a tide of images and texts, carrying not ideas, necessarily, but rather a set of situations and sensations. My biggest challenge was to put them in order and arrange them in a natural way, so as not to lose any in the process and to preserve their initial spark. In this sense, I’ve stayed in the same vein of the imagier* (People, Seasons, and Ballad), but taking a different perspective.

  [*NOTE: An imagier refers to a book of images. Usually each image is paired with the name of what is represented, or a short caption. Often collecting images around a certain theme, these books are traditionally used to teach young children how to identify various people, places, concepts, or things.]

  From Blexbolex's BALLAD, a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of 2013
  From Blexbolex's BALLAD, a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of 2013
  Screen Shot 2023-11-07 at 4.46.07 PM.png
  EL: What draws you to the subject of magic… and the struggle to keep magic alive?

  B: I can’t really answer this question, as I wasn’t really the one who chose the book’s theme, or even the way it ended up being expressed. The scenes imposed themselves on me, it’s that simple. You could describe it as a waking dream, if you like: I’m sitting on my sofa and letting my mind drift. Images emerge, and if they please me, I let them go wherever they desire. This time, the images went relatively far and I made the effort to get them down on paper.

  I should clarify that this stage doesn’t yet constitute a story, these are merely scenes and images that have yet to take shape. If I’m inspired, or inspired enough, shaping these undefined images into their graphic, artistic, or narrative form consists of faithfully capturing—or even rediscovering—this same kind of firework display of mental images and sensations. Therein lies the real work, and this time there’s nothing magical about it.

  EL: The three child magicians (a human girl, a blackbird, and an elephant) at the center of the story are all bursting with personality. How did the characters come to influence the plot, and vice versa?

  B: The characters carry the full potential of the narrative in and of themselves. They’re like balls of yarn that must be untangled and unwound. It’s a delicate undertaking: you can’t pull the yarn too fast or too hard. If you do, you’ll either snap the string, or end up with a tangled web of knots. I don’t use any particular technique; I go step by step, little by little. Once one section is freed, I fix in place what I’ve just unspooled to avoid losing it and continue to pull as hard and as far as I can. This often forces me inspect the “thread” to ensure that it’s neither broken nor tangled up.

  EL: How did you come up with the Huntress’s sidekick… the mechanical lion dragon, Clinker?

  B: His head is of course borrowed from Chinese culture, and it follows that his body, made up of balls or circles, is too, since he’s one of those wonderful Chinese kites. My only contribution here was to give him dragon legs so that he could walk and run. He’s somewhere between animal and machine, almost like a big toy, but endowed with speech, soul, and personality. If you ask me, I think he’s animated by air, but I couldn't prove it, of course.

  https://enchantedlion.com/all-books/themagicians
  MAGICIANS, site 5.jpg
  EL: Which artists or writers influenced you and The Magicians, if any?

  There are so many artists and writers that inspired The Magicians that I could never cite all of them, nor do them justice, nor express my gratitude! Sometimes I borrowed a lone word, a single turn of phrase, a bit of an image! To make a complete and precise inventory of them all, I would need to unravel my own work, and I surely don’t wish to do that.

  EL: What have you drawn on from your own childhood to make this book?

  Everything and nothing in particular. In almost all of my books, I try to recreate one or more sensations, whether they come from childhood or more recent experiences, and this latest book is no exception. Some sensations, whether they’re memories or something else, remain very vivid and I don’t need to explain them to myself. But on occasion, a recent event will lead me to ask myself questions about older situations, situations that have already been experienced in some way.

  That’s when I feel the need to somehow go back in time or carry out a sort of investigation, in order to find, or even sometimes explain, the origin of this sensation. It could be described as a fairly Proustian approach—all things considered!—, beyond the literary, historical, or familial dimensions.

  EL: How would you describe the magic in your book?

  B: The magic as expressed in the book is natural, even elemental, to our world, but at the same time involves a supernatural reality (the “Outside” passage). One could say that nature (or at least its magical quality) very partially reflects this supernatural reality (the world in which magic finds its source), precisely because it is its flip side. The natural world and the supernatural world are on opposite sides of each other. Following this line of thinking, the magic described here should therefore never be able to find its place in our world.

  This is why the magicians are so important. It's their capacity to cross from one side to the other that explains the presence of magic on this side of the coin, in “our” world. One could imagine that their ability creates a sort of distortion and bends space, or rather the structure, of the world imagined in his story, much like a Möbius strip, which has only one side. It’s this strange talent that might explain why the magicians are neither good nor evil, neither solely human nor totally animal, etc. It’s simply their way of being.

  Finally, the kind of magic in this story expresses itself very classically: through illusion and manipulation, and essentially by way of things that already exist (wind, fire, plants, human, desires, etc.).

  EL: You’ve said your narrative structure echoes that of video game play. How so?

  B: More than video games, it’s game design and its underlying philosophy that interests me. Creating fiction is difficult. Truth be told, I don’t understand how it works. No matter how much I read and read about the art of the novel or the art of theater or dramaturgy, I never find anything that’s felt particularly convincing to me, even though I’ve tried to give it my all.

  The implicit rules of a game and their logical consequences on the round of the game that the player will play helped me to understand certain dramaturgical rules that had previously eluded me. I think that some of the techniques devised by game developers can be applied to fiction—and I suspect that some of these techniques actually come from classical dramaturgy, which is entertaining to imagine even if it isn’t true…

  MAGICIANS, site 7.jpg
  MAGICIANS, site 4.jpg
  EL: There are more than 180 nearly full-page illustrations in this book, all gorgeously created to look like silkscreen printing. What was your process in creating this beautiful artwork? How long did it take?

  B: This book was unusually long and challenging to conceive. The hardest part was becoming acquainted with the characters, since accessing all the rest of the story hinges on them. I’ve lost count of the false starts, failures, and rewrites of this simple beginning… suffice it to say, I spent an entire year attempting to solve just this problem.

  It was truly nightmarish. I tried everything but the kitchen sink, or almost: from which pictorial technique to choose, to how to lay out the text on the page, etc. I ended up with almost as many of these attempts as there are pages in the book.

  Out of desperation, I decided to make the images in stencil form, which helped me simplify my shapes and streamline the color system. The layout and the poster-like look of the pages arise from this technique, inspired by Russian luboks, particularly those of Mayakovsky. Once I landed on this particular form, which gives each page a sense of unity (here, it’s the images that are numbered, not the pages), everything got simpler, and the rest is just my “secret sauce.”

  From the time when this dream was jotted down as notes on a page to the time I turned in the last files to my publisher, I'd say four years had probably gone by. But honestly, I’m not sure anymore.

  EL: The Magicians—with its metallic endpapers, French flaps, and comics-style paper—is a work of art in itself. Is the finished book as you originally envisioned it?

  B: Overall, yes, the book is what I had hoped it would be from the start. A book should have its own scenography, which forms part of its own particular dramaturgy. The design elements are “dressing,” of course, but they create the kind of ceremony that makes up the reading experience, especially for this kind of book. It’s important because it sets the framework for reading, and isolates it from ordinary activities. For example, the metallic endpapers play their role: that of a curtain to pass through, to enter into this world of fiction.

  EL: Finally, is there a question you always wish someone would ask you, but they never do?

  B: Yes: “How are you?” That simple question would stun me and reduce me to total silence.

  ***
  We hope you enjoyed this interview with Blexbolex. For more information and to order The Magicians, written & illustrated by Blexbolex and translated from French by Karin Snelson, visit the book page here: https://enchantedlion.com/all-books/themagicians !

  ENCHANTED LION BOOKS
  NOVEMBER 7, 2023

The Magicians. By Blexbolex. Art by the author. Tr. By Karin Snelson. Nov. 2023. 210p. Enchanted Lion, $34.95 (9781592704040). Gr. 4-10.741.5.

Its pages silky to the touch, its colors reminiscent of an ancient book from a forgotten library shelf, French cartoonist BlexSolex's book ushers readers into a fully realized yet exhilaratingly enigmatic world. A bird, a red elephant, and a young girl emerge from an old house in the woods, the last three magicians in the world, on the run from a pair of fearsome hunters. Though they're clever and powerful, escape proves impossible through the densest forest or even by stepping outside of the very universe. The inevitable battle proves inconclusive, eventually plunging the last survivor into a corporatized world to redeem herself--and magic--in a confrontation with a wizard CEO. Familiar, mythical story elements play out in new, expectation-confounding ways, like the hunters, one who would be at home in a Chinese New Year's parade, the other in a reader's favorite manga series. This carries over to the format, conforming to the standards of neither graphic novel nor picture book, its single-page "panels" contain the visual panache of a comic, with character design like that old half-recalled picture book from your childhood, and each is accompanied by one artfully worded paragraph. Though teens might demur at what looks like a book for younger children, there is much here that will tug on a nostalgic heartstring and also thrill and mystify them. This is a remarkable creation, particularly so in design and tone, and readers young and old will find little else like this lyrical, thrilling, and mysterious tale.--Jesse Karp

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation
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Karp, Jesse. "The Magicians." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 5-6, 1 Nov. 2023, p. 56. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A774988424/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=be0b2861. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.

Blexbolex THE MAGICIANS Enchanted Lion Books (Children's None) $34.95 11, 7 ISBN: 9781592704040

In this translated French import, three magicians materialize from prolonged dormancy, but hot on their heels are a huntress and a mechanical lion/dragon.

Eleven chapter headings organize intriguing third-person episodes. Some hint at aspects of the trio's personalities: "A Scoundrel" (the elephant), "A Pest" (the bird), and "A Sly Fox" (the redheaded girl). The opening suggests that this fantasy occurs "now," while the conclusion says it "will be again." Nearly square, silkscreenlike images in a controlled palette are framed by the borders of abundant, soft, creamy pages. Several sentences per page--all in blue caps--reveal an elegant translation: The elephant slams the door "with the surly incivility of a traveler in a hurry." Climactic moments fill double spreads. When the main characters combat their pursuers and acquaintances, tilted angles and sharp-edged shadows dominate; when the protagonists escape "outside" through a tear in the page, the compositions are less saturated, with childlike scribbles producing a more innocent vibe. Most people have pink skin; some people toward the end read Black. Recurring threads emerge: the quest for home, the tension between orderliness and chaos, the desirability of magic in the world, and the wisdom of reconsidering first impressions. As these motifs wend through transformations and cameos containing familiar folkloric elements, readers experience the sense of a gifted storyteller improvising as ideas flow.

Protecting magic, extending grace, leaping into the future with hope--this tour de force will nourish souls. (Graphic fantasy. 8-adult)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Blexbolex: THE MAGICIANS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A766904224/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3bda98b2. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.

BLEXBOLEX. Vacation. illus. by Blexbolex. 128p. Enchanted Lion. Mar. 2018. Tr $24.95. ISBN 9781592702466.

Gr 3-5--A young girl is enjoying her summer vacation in the quaint, peaceful countryside until her grandfather brings home an unexpected visitor. The guest, a young elephant, does his best to get along, but the girl isn't interested in sharing her time, her toys, or her grandfather's affection. After the girl smugly chases the elephant away right before a dangerous storm, her grandfather sets out to bring him home safely and resolve their tumultuous relationship with a magical evening at the carnival. Blexbolex stretches the boundaries of typical graphic novels in this deeply expressive wordless title. Relying on screen-printing techniques, he gives images a textured appearance, masterfully evoking Roy Lichtenstein's pixelated pop art and Little Golden Books' subdued retro charm. The artwork features a tapestry of rich earthy and celestial tones--red clay, forest green, goldenrod, navy blue--and soft lines abound, though the foliage and other natural elements often appear jagged and untamed. Images frequently bleed into each other, with no discernible framing on the small panels inlaid on full-page spreads. Although the characters don't speak, they unmistakably convey emotions (anger, surprise, regret, wonder), particularly the young girl, and will raise questions of how feeling and circumstances affect our perceptions of others. However, the narrative takes an odd turn during the carnival scene that may leave readers perplexed. VERDICT This stunning yet unique offering may have trouble finding an audience, but more sophisticated fans of graphic novels and wordless books may appreciate it. Under the guidance of a thoughtful adult, the work might also spur discussion about its deeper meanings.--Alea Perez, Westmont Public Library, IL

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
Source Citation
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Perez, Alea. "BLEXBOLEX. Vacation." School Library Journal, vol. 64, no. 4, Apr. 2018, pp. 125+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A533409056/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=508b5b11. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.

Vacation

by Blexbolex; illus. by the author

Primary, Intermediate Enchanted Lion 134 pp.

3/18 978-1-59270-246-6 $24.95

This winding, wordless summertime story spotlights childhood observations, anxieties, and fantasies. A young protagonist explores the outdoors in solitude until an older, mustachioed caregiver (her grandfather, perhaps?) calls her inside. She freshens up, reluctantly, and the pair walks to the train station to meet a small, sailor-hat-wearing elephant. The visitor brings stress and disharmony, and despite the caregiver's attempts to build community, the girl and elephant do not get along. When the three visit a carnival, a mesmerizing bonfire transports the girl to a celestial train station resembling a giant cuckoo clock. The child meets a new friend in this scene and wakes up in bed the next morning, disoriented. After the elephant departs, the child returns to the comforts of exploring nature--but not before a final moment of surprise. This is a tense, surreal story with nods to Windsor McCay's Little Nemo. Inset boxes and the use of clocks superimposed onto the illustrations offer timestamps beyond the space between panels and pages, and lush colors and screen-print patterns radiate from the roughly textured pages of the physical book, creating an open-ended, dreamlike reading experience that is as tactile as it is visual.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Gall, Elisa. "Vacation." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 94, no. 4, July-Aug. 2018, pp. 85+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A548321765/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=586639ea. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.

Blexbolex BALLAD Enchanted Lion Books (Children's Picture Books) $22.95 11, 7 ISBN: 978-1-59270-137-7

Pictured in a long spate of silkscreen tableaux bound up in a small, bricklike volume, a bored child's daydream zigzags its way into an increasingly wild fantasy adventure. Printed (seemingly) on rough denim, the grainy, stylized scenes are designed to be understood at a glance and paged through quickly. Staid opening images of a school, a road and a house are transformed by both increasing detail and the appearances of new characters. These range from a pair of bandits and a witch to a duster-wearing stranger, police officers, soldiers, a dragon and others. Even as both characters and visual complexity multiply, readers are further shaken up by scenery occasionally being turned upside down and later sideways. Ultimately, the stranger becomes a protagonist who escapes various dangers, discovers treasure and rescues a princess from a sorcerer. With her, he defeats the witch amid bolts of spell-cast lightning-and comes home at last. Aside from allusive chapter heads-"A hero is revealed. During a long and perilous journey several scores are settled. In the forest, night itself is an enchantress"-the narrative is entirely composed of one- or two-word identifiers beneath each picture that are strung into sequences ("The school, / the road, / home") while, occasionally, themselves turning upside down or even vanishing in part: "the ." Despite an unconventional presentation and dizzying twists, the tale ends up on a classic course. The delicious temptation to take an active role in the surreal adventure by adding details or even whole subplots will be hard to resist. (Picture book. 6-9)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Blexbolex: BALLAD." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2013. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A345444643/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=62727647. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.

Ballad

by Blexbolex; trans. from the French by Claudia Z. Bedrick; illus. by the author

Primary, Intermediate Enchanted Lion 280 pp. 1 1/13 978-1-59270-137-7 $22.95

The French illustrator (Seasons, rev. 7/10; People, rev. 9/11) is as provocative as ever in this graphic celebration--and parody--of the very idea of story. Like Dr. Seuss's And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937), Ballad compounds the fantastical--literally, here: each chapter has twice the pages, less two, of its predecessor (4, 6, 10, 18...); at 130 pages, the seventh and last chapter is half the book--just one instance of Blexbolex's intricate crafting. Meanwhile, the story expands from chapter one's uneventful walk ("The school, the road, home") to closer observation of the real world before entering an imagined world and its characters ("the stranger"--storyteller, musician, hero; "bandits" resembling Pinocchio's Cat and Fox; "the witch"). Each chapter begins with a precis, but it is Blexbolex's square illustrations, captioned with just a couple of nouns, that convey the action and accumulate references--a queen, a kidnapping, a dragon, a volcano, mountains, a waterfall, a castle, a captive elf, night, storm, rescue, escape. Ultimately, at dawn, the stranger and queen arrive "home." Blexbolex's simple forms range in colors from gentle blues and greens to the arresting yellow of the stranger's raincoat and his trouser's fluorescent pink; coarse grids of halftone dots add modeling and subtlety to the elegantly composed scenes. An intriguing book--one to unravel, decode, and ponder in successive re-readings.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2014 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Long, Joanna Rudge. "Ballad." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 90, no. 2, Mar.-Apr. 2014, pp. 96+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A362605963/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3210e218. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.

Karp, Jesse. "The Magicians." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 5-6, 1 Nov. 2023, p. 56. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A774988424/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=be0b2861. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024. "Blexbolex: THE MAGICIANS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A766904224/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3bda98b2. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024. Perez, Alea. "BLEXBOLEX. Vacation." School Library Journal, vol. 64, no. 4, Apr. 2018, pp. 125+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A533409056/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=508b5b11. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024. Gall, Elisa. "Vacation." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 94, no. 4, July-Aug. 2018, pp. 85+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A548321765/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=586639ea. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024. Long, Joanna Rudge. "Ballad." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 90, no. 2, Mar.-Apr. 2014, pp. 96+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A362605963/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3210e218. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.

• It's Nice That
  https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/blexbolex-no-mans-land
  Word count: 796

  Clever, beautiful and breathtaking - Blexbolex steps up a gear with new book No Man's Land
  WordsRob Alderson
  —
  Date
  23 May 2012
  Work
  Illustration
  The hardest time in anyone’s life is those few days before Christmas when you’re a kid and you know your present is sitting under the tree. Whenever you can you have a cheeky shake (“I was just moving it out the way of the dog man”) or rip off an imperceptible bit of wrapping paper to sneak a glimpse at what’s inside.

  That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling ever since the brilliant new Blexbolex book landed on my desk a week ago, limiting myself to the odd teaser here and there. Yesterday I was finally able to immerse myself in it fully and it’s no exaggeration to say it’s an absolute masterpiece of its form.

  Three years in the making, No Man’s Land actually takes place in a single moment, just after the protagonist, a hard-knock detective (featured in 2010’s Dogcrime) blows his brains out. As his psyche hangs between life and death, we are privy to the mental meanderings of a soul passing from this world to whatever lies beyond.

  Thrust into the inner workings of the main character’s mind, a series of interspliced survival scenarios that manage to feel at once confusing and coherent, we the readers fall through time and space. It’s a nightmare world of suspended reality – a giant snake-infested swamp, an abandoned liner, a Hieronymous Bosch meets Joseph Heller war scene and some kind of rendition submarine.

  There’s a sinister bank-controlled conspiracy world which may or may not have turned our hero into a snitch, a vicious, vindictive Puss in Boots, secret societies, S&M sessions, weird drugs and rancid religious movements militarised out of all recognition.

  no-mans-land-cover-front.jpg
  Above
  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

  Visually we know what Blexbolex can do, but even for someone who’s won prestigious awards (Best Book Design at the Leipzig Book Fair 2009,The New York Times Best Illustrated Book in 2010) this is stepping it up a level. On creamy matte paper, the full force of his illustrative brilliance is unleashed – the colour scheme may be relatively simple but the images are anything but as the colliding worlds of a fading psyche are rendered with extraordinary flair.

  It’s immersive, at times claustrophobically so, as we are pulled into the nightmare scenarios, but along with a beautiful visual turn of phrase, Blexbolex is also a master of pace and rhythm, slowing down for a much-needed narrative breather before plunging us head-first into frenzy, ambush, fire, then pulling out again readying our shattered nerves for the next descent.

  And best of all the whole thing is done with a knowing nod to what he’s putting us through. During one section he gleefully tramples throughout the fourth wall – “The sunrise illuminates an improbable lunar landscape taken directly from the cover of a Roy Rockwood science-fiction novel! Hahaha, it’s so pathetic.”

  When the book shudders to a halt and we are back where we started, it’s incredible how deflating it feels, despite knowing exactly what was happening we too have been seduced into thinking the human spirit is indomitable. It’s a breathless ride, but leaves with you with big chewy questions.

  NML-hiresspread-6.jpg
  Above
  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

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  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

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  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

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  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

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  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

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  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

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  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

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  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

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  Blexbolex: No Man’s Land (Published by No Brow)

  No Man’s Land is released on June 12, published by No Brow. Blexbolex is appearing at the first East London Comics Festival on June 17 to discuss the work.

• Publishers Weekly
  https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781592702466
  Word count: 215

  Vacation
  Blexbolex. Enchanted Lion (Consortium, dist.), $24.95 (128p) ISBN 978-1-59270-246-6
  The enigmatic visual storytelling of French artist Blexbolex’s Ballad (2013) is more prominent than ever in this reality-bending wordless outing, which can be read as an extended picture book or as a graphic novel. In silk screens that call to mind Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo comics, readers meet a dark-haired girl exploring the woods outside her grandfather’s stately home. She’s abruptly summoned back to the house and is unhappy about the interruption; Blexbolex uses inset panels to move the action forward or bridge time and distance—in this case, a circular panel shows the girl’s grandfather calling to her. Her mood doesn’t improve after they pick up a new arrival at the train station—a small golf-club-toting elephant, whom the girl treats like a disliked relative. Their emotive squabbles form the brunt of the book, leading the elephant to disappear in a storm and require a rescue. Tracking the action calls for careful attention as the story dips in and out of dreams and imagined journeys. Puzzle-loving readers will adore teasing out the book’s mysteries, and many more will simply want to lose themselves in its enchanting images. Ages 8–up. [em](Mar.) [/em]

Word Count