Les Impressions Nouvelles : Titres récents

Foreign Rights

		COMICS

		Strawberry and Chocolate Aurélia Aurita A highly erotic story, Strawberry and Chocolate details the first weeks of an amorous passion from the viewpoint of a 25 year-old graphic artist. A careful observer of her own fervours, her own desires, but also of her own doubts, Aurelia Aurita tackles the issues of love and sex with a fresh and open mind. Her vision which is playful as well as cheerful, a mix of crudity and tenderness, has been judged incomparable in the current production of the European graphic novel. Graphic novel 144 pages / 14,8 x 21 cm Black and white Softcover with flaps ISBN : 2-87449-009-1 15 € Rights available for all countries except Spain, Italy, Brazil and The Netherlands.

		Strawberry and Chocolate 2 Aurélia Aurita Everybody has read Strawberry and Chocolate, one of the biggest library hits of 2006. Thanks to the book the public has discovered a new star in the booming field of the graphic novel, Aurélia Aurita. In this second volume of her adventures, she has grown older and wiser, but love is still what’s on her mind, and there’s no better, no funnier, no more refreshing way to talk love and sex than Aurélia’s way. Graphic novel 192 pages / 14,8 x 21 cm Black and white Softcover with flaps ISBN : 978-2-87449-003-0 16 € Rights available for all countries except Spain.

		I will not see Okinawa Aurélia Aurita Chenda travels to Japan for the very first time in 2004. Charmed by her new lover Frederic and the country of the Rising sun, she returns there several times. Yet if there are no problems between Frederik and her, who love each other madly, the same cannot be said of the relationship between Chenda and Japan, which is not a love story. The Japanse administration is obsessed by rules and procedures beyond all reason and this situation transforms each of Chenda's travels into a bureuacratic nightmare. Yet beyond the tensions between Chenda and the Nippon immigration servicesm a different story slowly emerges. For Japan is not the only country that treats aliens with suspicion and in an arbitrary way. Graphic novel 80 pages / 14,8 x 21cm Black and white Softcover with flaps ISBN : 2-87449-055-2 12 € Rights available for all countries.

		Buzz Me Aurélia Aurita Drawn by a then totally unknown author and initially published with a very modest print run, Strawberry and Chocolate becomes, suddenly yet unexpectedly, the media hype of 2006 in France. All of a sudden, the author of the book, Chenda, aka Aurélia Aurita, is in the center of a gigantic buzz, for the best as well as for the worst, since not everybody is happy with her success. How she deals with that situation is the subject of Buzz-Me. This new book tells the story of a buzz as its protagonist is experiencing it from day to day. It offers an insight view behind the scenes of the national press (the women’s magazine Elle, the national newspaper Libération, the major radio and TV stations and programs such as Europe 1 and the nationwide news broadcast Le Grand Journal at Canal Plus), it describes furthermore the inner and outer circles of the comics world (publishers, festivals, audiences), it evokes finally in a very funny and incisive way the whirlpool of emotions and events that will change forever the life of the artist, who proves here the best of her critics. Graphic Novel 144 pages / 14,8 x 21 cm Black and white Softcover with flaps ISBN : 978-2-87449-076-7 15 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Japanese Apprentice Frédéric Boilet In this book, a highly original continuation of Roland Barthes’s The Empire of the Signs, Frédéric Boilet, an internationally acclaimed comic book artist (Yukiko’s Spinach) gives a richly illustrated account of the 12 years he has been spending in Japan. In a series of short texts and reflections, he offers a both funny and smart inside view of the codes of the Japanese culture. Autobiographical essay 240 pages / 17 x 24 cm Many illustrations in color and B&W Softcover ISBN : 2-87449-005-7 21 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Green Ray Frédéric Boilet A man looking for his past, in search of a childhood’s dream; two strange but strong-willed young ladies; a contrabass player with a poetic and quiet mind, yet also a little wild sometimes; an astronomer living at the Pic du Midi, a strange but clairvoyant person; two children climbing on the rooftop of the Strasbourg Cathedral: all these characters will find each other, often without being aware of it, in the exceptional phenomenon of the green ray that becomes visible on certain dawns. “This ray, Jules Verne writes, enables the person who has seen it to acquire clear and sound ideas in all matters related to our emotional life, for its appearance deletes all illusions and lies and he who has been lucky enough to see it once in his life will now understand his own heart and that of the others.” Comics 56 pages / 20 x 30 cm Softcover with flaps ISBN : 978-2-87449-077-4 14 € Rights available for all countries.

		Lisbon Aude Samama & Jorge Zentner "It is with the lives and the experiences of ordinary people that history is being made. But legends are being told with the life and the experiences of someone like Tosechi the magician. It is with the life and the experiences of someone like Moreno – Tosechi’s agent – that history and legends can eventually meet in order to compose a single story. Legend has it that Tosechi was a talented concert player and that his instrument was mystery itself. Legend also has and repeats it that Tosechi’s fame, his glory and his fortune had become gigantic. Although they do not deliver any detail, both history and legend agree to state that one day the magician’s destiny turned over and slowly declined. Some have been saying that there has been a final show in Venice… Two or three years later, life had softly yet inevitably brought Tosechi and his agent to Lisbon." Jorge Zentner Comics 72 pages / 22 x 30 cm Soft cover with flaps ISBN : 978-2-87449-084-2 16 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Children with No Head Antoine Bouvier Five characters, all at the threshold of adult life but reluctant to enter it. An ephemeral world, evoked with great tenderness. A fragment of eternity where everybody is trying to understand the meaning of love and friendship. A Summer that might continue for thousand years. Antoine Bouvier’s style finds the perfect balance between delicacy and precision ; he succeeds in giving an exact representation of frailty and the search of equilibrium, expressing the contradictions of all young people torn between nostalgia and new life. Graphic novel 128 pages / 17 x 24 cm Black and white Softcover with flaps ISBN : 978-2-87449-047-7 16 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Cage Martin Vaughn-James The Cage has more than 180 pages, all of them deprived of human characters. Yet the fictional universe made up by Martin Vaughn-James is exceptionally dense. Its obsessive force is built upon the transformations of a small set of elements and units that start haunting the reader from the very beginning: a room is gradually invaded by a sandstorm, walls are cracking open and eventually break, oil stains are all over the place, the vegetation is going wild and the proliferation of all kind of leaves suddenly discloses hidden ruins, paintings and empty frames are piled up as if we were lost in a strange museum. The Cage is a labyrinth. It is also the first classic of what will be called much later the "graphic novel". Graphic novel 192 pages / 17 x 24 cm Black and white Softcover ISBN : 2-87449-011-3 18 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Inspector Martin Vaughn-James The Inspector tells the confrontation of two characters: one who is lost and another one who is in charge of looking for him. Their identity is unstable, and so is their physiognomy. Little by little, the reader discovers that the man who is being searched, is himself on someone’s track. Everything in this book, the images as well as the texts, is made to confuse the reader: the two protagonists are chasing each other, but perhaps they are also one and the same character that is permanently shifting. Clearly marked by the aesthetics of noir cinema, this graphic novel is the perfect continuation of The Cage. If The Cage is a book without human characters, The Inspector features a detective with multiple faces. Here, the lines are no longer drawn with a ruler, but with a stippler, so that the overall impression becomes that of a blown up halftone photograph. Graphic novel 128 pages / 16 x 24 cm Black and white Softcover ISBN : 2-87449-041-5 15 € Rights available for all countries.

		Dark Rooms Martin Vaughn-James After his two previous masterpieces, The Cage and The Inspector, Martin Vaughn-James introduces us into a new labyrinth. A careful combination of words and images enables him to create a collective dream world that owns a lot to our own dark rooms and that prepares the reader for a nightmarish denouement. Graphic novel 128 pages / 17 x 24 cm Black and white Softcover ISBN : 2-87449-027-9 16 € Rights available for all countries.

		ABOUT COMICS

		The Many Births of Comics, From William Hogarth to Winsor McCay Thierry Smolderen This very richly coffee-table book proposes a totally new vision of the origins of the comics genre and its first developments. It is not in 1896, in the US newspapers, that the genre has emerged, as some historians still believe. Nor did comics start their life with the Bayeux tapestry of the Lascaux cave paintings. Thierry Smolderen demonstrates very clearly that the roots of today’s comics can be found in the 18th Century, more particulary in the engravings series by William Hogarth, which are definitely the forerunners of our contemporary graphic novels. But Smolderen rediscovers also the many comics traditions of the 19th Century, with many unpublished documents on Töpffer, Busch, Cruikshank, Cham, Outcault, Opper, Dirks and many others, including the masterworks created by Winsor McCay. Essay 144 pages / 24 x 33 cm Many illustrations in color Hardcover ISBN : 2-87449-082-8 29,50 € Rights available for all countries.

		Chris Ware, Reinventing Comics Jacques Samson & Benoît Peeters Chris Ware is undoubtedly the most important comics author of the last decade, and not only in his home country, the US. This book is the very first monograph on his work in French. It proposes a wide range of analyses of Ware’s impressive yet still totally open and permanently changing production. It contains also a chronological presentation of Ware’s creations and a long interview with Benoit Peeters. And although the author apologizes sometimes for not always answering the questions as he should, what he says on his work and on the art of comics is dramatically significant. For this reason, the book includes also four articles by Ware himself, which have never been published in French, and a detailed study by Jacques Samson who discloses the originality and the modernity of the inventor of Jimmy Corrigan. Richly illustrated, this book contains also many documents never, most of them never published in French, that are crucial for a better understanding of Chris Ware. Essay 160 pages / 17 x 24 cm Many illustrations in color Hardcover ISBN : 2-87449-081-1 25 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Comics, A User’s Manual Thierry Groensteen Many books exist today that explain how to make a comic or graphic novel. But this is the very first one that offers a real method of how to read the masterpieces of the Ninth Art. An internationally acclaimed specialist in the field, Thierry Groensteen, tackles in this study all the major questions that are raised by the genre. More than fifty full-colour images transform the book in an anthology opened to all styles and tendencies of yesterday’s and today’s comics. Essay 224 pages / 17 x 24 cm Many illustrations in color Softcover ISBN : 2-87449-041-5 22 € Rights available for all countries.

		Speaking Images Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle It may seem simple to read a comic, but this simplicity is deceptive. In his new book, Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle learns us how to read and interpret all kinds of images, ranging from comics to cartoons. He argues that these images are actually speaking, for they represent not just ideas or forms, but also words, either by way of puns or by way of words that are present within the visual world of the drawings. Essay 224 pages / 17 x 24 cm Many illustrations in color Softcover ISBN : 2-87449-041-5 22 € Rights available for all countries.

		Reading Tintin Benoît Peeters Tintin’s lasting success can only be explained by reasons that exceed the anecdotal content of his world-famous adventures. Far from being old-fashioned, the Tintin books are very modern, yet this modernity has hardly ever been acknowledged. In this study, which focuses on the well known book The Jewels of Bianca Castafiore, Benoît Peeters succeeds in revealing all the hidden aspects of the Tintin series. He completes his reading with an in-depth, unpublished interview with Hergé. Essay 224 pages / 17 x 24 cm Many illustrations in color Softcover ISBN : 2-87449-041-5 22 € Rights available for all countries.

		Tintin Schizo Benoît Peeters In this book of the art critic Pierre Sterckx, Hergé’s long-time friend, Tintin is not the conventional and rather cold character we still think he is. If one reduces Tintin to the stereotypical view that considers him the spokesman of the ethical and political clichés of his time or the mirror of the society in which he was born, one misses the real and really revolutionary genius of his character. Essay 224 pages / 17 x 24 cm Many illustrations in color Softcover ISBN : 2-87449-041-5 22 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Tintin Archipelago After Hergé’s death, there are still many secrets to discover in his work. Five of the best specialists of Hergé, Benoît Peeters, Dominique Cerbelaud, Jean-Marie Apostolidès, Albert Algoud et Pierre Sterckx, have gathered in this volume a whole range of new readings of the Adventures of Tintin. Essay 120 pages / 16 x 24 cm Softcover ISBN : 2-906131-70-9 22 € Rights available for all countries.

		Little Nemo, 1905-2005. A Century of Dreams A tribute to the comic strip that has revolutionized our ways of storytelling with images: Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay. This wonderful album brings together original documents, essays by all major specialists, and unpublished creations by the most important comic strip authors of today. Essays and comics 104 pages / 25 x 34 cm Many illustrations in color Hardcover ISBN : 2-87449-000-8 28 € Rights available for all countries except Spain and Italy.

		One Hundred Years and More of Comics Jan Baetens Jan Baetens is probably the last Francophone poet of Flanders. He has been awarded the Triennial Prize for Poetry of the Francophone Community of Belgium for his collection Profession and Cie (a book describing 100 professions, old and new, in 100 different styles). In this new book, he reveals his very personal anthology of comics and graphic novels and tells you everything about the genre and its artists. Poetry 80 pages / 14,8 x 21cm Softcover ISBN : 978-2-87449-031-6 10 € Rights available for all countries.

		ESSAYS

		The Dr. Gachet’s Madness, Van Gogh’s Paintings beyond the Grave Benoit Landais A universally renowned specialist of the many fakes attributed to Vincent Van Gogh, Benoit Landais is also the author of an in-depth study of the only etching ever made by Van Gogh. In this book, Landais reveals the trickery that has been obscuring our image of the painter who cut his own ear. The author demonstrates very convincingly how the fake has been engineered, and how to the key to its understanding has to be found in a drawing hidden behind a mirror belonging to the son of the etching’s subject, Dr Gachet, responsible of many famous Van Gogh fakes. Essay 112 pages / 14,8 x 21 cm Softcover with flaps ISBN : 978-2-87449-062-0 16 € Rights available for all countries.

		Camille Claudel, An Entombment Jean-Paul Morel Who was Camille Claudel ? The envied sister of Paul, the poet-ambassador. The maddening love affair of Rodin, the genial sculptor. The most talented sculptress of her time. A spoiled child of the petty-bourgeoisie, passed away of starvation in a lunatics house and buried in an anonymous grave. What has transformed her life into a fatal destiny? Jean-Pierre Morel has disclosed all the items of evidence of this horrible case, finally completed after a decade of research. Morel’s inquiry on the endless detention of Camille lays bare a long and sad yet also too common story of ignorance, dereliction, cowardice, misunderstanding and arbitrary decisions that have caused the adversity while creating also the tragic myth of this woman. Certified deceased in 1920 whereas she actually went on living until 1943, Camille Claudel has been sacrificed on the altar of the social conventions, after an “entombment” of more than thirty years. The fascinating documents gathered in this book shed also a new light on the state of psychiatry in early 20th Century France. Essay 320 pages / 17 x 24 cm Softcover with flaps ISBN : 978-2-87449-074-3 22,50 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World Françoise Levie Paul Otlet is still known today as the inventor of the modern UCD system, but his lifetime commitment to the dream of knowledge and learning make him one of the key representatives of early 20th Century Enlightenment. His role has not only been crucial in the innovation of library and information management, but also in the development of contemporary pacifism. Biography 352 pages / 17 x 24 cm Many illustrations in Black and white ISBN : 2-87449-022-9 24 € Rights available for all countries except Italy.

		Miss.Tic and the Parisian Graffiti Art Christophe Genin Christophe Genin’s essay is the first attempt to study all aspects of the work of Miss Tic, Paris’ leading street art creator who seamlessly combines words and images, aphorisms and graphic design in her stencilled works on the walls of her neighbourhood. This in-depth reading of Miss Tic’s work is completed by numerous dialogues with the artist and a large number of original photos in colour. The book presents and analyzes the complete works by Miss Tic, from the first wall drawings from 1985 till the most recent works produced in 2008. It highlights the diversity of techniques and styles used by the artist (stencils, drawings, paintings, posters and so on), while putting a special emphasis on the issue of the social status of her work and its progressive shift from illegal to official art. Essay 192 pages / 17 x 24 cm Many illustrations in color Softcover ISBN : 978-2-87449-081-1 25 € Rights available for all countries.

		NOVELS

		The Promise Made to My Sister Joseph Ndwaniye Jean has come from Rwanda to Belgium, where he has been living for almost two decades now. He has always dreamt of going back to his country one day and to see his family again. He decides to return to his native country and to ask his mother, the only survivor of the whole family, about the terrible events. But Rwanda is no longer the country it used to be, and Jean’s return home is also the arrival of a stranger in an environment that he no longer recognizes. Novel 224 pages / 14,8 x 21 cm Softcover ISBN : 978-2-87449-023-1 17 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Voice in the Closet Raymond Federman In order to save him from the Nazis, a mother hides her child in a closet. It is from this terrifying hiding place that the young child will witness the arrest of his parents and sisters, whom he will never see again. The inventor of postmodern “surfiction” and a major voice in Holocaust Fiction, Raymond Federman, evokes in this hallucinatory monologue an event whose traumatizing effects he attempts to avert with the help a dramatically violent text. Monologue Bilingual (English/French) 96 pages / 14,8 x 21 cm Softcover ISBN : 978-2-87449-043-9 11 € Rights available for all countries.

		Lost Cities Benoît Peeters This collection brings together five different texts, all of them definitely literary in their scope and style : « Paris-Brussels », « Prague », « Moscow-Vladivostok, Trans-Siberian notes », « Travel Dust » and « Ashes ». Lost Cities is not a new Baedeker, but instead reinvents the words we need to express one of our most crucial experiences : travelling. Imaginery travelogue 160 pages / 14,8 x 21 cm Softcover ISBN : 978-2-87449-026-2 14 € Rights available for all countries.

		The Female Barber Caroline Lamarche - Charlotte Mollet In a world destroyed by war, a Female Barber shaves the men of a city shielded from all danger. Mira, the narrator of this story, helps her in her job. Yet the sharp razor blades play also a role in a strange ritual. Captain Dragon, an uncanny character, will experience it in his own body. Adult's Tale 96 pages / 17 x 24 cm Many illustrations in color Softcover ISBN : 978-2-87449-034-7 19 € Rights available for all countries.

		My Dress is not Crumpled Corinne Hoex This book tells the story of a destruction in three acts : first a father, then a mother, finally a fiancé lock up a young girl in a daily life made of violence and humiliation. Written with pent-up emotion and a very sharp style, this novel portrays a father who has always despised the narrator, a mother whose look systematically avoids her, a lover who, backed by her parents, enjoys beating her. Novel 112 pages / 14,8 x 21 cm Softcover ISBN : 978-2-87449-040-8 12 € Rights available for all countries.

		Waiting Sandrine Willems In a dark brushwood situated out of time, two people become passionately attracted to each other : a woman who heals the trees and might be a sorcerer, and a desperate man who kills animals to set himself free. Yet unable to express their real feelings, they eventually destroy each other. This seems to be their fate and the hunter will shoot the woman who wanted to be his prey. But whereas people die, nature lives, and its order cures man’s chaos. With this simple but powerful story, Sandrine Willems has written a modern tragedy. Novel 224 pages / 14,8 x 21 cm Softcover ISBN : 978-2-87449-039-2 18 € Rights available for all countries.