4 out of 5

In general, foreign comics have a certain vibe about them, and foreign kids comics have a certain certain vibe about them.  To the extent where you’re not even sure it’s for kids.  And Abelard leans hard on feeling like a ‘no,’ as its hopeful premise slowly dissolves into a cynicism which isn’t so much trumped but accepted.  I’m no big fan of protecting the young’uns from real life concepts, and it’s not that I would hesitate to let a kid read this (although with a preface warning that it’s not, perhaps, the most cheery thing, despite the cute main character), but I’d expect to find this filed in a youth section at a shop and if I were doing that filing I can imagine my hand faltering while placing the book on the shelf… since it belongs elsewhere, shuffling aside the often puerile concepts in ‘adult’ comics to straddle some difficult-to-explain concepts… but knowing it will sell better on the kid’s rack, so kid-lit reading hounds like m’self, who love these books that care not for moral lesson conventions, will pick it up and write a review talking about how it exceeds the confines of youth literature…

But ‘Abelard’ actually steps out of bounds here and there, questionably, and thereby it’s lack of star.  The ‘foreign kids comic’ vibe is what allows it to be acceptable when a girl is described as being a whore and a lead character relates a story about a lovers’ scuffle where someone ends up with a knife in the guts.  It’s the public nudity of other countries, where things that just make us gasp here (still, despite the proliferation of reality tv and modern kids having modern kids) are sorta shrug-worthy elsewhere.  Indeed, the themes explored slate the book more for a pre-teen, where such language and scenarios are already engrained or understood, but the look of the book is younger than that.  So it’s difficult to say what’s intended by the anti-woman talk of the dark half of our yin-yang leads, as it’s not really refuted anywhere in the book.  As a totes misogynist, I’m far from offended, again, I’m just curious as to the intention.  Similarly, during a fight, a character gets called a variation on ‘faggot’ a couple times and then after a beating, hey, let’s pee on his hat.  Here’s a panel showing our anthropomorph Tough, a bear, unzipping his fly, and now here’s a panel of urine.  Is this common post-fight practice in France?  Dunno.  And the casual language use – if established elsewhere or, yes, buzzword, given some context – is fine by me, except that it comes out of nowhere, appears once or twice, and disappears.  Which reminds me of the implied ignorance of Doug TenNapel’s writing on occasion, where he’ll slip jesus into the mix or casual (to me) homophobia under the presumed assumption that we all feel the same.  I love TenNapel, but it’s a reminder that even the most creative people can get tunnel vision sometimes.

These moments occur in Abelard, and they aren’t really required flavoring for the main theme.

Which is: little sparrow Abelard has lived by the marsh his whole life.  He’s never seen a girl.  Until Eppily, the gorgeous girl-next-door who’s passing by with her gaggle of friends before they depart for elsewhere.  One of the friends notices Abelard making the gaggle-eyes at Eppily and mentions that normal courting won’t do – if he wants ‘er heart, he’s gonna’ have to go big.  Like, say, offering her the moon.  After some failed attempts at trying to climb to the skies, word is heard that there are flying machines in America… so it’s the start of a journey for little Abelard, to America, to get to the skies to capture the moon for his love.  The story is broken into something like chapters, often proceeded by little words of wisdom which Abelard finds daily in his hat.  All of this setup prepares you for something that can dip into cloying at any given moment.  Dillies’ thickly sketched art – colored here in muted pastels that gorgeously blend while allowing our characters to have their own full and separate presences – keeps you from assuming too much.  Even though Abelard is cute on his little legs and with his big eyes, the pages are constantly in motion, swooping panels and backgrounds, providing an indiscernible feeling behind the writing that certainly ends up coming further and further forward.

As Abelard is confronted with racism after taking up with some gypsies – then prejudice – trying to cross into America as a pauper – then despair, battling against the depressed lower classes with which he must travel.  His naivete – completely new to the world, new to words like ‘despair’ – isn’t assisted by Gaston, the odd-couple match for Abe’s general positivity, providing answers to the sparrow’s questions with bleak and bleary worldviews, which Abelard easily accepts as new facts.

There is redemption, but not quite in the happy way we’d probably expect.

I’m ordering some more of Dillies’ books, as well as another collaboration between the artist and author Hautière.  NBM sort of talks up ‘Abelard’ as mostly Dillies project, so it’s hard to say who’s more or less responsible for the downward spiral of events in the tale, but perhaps I’ll be able to piece it together after reading some more.  The takeaway from that, though, is that I want to read some more.  This is really a wonderful book, unique and effective in look and story, taking notes from the genre and spinning it into its own idea.  There are some oddities, but one could argue that they also enhance the general uneasy feeling that occurs when experiencing Abe’s travels.

Over-sized hardcover, a good amount of story at over 100 pages, with a rich printing process and good and sturdy binding.  Worth the cover price of $22.99, undoubtedly, as that’ll be paying for at least several reads.