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mediatoon août 2021
 
Extraordinary lives for extraordinary books
 
In recent years, biography has been a popular genre in comics: from Pablo to La Mort de Staline (The Death of Stalin), our readers can’t seem to get enough of them! The trend continues to pick up steam, and this month’s new releases are proof.

After Audubon and HMS Beagle, Fabien Grolleau and Jérémie Royer reveal the inner workings of the world traveller Robert Louis Stevenson in their latest graphic novel, L’étrange voyage de R.L. Stevenson (The Strange Voyage of R.L. Stevenson).

Biographies can open our eyes to previously unknown figures from history. That’s the case with Queenie, the true story of a black crime queen living in 1930s Harlem.

Finally, after their graphic masterpiece Django, writer/artist duo Efa and Rubio are back at it with a biography of French painter Degas.

Enjoy!

The MFR Team

Compilations & special editions

BEST-SELLERS

 
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Blake & Mortimer - Special Edition

La Fiancée du Dr Septimus (one-shot)

By Jean Harambat & François Rivière

BD de genre
Publisher: Blake Mortimer
Genres: Special Editions 

In London, Philip Mortimer and the young Richard, Francis Blake’s nephew, dine with James Whale. The director of “L’Homme invisible” is working on another movie about the famous case of the “Marque jaune.” On their way out of the restaurant, Mortimer and Richard are almost run over by a driverless car. During the night, James Whale is woken up by a female voice on the radio chanting a strange phrase that sounds unmistakably like a threat.


Dargaud
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Renaissance

Sui Juris (4)

By Frédéric Blanchard, Emem & Fred Duval
Sci-Fi, Action & Adventure
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Dupuis
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Lady S

Dans la gueule du Tigre (15)

By Philippe Aymond
Action & Adventure, Crime & Mystery
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Graphic novel

 
 
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Queenie

La Marraine de Harlem (one-shot)

By Elizabeth Colomba & Aurélie Levy

Publisher: Anne Carrière
Genres: Biography & Memoirs 

A graphic novel inspired by the real-life story of Stephanie Saint-Clair, a plantation maid in Martinique, who rose up to become the ruthless queen of Harlem’s mafia and a fierce advocate for the black community.
Harlem, 1933. A black woman, dressed to the nines, is released from prison. Her name: Stephanie Saint-Clair. Her trademarks: a conspicuous French accent and a knack for numbers.
Born dirt-poor in the French colony of Martinique, the notorious Saint-Clair, also known as Queenie, now runs one of the largest illegal lottery businesses in Harlem. Now that Prohibition is ending, she’s under threat by Italian mobsters seeking to take control of her operation. She launches into a merciless war to save her territory… and her skin.
In an America still swollen by the Depression and segregation, Saint-Clair understands that she must brand her image to establish her power and use it as a weapon against her opponents. Her visionary media skills shape her into a fierce advocate for black rights, a community activist who draws crowds of Harlem families to her side.
The new graphic novel Queenie traces the life of a woman who played several intertwining roles. A pitiless mob boss, polyglot immigrant, fashion icon, and pioneer figure of African-American feminism, Saint-Clair redefined the expression “larger than life.” She broke barriers, glass ceilings, and was one of the few Prohibition-era mobsters to die of old age. This arresting biographical work of cinematographic action reinstates a fascinating female character back into the narrative of written history.
Audiovisual rights already sold to a major Hollywood studio!


 
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Degas

La Danse de la solitude (one-shot)

By Efa & Salva Rubio

Publisher: Le Lombard
Genres: Biography & Memoirs 

From the duo who brought us “Monet”, this graphic novel tells the story of another of the great impressionists: Degas. A well-researched and thoughtful narrative, accompanied by stunning visuals.


 
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La désolation

La Désolation (one-shot)

By Christophe Gaultier & Appollo

Publisher: Dargaud
Genres: Western, Action & Adventure 
A survivalist western set in the southern cold of Desolation Island. Evariste leaves Réunion to get away from a life of conformity with Amandine. For this poet in pursuit of pure and violent emotions, a voyage to the French territories of the Southern Hemisphere and Antarctica is a childhood dream. Despite the annoying presence of other tourists looking for the same emotions, everything starts out fine. But little by little, the dream becomes a nightmare as Evariste is plagued by a single question: who are these people? Taken by a group of crazed, brutal group of characters on a grueling trek through bogs and across frozen lakes, how can he get out of this insane situation?
A hint of Houellebecq but far more human, this adaptation of a short-story originally published in Kanyar, a journal from Reunion, unfolds in a gothic, twilight atmosphere.

 
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Sousbrouillard

Sousbrouillard (one-shot)

By Terkel Risbjerg & Anne-Caroline Pandolfo

Publisher: Dargaud Benelux
Genres: Humor, Drama 

Every story needs a first sentence to get started, but Sara’s only got a single word. It’s the name of a place, scratched onto a piece of torn cloth–her entire inheritance from the old aunt who raised her. It’s not much, but it’s a start. “Underfog.” Sara sets off in search of her origins, in search of Underfog, a timeless village which, behind its curtain of thrashing rain, is actually a well of intersecting, overlapping, conflicting stories.
The inhabitants of Underfog aren’t particularly forthcoming. Some of their stories are secretly stashed in a chapel or sunk deep into a mysterious lake. Each person carries their own fiction within them. Sara observes and listens. She lets herself be swept up by the experience, by the place and its inhabitants, until she’s forgotten her own mission. That’s when her story begins to be written.
Underfog: stories within a story, a drama, both melancholic and feel-good, a poetic identity quest, sometimes a little surrealist. A metaphor for “writing” and, in the end, a story about our need for stories, by the team of Pandolfo and Risbjerg (Perceval, published by Lombard, and Serena, from Sarbacane).


 
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L'étrange voyage de R. L. Stevenson

L’Etrange voyage de R. L. Stevenson (one-shot)

By Jérémy Royer & Fabien Grolleau

Publisher: Dargaud
Genres: Biography & Memoirs 

Robert Louis Stevenson is one of the greatest writers of the late nineteenth century. Best known for his novels (Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), he was also a columnist and a great traveler. Even as a child he suffered poor health, which continued into adulthood. Perhaps because of this, he also had a wild imagination. Admired by his contemporaries, this is a man who has gone down in history for breathing new life into the literary genre, breaking down the boundaries between adventure novels, youth literature and “the classics”. He died at the age of just 44 in Samoa, his final resting place after a life of travel.
H.M.S Beagle – aux Origines de Darwin, by the same authors is already available in 11 languages.


 
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Dans l'ombre du mont Blanc

Dans l’ombre du mont Blanc (one-shot)

By Alice Chemama

Publisher: Dargaud
Genres: Non-Fiction 

For her first album as both writer and artist, Alice Chemama brings us a funny, powerful and personal story about how life really is in the mountains.
As part of a scholarship program run by Medici Workshops, Alice Chemama finds herself in a valley in the deepest darkest Alps to carry out an artistic project about local heritage with a class of fifth graders.
With not a whiff of clean air or a gleaming summit in sight, the city of Marnaz is located in the depths of the Arve Valley, renowned for its high rate of pollution and for being a leader of the mechanical helix industry. Can’t get much better than that.
Determined to explore the history and culture of the area, and despite the intervention of a surprise guest (bloody coronavirus), she sets out to find the tales and legends buried in the memory of the Alps: what lies behind the bucolic images and tourist activities that monopolize the internet? And what exactly lurks in the shadow of the local celebrity, Mont Blanc?


 
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SOIF DE CONNAISSANCES

Colonisation, décolonisation, mémoires vives (4)

By various authors

Publisher: Petit à Petit BD
Genres: Magazines & Activity Books 

A magazine in comic form that explores the multiple aspects of humanity, the complexity of our past and the mysteries of our future. Its goal: to make us understand and analyze the world by discussing the latest scientific discoveries… through comics!


Mainstream

 
 
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Chroniques diplomatiques

Iran, 1953 (1)

By Christophe Simon & Tristan Roulot

Publisher: Le Lombard
Genres: Historical fiction 

Iran, 1953. France appoints the brilliant Jean D’Arvergnes as its ambassador. Despite his young age, Jean has a perfect grasp of the issues he’s dealing with – and there are lots of them. Prime Minister Mossadegh is under attack from all sides, both by Islamists and the oil industry. The country could descend into chaos at any given moment. Caught between his principles and the cynical policies of Western states, Jean will have to make some risky decisions. Fortunately, he can count on Jacques, his mysterious bodyguard who follows him around like a shadow wherever he goes…


 
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Le dernier Atlas

Le Dernier Atlas (3)

By Hervé Tanquerelle, Frédéric Blanchard, Fabien Vehlmann & Gwen de Bonneval

Publisher: Dupuis
Genres: Suspense & Thrillers 

Birds wasting away in a national park, refusing to migrate. Identical geometric markings on the wings of completely different insect species. A pillar of dust in the desert. A small-time hood travels to India’s shipbreaking yards in search of a giant nuclear-powered construction robot. A big-time crime boss makes a killing off the Algerian Revolution, in a world where it happened fifteen years later than in our own. “A good story,” insists reporter Françoise Halfort, visited abruptly by a post-menopausal pregnancy, “is one that draws unexpected connections between seemingly unconnected events.” Four star creators join talents on a vast canvas that takes in the entire French 20th century.


Dupuis
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Olympique Lyonnais

Rivalité virtuelle (2)

By Vincent Dutreuil & François Maingoval
Action & Adventure, Historical fiction
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Dargaud
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Dieu n'a pas réponse à tout

Mais il sait déléguer (3)

By Nicolas Barral & ToninoBenacquista
Humor
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Children's & family

 
 
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La brigade des souvenirs

La Lettre de Toinette (1)

By Marko, Carbone & Cee Cee Mia

Publisher: Dupuis
Genres: Historical fiction 

Tania, Alban and Theo are launched into different eras as they carry out investigations of various objects. These investigations immerse readers in the past as they accompany the three detectives on their missions, which are full of twists and turns and plenty of history.


 
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ELI & GASTON

La Forêt des souvenirs (2)

By Céline Deregnaucourt & Ludovic Villain

Publisher: Ankama
Genres: Action & Adventure 

Eli and Gaston are back at Grandma Jo’s for the fall holidays. They’ve barely arrived when Mia warns them that a masked robber is in the midst of stealing an old map from their grandma’s belongings. Eli and Gaston leave at once to capture the robber, ending up in the heart of a strange forest. They stumble upon an old watchman suffering from amnesia who would like to recover his memories… but will the group manage to reach the forgotten island where a potential remedy is waiting?


 
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Olive

Sur les traces du Nerpa (3)

By Lucy Mazel & Vero Cazot

Publisher: Dupuis
Genres: Fantasy & Esoteric, Drama, Humor 

Olive, age 17, has a rich and vivid inner life. She has created an imaginary world that she’s able to visit whenever she chooses. But her daily life on earth is shaken up by the arrival of a new roommate at boarding school, who won’t leave Olive alone. And even more upsetting: a mysterious spaceman makes a surprise appearance in her imaginary world! A coming-of-age story that will take Olive far from her comfort zone, as she discovers unsuspected sides of herself and the world around her.


Dargaud
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Les Fées Valentines

Les Sorcières de la rébellion (5)

By Thomas Labourot & BeKa
Comics for girls
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Dupuis
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Animal Jack

Revoir un printemps (5)

By Miss Prickly & Kid Toussaint
Action & Adventure, Fantasy & Esoteric
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Dargaud Benelux
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Emma et Capucine

Une rentrée pleine de surprises (6)

By Lena Sayaphoum & Jérôme Hamon
Comics for girls, Drama
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Dargaud
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Sylvain et Sylvette

Renard est malchanceux (66)

By Jean-Louis Pesch & Bélom
Action & Adventure
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Compilations & special editions

COMPILATIONS AND SPECIAL EDITIONS

 
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Mademoiselle Louise - Compilation

Mademoiselle Louise – Compilation (one-shot)

By Geerts, Mauricet & Salma

Famille & Enfants
Publisher: Dupuis
Genres: Humor 

The father of Mademoiselle Louise is rich. Very rich. Far too rich! As soon as Louise has a vague inkling of something she might desire, ta-da! her father fulfils her wishes. It starts to get very annoying!


 
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Millénium saga - Compilation

La Fille qui dansait avec la mort (one-shot)

By Belen Ortega & Sylvain Runberg

BD de genre
Publisher: Dupuis
Genres: Suspense & Thrillers 

Lisbeth Salander and a group of hackers are preparing to pirate a huge data center and expose scandalous information from the heart of the Swedish secret service. But it’s no walk in the park. Trinity, one of Lisbeth’s hacker friends, has just been kidnapped. It seems that only someone with a network like Mikael Blomkvist will be able to help here. The journalist is working on an important inquest into the arrival of the extreme right at the gates of power, an issue not all that far off Lisbeth’s own preoccupations… Following the six-part comic book adaptation of the international saga, Stieg Larsson’s successors have entrusted Dupuis Publishing and Sylvain Runberg with the sequel to the Millennium adventure with a whole series of brand new plotlines. This first album, illustrated by Belén Ortega, sets in motion a three-part cycle that plunges the Millennium world into the most topical issues of today’s news. A Wikileaks style thriller!