By: Manu Larcenet Publisher: ComicsLit Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: ComicsLit Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 128 Publication Date: May 30, 2005
Deceptively deep It's easy to think of "Ordinary Victories" as "Doug" (the old Nickelodeon animated feature) grown up and gone to seed. The artist draws the characters whose air of comic innocence and forgiveness that might lead you to believe that this is a work to be dismissed. But from the first page, where we meet our young, confused photographer-protagonist trying to break of sessions with his rather useless psychotherapist, author Manu Larcenet explores humanity's search for meaning and value.
The story is set in beautiful countryside of France in the present. Marc lives alone in an old farmhouse, and has a bachelor's maddening neuroses and self-defeating attitudes. He is prone to debilitating panic attacks that he cannot predict or understand, but that has learned to live with. He smokes constantly, can't seems to find his own artistic voice, is self-absorbed and fearful about change. He does have an eye for photography, but seeks a change from photographing violent conflicts. Marc's character features and flaws set up most of the drama in the work, from confrontations with his newly-found-veterinarian-girlfriend, to the gun-toting nut patrolling his property, to his amiable-if-secretive parents, to his party-hearty brother, to his irritable cat Adolf, to the seemingly-benign old man who lives in an old mill and spends his days fishing. Each character has a story and a secret, which Marc reacts to with sometimes ridiculous exaggeration. "Ordinary Victories" is about the slow motion progress of a human being to deal with family, death and one's own place in the world. It is about the little insults that shape us and mold our characters. It is about love, commitment, and maturity. It does not end on a note of completion, but on the observation that human growth is slow, life is complicated, and insights are few and hard to read.
Quite a bit of material for a comic book, n'est-ce-pas?
Some Good Parts, But Too Unfocused This full-color French graphic novel takes 20-something slacker ennui and tries to milk it for all its worth -- which probably goes a long way to explaining why it won the grand prize at Angouleme (kind of the Cannes Film Festival of European comics). The story is about Marc, a disillusioned young photographer who suffers from anxiety attacks and leaves the big city (and therapy) for the simpler life of a small country farmhouse. Stripping his life down to the bare bones (no job, cozy house, companion cat, Playstation, plenty of pot), he gets comfortable. And when he meets a cute veterinarian things seem even better. But Marc is trying to run away from life's complexities, and has a hard time dealing with and accepting change. His search for a new photography project frustrates him, as does his girlfriend's gentle prods toward a longer-term relationship, not to mention his semi-estranged father's severe decline in health.
The book feels quite a bit like a well-intentioned but somewhat uncohesive indie film. All manner of ideas are raised: the struggle of the artist not to stagnate, Marc's relationship with his more settled-down brother and his beur (French-born Arab) wife, the emotional toll of seeing one's parents age, the inability to commit to someone who loves you, the insincerity of the contemporary art scene, etc. Via a background election, the book also attempts to bring up politics, class, and ethnicity, but for the most part this is all rather nebulously handled. There is one good scene where self-righteously liberal Marc gets in an argument with one of the shipyard workers because he voted far-right, despite working with, and being friends with immigrants. There's also a rather curious subplot involving a charming old fisherman, who happens to have been a war buddy of Marc's father (here, it helps to understand that "the war" that is referred to is the 1954-62 Algerian War of Independence and it helps to know a little about how that played out).
The problem is that there's just too much crammed in. The story would have benefited from spending more time on fewer of these issues and treating them slightly more in depth. For example, Marc's "creative struggle" isn't particularly compelling, indeed it's hard to sympathize too much with a photographer who's been so successful that he can take a year (or more) off to just go live in the country, take long walks, and smoke hash. Similarly, his commitment issues with his outrageously patient girlfriend, while handled nicely, doesn't take the reader anywhere new or interesting. The subplot with the old fisherman has potential, but is rests on a shaky foundation of a rather large coincidence. Larcenet has some decent ideas, and handles certain scenes and emotions very very well, but his ambitions overwhelm his storytelling and focus. His dialogue is remarkably good, very realistic and affecting -- and very, very well translated.
The artwork is quite nice in kind of a classically French cartoon sense. There are the flourishes one often sees in European work, such as hugely phallic or dagger-like noses, pupil-less eyes, and so forth. But these aren't as distracting and grotesque as some other artists, and the coloring by Larcenet's brother is excellent. Overall, probably worth checking out if you're into overseas comics but not nearly as compelling as its prize-winning pedigree might suggest.
Very moving and artful A book about emotional growth and acceptance, rendered in an appealing and colorful style. I found myself laughing aloud at times, tearing up at others.
A Lot from a Little Book I didn't expect this much beauty and feeling from a small graphic novel, so this book was much more than I anticipated. I was pleasantly surprised by the touching story line. The graphics are beautiful.
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