If good taste was all you needed to make millions in publishing, Fanfare/Ponent Mon would be drowning in its own extravagant wealth. They’ve never published a book that wasn’t at least very good, and many of them are exquisite. My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill, written by Jean Regnaud and illustrated by Émile Bravo, is the latest exquisite book to be published by Fanfare/Ponent Mon, and you should find a copy and buy it, because I’m frankly a sick of people not going broke underestimating the taste of the reading public.
Anyway, it’s a lovely graphic novel about death and childhood. I worry that saying a single other thing about what happens in the book will taint the reading experience for anyone who reads this. It’s the whole “dissecting the frog” concern, you know, when you might learn something about the frog, but the frog comes out worse for the experience.
Regnaud and Bravo are so honest and gentle and pure in their approach. Every moment feels fresh and familiar at the same time, fully realized in ways I’d imagine any comic creator dreams of achieving in their own work, no matter what the work is about.
Seriously, just go find a copy and buy it. It’s so, so good.
