#Virginie Augustin

[queerographies]

[Joe la Pirata][Hubert][Virginie Augustin]

La storia di Barbara Carstairs, ereditiera e seduttrice, è raccontata nella straordinaria vita di "Joe la Pirata" da Hubert e Virginie Augustin. Il libro narra la sua emancipazione e libertà, offrendo uno spunto potente di riflessione.

Barbara Carstairs: ereditiera, avventuriera e seduttrice. Una storia di emancipazione e libertà Titolo: Joe la Pirata. La straordinaria vita di Barbara CarstairsScritto da: Hubert Disegnato da: Virginie AugustinTitolo originale: Joe la pirateEdito da: Bao PublishingAnno: 2024Pagine: 224ISBN: 9791256210121 La trama di Joe la Pirata di Hubert e Virginie Augustin Barbara Carstairs è stata…

[coinbds]

Alim le tanneur de Wilfrid Lupano et Virginie Augustin

J'ai dévoré l'intégrale d'Alim le tanneur.

Un empire domine ses voisins en s'appuyant sur une religion impitoyable créée à partir du mythe de sa fondation par Jésameth. Un jour, Alim, un homme du bas de l'échelle, découvre ce qui pourrait bien être son armure dans le ventre d'une baleine, menaçant ainsi de remettre en cause toutes les croyances qui font la force de cet empire…

La couverture suggère un dessin animé de Walt Disney, mais c'est une aventure fantastique en quatre tomes qui se déroule tambour battant.

Le scénario riche en rebondissements de Wilfrid Lupano nous tient en haleine. Les illustrations de Virginie Augustin, assistée de Geneviève Penloup et Dimitri Fogolin pour les couleurs, nous font voyager à travers des mondes variés et des paysages magnifiques. Découvrir

[yexuscomic]

EL DIARIO MONTAÑÉS

[sensitiveuser]

The deportation of Louise Michel to New Caledonia (1873-1880).

Good evening, I announce my return to Tumblr. I have been absent a lot, due to many things to do, a damn depression, loss of energy, loss of confidence... This post is a bit long, but I thank all those who will pay attention to it. Of course, there may be missing information, despite the fact that I am a "historian" (a future professor and history enthusiast, to be exact) and, of course, in love with Louise Michel :) Besides, I wanted to write many posts about her to commemorate in my own way the 120th anniversary of her death... There you go, it's up to you to read, and if it sucks, please comment and take my work apart (I'll let you imagine my level of self-confidence... When I'll be a teacher, I'll hug the walls in front of students^^) :)

In 1853, Napoleon III and his violent army seized New Caledonia. From 1864 to 1896, New Caledonia served as a place of deportation for those sentenced to more than eight years of forced labor. The law of March 23, 1872 established New Caledonia as the place of deportation for those involved in the Paris Commune. In 1875, according to a report by General Appert, out of the 10,137 sentences to deportation, there were 4,500 sentences to deportation, including 3,417 sentences to simple deportation (Isle of Pines) and 1,169 to deportation in a fortified enclosure on the Ducos peninsula (as was the case for Louise Michel), and 251 sentences to forced labor (penal colony on Nou Island). The authorities defended colonization: agricultural colonization, and it was a question of strengthening the French presence in the Pacific Ocean.

In August 1873, Louise Michel, after spending twenty months in Auberive prison (not far from Vroncourt), was called up for deportation. Here is the letter from her fellow prisoners also sentenced to deportation:

1. Louise Michel. 2. Nathalie Le Mel. 3. Marie Caieux. 4. Madame Leroy. 5. Victorine Gorget. 6. Marie Magnan. 7. Elisabeth Deguy. 8. Adèle Desfossés (wife of Jean-Baptiste Viard – not to be confused with Auguste…). 9. Madame Louis. 10. Madame Bail. 11. Jeanne Taillefer. 12. Marie Théron. 13. Louise Leblanc. 14. Adélaïde Germain. 15. Mme Orlowska. 16. Mrs. Bruteau. 17. Marie Broum. 18. Marie Smith. 19. Marie Caieux. 20. Augustine Chiffon (embarked two years later). 21. Adeline Régissard (embarked two years later).

All these women (including Louise) were sent from Auberive to Rochefort (La Virginie’s port of departure) via Langres and La Rochelle. Louise’s testimonies highlight the extreme harshness of the conditions inflicted on the convicts.

On board La Virginie, Louise Michel and 18 fellow prisoners were locked in a cage. In the cage opposite, Henri Rochefort, Henri Ménager, Henri Place, and Wolowski were locked up. Of course, the convicts were not allowed to communicate from one cage to another, but they did it anyway! The convicts were only allowed to leave the cage for half an hour a day to go on deck. They were very poorly fed. Although the way they were treated depended on the captains, there was no shortage of punishments against them ! "Nathalie Le Mel and Henri Rochefort began to be ill, from the first moment and ended at the last; there were some among us who were also ill, but none during the entire voyage; for me, I escaped seasickness as well as bullets, and I really reproached myself for finding the voyage so beautiful, while in their frames Rochefort nor Madame Le Mel enjoyed nothing"; "There were days when the sea was rough, the wind blowing in a storm, the wake of the ship was like two rivers of diamonds joining in a single current that sparkled in the sun a little far away" (p.383, La Commune).

I quote one of his poems that perfectly illustrates his deportation convoy, entitled "Dans les mers polaires":

The snow falls, the flood rolls,

The air is icy, the sky is black,

The ship creaks under the swell

And morning mingles with evening

Forming a heavy round,

The sailors dance while singing:

Like an organ with a thundering voice,

The wind blows in the sails.

Another testimony: "The cruelest thing I saw on La Virginie was the long and terrible torture inflicted on the albatrosses, which came in flocks around the Cape of Good Hope. After having caught them with hooks, they were hung up by their feet so that they would die without staining the whiteness of their feathers. Poor Cape sheep! How sadly and for a long time they raised their heads, rounding their swan necks as much as they could in order to prolong the miserable agony that could be read in the terror of their black-lashed eyes." (La Commune)

The landing took place on December 10, 1873. She arrived on the Ducos peninsula, which was a hostile environment. It was an environment "without running water, without greenery, and furrowed by small arid hills interspersed with two valleys, Numbo and Tendu, ending towards the sea in marshes where grow puny mangroves and rare niaoulis. Never did settlers want to waste an hour on this dead land." She met up with Paschal Grousset, Olivier Pain, Cipriani, Champy, Henry Bauer, as well as Blanquist friends she had known before the Commune, members of the Corderie du Temple, and marching companies. She learned late of the death of Augustin Verdure (he died in April 1873 in Noumea); in Verdure's case, many letters were addressed to him, but he did not have time to read them... Regarding the letters, she specifies that "the correspondence naturally remained three and four months on the way, and had taken a long time to regularise. Verdure, not receiving letters from anyone, became so upset that he died; a packet of letters addressed to him arrived a few days after his death. Once the mail had been regularised, one could have a response to each letter after six to eight months; there was a letter every month, but what we received was three or four dated. And yet, what a joy the arrival of the mail! We hurriedly climbed the small hill above which was the mailmaster's house, near the prison, and like a treasure we took the letters away". (La Commune).

On the Ducos peninsula, the deportees were installed inside a fortified enclosure surrounded by soldiers. "Through the narrowest of the breaches of the double coral belt, the most accessible, we enter the bay of Noumea. There, as in Rome, seven bluish hills, under the sky of an intense blue; further away, the Mont-d'Or, all cracked with red gold-bearing earth. Everywhere mountains, with arid crimes with torn-out gorges, gaping from a recent cataclysm; one of the mountains has been split in two, it forms a V whose two branches, by joining together, would make the rocks which hang on one side half-torn back into the alveolus, while their place is empty on the other."

In 1874, Louise Michel witnessed the escape of Rochefort, Jourde, Grousset, Pain, Bullière, Granthille. In response, Governor Gaultier de La Richerie called a council of war. "The guards saw while calling out that Rochefort, Pain, Granthille, Bullière, were missing (...) At Bastien Granthille's call someone shouted: he has boots, Bastien, he has gone to put them on. And as the guards were desperately calling Rochefort, some said: he has gone to light his lantern; others: he promised to come back; still others: go and see if they are coming", "Too worried to be able to punish at this moment, the authorities were saving themselves for later. The spectacle of the frank gaiety that reigned among the deportees put the galley slaves into such a rage that they tore down the very innocent curtains of all this, going to check whether they would find anything in the escapees' hut that would put them on the trail" ; "After Rochefort's escape, Messrs. Aleyron and Ribourt, sent to terrify the deportation, probably in order to make Rochefort return, were ridiculous enough to send sentries to the heights around Numbo for a while who looked like they were playing La Tour de Nesle with grandiose scenery". In fact, in 1874, Henri Rochefort escaped in the middle of the night. He went to Sydney, Melbourne, New York, then London, where he resumed his activities as a journalist. For their part, François Jourde and Olivier Pain then worked at the Schiltigheim factory founded by Augustin Avrial and Camille Langevin.

In 1875, she was transferred to the Baie de l’Ouest. She began to take an interest in the Kanak people, their history and their culture. Louise Michel and Charles Malato (son of Antoine Malato, a future important figure in French anarchism) were the rare Communards to denounce and protest against the mistreatment that the colonizers inflicted on this people. Let us not forget that the majority of the deported Communards were hostile towards the Kanaks (they even reduced them to their supposed “cannibalism”!). First, she became friends with a certain Daoumi, who introduced her to the legends of the tribes and the language. She later resumed her duties as a teacher, giving lessons to the Kanaks.

In 1878, Louise Michel (like Charles Malato) supported the Kanak insurgents, "I am with them, as I was with the people of Paris, revolted, crushed and defeated". Ataï, Kanak chief of Komalé, asked the French colonists to end the dispossessions. In June 1878, Chêne, a former convict and guardian of a colonial property, was assassinated by Kanaks; Nouméa was plunged into stupor. The colonial administration reacted by imprisoning 10 tribal chiefs. The preparation of the attack on Nouméa was abandoned and the offensive was launched from Poya to Baie Saint Vincent.

The day before the June 25 uprising, a group of Kanaks came to say goodbye to Louise, who gave them her red Commune scarf as a sign of solidarity. The uprising spread to Grande Terre. On June 27, Governor Olry declared a state of siege. The settlers carried out a bloody repression, which cost the lives of more than 2,000 Kanaks (from June 1878 to June 1879).

Atai was killed on September 1, 1878 by a member of the Canala tribe who had rallied to the colonial troops. His head was cut off to be sent to Paris as a military trophy. Louise Michel considers Ataï's assassins as traitors. In her Memoirs, speaks of Ataï’s death: “Ataï himself was struck by a traitor. May traitors everywhere be cursed! According to Kanak law, a chief can only be struck by a chief or by proxy.” Nondo, a chief sold to the whites, gave his power of attorney to Segou, handing him the weapons that were to strike Ataï. Between the Negro huts and Amboa, Ataï, with some of his men, was returning to his camp, when, breaking away from the columns of the whites, Segou pointed out the great chief, recognizable by the snow-whiteness of his hair. His sling rolled around his head, holding a gendarmerie sabre in his right hand, a tomahawk in his left, having around him his three sons and the bard Andja, who was using an assegai as a lance, Ataï faced the column of whites. He saw Segou. Ah! he said, there you are! The traitor staggered for a moment under the gaze of the old chief; but, wanting to finish, he threw an assegai at him which went through his right arm. Ataï then raised the tomahawk he was holding in his left arm; his sons fall, one dead, the others wounded; Andja rushes forward, shouting: tango! tango! (cursed! cursed!) and falls, struck dead. Then, with blows of an axe, as one cuts down a tree, Segou strikes Ataï; he raises his hand to his half-detached head and it is only after several more blows that Ataï is dead. The death cry was then uttered by the Kanakas, echoing through the mountains.

It is well-known that in the face of the Kanak revolt, the deported communards, with the exception of Louise Michel and Charles Malato, sided with the repression. However, Stéphane Pannoux points out that the majority of the deportees, while awaiting amnesty, were witnesses from a distance, and only a few debated. The deportees were informed of the progress of the revolt through newspapers and mail from France, and by the echoes of the fighting relayed by those living in Nouméa or Ducos, the barracks of the troops arriving as reinforcements. From July 1878 to March 1879, the Album de l'île des Pins published by and for the communards reported on the insurrection. The authors noted the places, the names of the tribes, the identity of the actors including the Kanaks, the chronology of events, the reactions of the population as well as the echoes of the Caledonian or Parisian press. They mention the Kanak victims, the destruction of tribes, the arrests, the convictions, the executions. From now on, the Kanak insurgents are no longer seen by the majority of the deportees as savages driven only by the desire to kill, but as "enemies with opposing interests". In the context of the penal colony, where censorship weighs on writings, this would demonstrate a desire to remain neutral (without entering into the debate around neutrality). Victor Cossé expressed this neutrality, "I am neither Kanak nor a civilizer" (while deploring "the violence of the savages"!).

Here is an example to illustrate the involvement of the deportees in the Kanak revolt (according to S. Pannoux): On June 26, the National Guard of Moindou, which includes 80 deportees, is raised. From the end of 1878 to April 1879, commanded by Charles Amouroux, they became the Canala Scouts; among them we find Gaston Da Costa, Henri Berthier, Alphonse Bioret, Prosper Tavernier, pardoned in 1879 - before the amnesty vote - for their "patriotic action".

In 1879, Louise Michel's sentence of "deportation to a fortified enclosure" was changed to "simple deportation". Thus, she left the Ducos peninsula for Noumea, and continued to teach. "On Sundays, from morning to night, my hut was full of Kanakas learning with all their hearts on condition that the methods were lively and very simple. They carved flowers from their country quite gracefully in relief on small boards that Mr. Simon gave us (...) I have never had more docile and affectionate students. They came from all the tribes", "Poor Daoumi had loved the daughter of a white man. When his father married her, he died of grief. It was for her as much as his own that he had begun this giant's work: to learn what a white man knows. He tried to live in a European way" (La Commune); "In Noumea, I found good old Etienne, one of the Marseille death row inmates commuted to deportation. Mr. Malato senior (Antoine), for whom the mayor Mr. Simon had great veneration, and at the local counter one of our sailors from the Commune, Ensign Cogniet, Mrs. Orlowska who was like a mother to us, Victorine having the Noumea baths under her direction and offering us as many as we wanted. There, we fraternized widely." (The Commune). Louise Michel also gave lessons to the children of Algerian deportees, then in a girls' school.

On July 11, 1880, a general amnesty was decreed. Louise Michel was thus authorized to return to France. She recounts her last moments in Noumea: "The last July 14 spent there, between the two evening cannon shots (it is the cannon that announces the days and the nights), at the request of Mr. Simon, we went, Madame Penaud, director of the Noumea boarding school, an artilleryman and I, to sing La Marseillaise on the Place des Cocotiers. In Caledonia, there is neither dusk nor dawn: darkness falls suddenly (...) We heard the Kanaks crying in the light rustling of the coconut branches." She later learned that her mother had a "paralytic attack."

"Before my departure from Noumea and taking the mail on the shore I found the black anthill of the Kanaks. As I did not believe that the amnesty was so close, I had to go and found a school in the tribes; they reminded me of it with bitterness by saying: but you will not come again! So, without intending to deceive them, I told them: yes, I will come back (…) I looked at the black anthill on the shore and I too was crying. Who knows if I will not see them again ?".

Louise Michel indicates that she became an anarchist in the context of her deportation. On this subject, allow me to retrace a discussion with Nathalie Le Mel on board La Virginie: “Between two clearings of calm where she was not too bad, I shared with Madame Le Mel my thoughts on the impossibility that any men in power could ever do anything other than commit crimes, if they are weak or selfish; be annihilated if they are devoted and energetic”; Nathalie Le Mel claims to agree with her.

Louise Michel returned to Paris on November 9, 1880. Several thousand people were present at her arrival, including Louis Blanc, Henri Rochefort, and even Clemenceau…

Sources :

Edith Thomas

Xavière Gauthier

Laure Godineau

Stéphane Pannoux

[bookscoffee75]

Mes meilleures lectures 2024 :

Romans / Novels :

Le grand magasin des rêves, Lee Mi Ye ❤

The girl with a louding voice, Abi Daré

Tress de la mer émeraude, Brandon Sanderson

Celle qui devint le Soleil, Shelley Parker-Chan ❤

Blackwater - La crue (T.1), Michael McDowell

La fabuleuse laverie de Marigold, Yun JungEun

Un psaume pour les recyclés sauvages, Becky Chambers

Une prière pour les cimes timides, Becky Chambers ❤

Sea of tranquility, Emily St John Mandel

Mangas

Pino, l'I.A émotionnelle, Takashi Murakami ❤

Monsieur Méchant va détruire la terre (après ses congés), Yuu Morikawa

Le cri du Kujima, Akira Konno

Le fantastique voyage de Nicola au pays des démons, Asaya Miyanaga

Ramen Akaneko, Angyaman ❤

La concierge du grand magasin, Tsuchika Nishimura ❤

Hirayasumi - T.5 & 6, Keigo Shinzo

Bâillements de l'après-midi, Shin'ya Komatsu

My beautiful boy, Yuu Nagira

Bandes dessinées / Graphic novels

Minuit passé, Gaëlle Geniller ❤

L'étoile de Mo, Choi Yeonju

Racines, Lou Lubie

La dernière nuit d'Anne Bonny, Alvi Ramirez & Claire Richard

In Limbo, Deb JJ Lee

Monsieur Désire, Hubert & Virginie Augustin ❤

Himawari House, Harmony Becker

Everything is okay, Debbie Tung

La fille dans l'écran, Lou Lubie & Manon Desveaux

[itslegribou]

Hommage aux Ogres-Dieux dessiné par Virginie Augustin, 2020.

[filmes-online-facil]

Assistir Filme 8 Mulheres Online fácil

Assistir Filme 8 Mulheres Online Fácil é só aqui: https://filmesonlinefacil.com/filme/8-mulheres/

8 Mulheres - Filmes Online Fácil

Uma socialite, Gaby (Catherine Deneuve), foi para sua casa de campo para aparentemente passar o Natal com seu marido Marcel (Dominique Lamure), sua mãe (Danielle Darrieux), sua irmã Augustine (Isabelle Huppert) e suas filhas, Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen) e Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier). Logo após sua chegada Louise (Emmanuelle Béart), a nova camareira, acha Marcel com uma faca cravada nas costas. Todas têm motivos para querer sua morte, inclusive Chanel (Firmine Richard), uma cozinheira que está na casa há bastante tempo e a novata Louise. Elas não podem chamar a polícia, pois os fios do telefone foram cortados, e algo fez o mesmo com os fios do carro, para impedir que partissem. Misteriosamente, vindo de carona, chega Pierrette (Fanny Ardant), a cunhada de Gaby, que também tinha seus motivos para matar o irmão. Elas se vêem forçadas a se confrontar, com muitos ressentimentos e verdades vindo à tona enquanto tentam elucidar o que está acontecendo.

[smillingcartoonist]

Valerian and Laureline: Where Stories are Born

[balu8]

Virginie Augustin

[blogapart3bis]

Valérian et Laureline: Là où naissent les histoires

Aujourd'hui sur Blog à part – Valérian et Laureline: Là où naissent les histoires Deux jeunes écoliers et leur tuteur partent pour des vacances dans le Caucase. Sauf que ces deux écoliers ont pour noms Valérian et Laureline. #bd #sf #sciencefiction

[comicartsociety]

Virginie Augustin art from The Cimmerian: Iron Shadows in the Moon #2 (2021)

[graphicpolicy]

The Cimmerian Returns this April in "Iron Shadows in the Moon"

The Cimmerian Returns this April in "Iron Shadows in the Moon" #Comics #ComicBooks

Ablaze has announced the latest entry in their popular The Cimmerian library of uncensored Robert E. Howard adaptations with the upcoming release of writer/artist Virginie Augustin’s The Cimmerian: Iron Shadows in the Moon, launching on April 7th. Robert E. Howard’s Conan is back and uncensored! A young woman in danger is pursued by her vile master. Conan, whose family has just been wiped out by…

[thecomicon]

Ablaze's 'The Cimmerian' Continues With 'Iron Shadows In The Moon'

Ablaze’s ‘The Cimmerian’ Continues With ‘Iron Shadows In The Moon’

Ablaze has announced its next entry in The Cimmerian, the uncensored adaptations of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories with Iron Shadows in the Moon, debuting in April, written and illustrated by Virginie Augustin. I am curious how this works with Marvel’s licensing of the characters. A young woman in danger is pursued by her vile master. Conan, whose family has just been wiped out by this same…

[goldenpinof]

Your posts from the crew are giving me life I’m such a technical theater nerd

awwww

they are giving me life as well! i love all that backstage shit, feels more real, you know :)

[crazycatsiren]

In the bedroom by Jean Augustin Franquelin, oil on canvas

Bei der Anprobe by Schramm Viktor, oil on canvas

Farewell, My Queen with Diane Kruger (Marie Antoinette) and Virginie Ledoyen (Gabrielle de Polignac)

[ja-khajay]

Stuff I read (and liked) this year

As promised, here’s a list of the novels, comics, manga, etc... I read this year, focusing on the ones I enjoyed and would recommend to people. Under a cut, this is going to be a little long.

-------- Books --------

Favorite book of the year: Stranger in the Woods, by Michael Finkel

Non-fiction. Based on the interviews of the man himself by the author, it is about a man who felt so unfit for society he decided one day to leave it, and spent the next 28 years as a hidden hermit in forest in Maine. The book details how he survived there, how he was eventually found, and some of his reasons for doing so. It’s a great reflection on the nature of loneliness.

Indian creek, by Pete Fromm

...Yet another detailed tale of living alone in the woods. This time, the diary of a student who spent a winter in the mountains to help tend for salmon hatchlings, and how he spent the rest of his days hiking, hunting, meeting the locals. It’s a fun little book who, being set almost the whole world away from where I live, was a nice way to travel.

Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

I don’t feel the need to explain this one since everyone and their mom has seen the movie adapted from it. The book, that I first read a decade ago before I actually watched the film, is a less romantized, more spirited telling of the same story. The writing is absolutely delightful and so is the world it paints, and it’s the first time in ages a book had me laughing out loud during my entire read.

-------- Comics (BD) --------

Favorite comic of the year: Monsieur Désire?, by Hubert and Virginie Augustin

A discreet young woman becomes a maid for a decadent, unbearable, byronesque young lord. Caked in the rigid and oppressive social hierarchy of the victorian era, you follow a mental and verbal joust between the two, as the lord tries his best to offend and corrupt his new unrelenting servant, to little success. The writing and especially the dialogues were stellar, drawing me into the tense atmosphere, watching this trainwreck of a character flamboyantly destroy himself. While there’s no precise content warnings that I can give, this is a mature and heavy story.

World of Edena, by Moebius

Anyone who’s followed this blog for over a month knows how much of a Moebius fan I am. Edena combines the vague, dreamlike, wordless storytelling from stuff like Arzach or The cat’s eyes with an actual plot. While I haven’t completly finished the story, the evolution of the main characters and how the story is told have been great to read through, and as always the art is beyond gorgeous. Unfortunately suffers from some good old sexism in the writing that even if minimal, tasted sour

Le roman de Renart, by Joan Sfar (book 1)

Sfar’s work always has a signature vibe of being dreamy and light without being light hearted, of being down to earth but drifting in the fantastical, and this one is no exception. It’s an adaption of a series of medieval folk tales I grew up with, who uses the same characters to tell an original story. If you’re familiar with icons like Renart as well as other mythological big boys like Merlin you’ll fit right in. There is something special in how the dialogues are written, who feel natural in a way that you’d overhear in a street corner and is very special to me.

The mercenary, by VIncente Segrelles

Another one I post about a lot on this blog. The mercenary is a king on the throne of fantasy cheese. The worldbuilding is interesting at times but the writing is a pretty pathetic display of glorious old time sword and sorcery sci-fantasy 10 years too late for it’s prime (warning for ye old sexism and orientalism that plagues the genre, cranked very high...) but you come and stay for the art. The entire thing is drawn in a series of hyper detailed oil paintings with an insane eye for technical detail, from the engineering of the weaponry, to the architecture and weather, to the anatomy of the fantasy creatures... Each panel stands out as it’s own painting which makes even flipping through it without reading the scenario a treat. Click here to see more of the art, in my Segrelles tag.

The ice maurauder, by Jacques Tardi

A short story about mad scientists entirely drawn like a 19th century engraving. In great Tardi tradition everyone is ugly and mean, it ends terribly, it’s both a hommage to the genre of late 19th cent. to early 1900s dramatic adventure novels and a critical eye on it, and it’s morbidly funny. Most people I saw online hated the way this was written but I’m not them and I really recommend this book. Die mad

-------- Manga --------

Favorite manga of the year: it’s a tie between the following two.

Cats of the Louvre, by Taiyo Matsumoto

Most wonderful comic I have read in ages. The story follows a bunch of semi-feral cats secretly living in the Louvre museum’s attic, and the small group of humans who share their life, walking through the museum as the night watch. When the cats are together, they are represented in a humanoid way, but still act like animals, and “become” cats again when a human is nearby. The plot is a sort of supernatural mystery centered around a kitten who walks around paintings. It’s a love letter to art, sincere and beautiful, with a unique art style and great characters.

Memoirs of amorous Gentlemen, by Moyoco Anno

A sex worker in early 20th century paris starts writing down a diary of the clients she meets, in a quest to cope with the troubles of her life. You follow her, her colleagues, and her bittersweet relationship with an abusive lover. I don’t have much words about this comic, but the art and writing both are amazing, it’s the perfect length and drew me in like little series had before. Obvious content warnings as this is an adult story that talks about sexuality, but also depicts both mental and physical abuse.

Hana, also by Taiyo Matsumoto 

A very short story, this was not made to be read as a comic originally, but served as storyboarding and visual development for a play, and the way it is written follows that. Hana is a slice of life story set in a fantasy world, of a young boy, his family, his village. Despite the setting being an original one, the character interactions are refreshingly... normal, and there is no huge plot to speak of, just a bit of the life of these characters. The art is beautiful, entirely black and white, with a scratchy style and an emphasis on contrast. Matsumoto is on a speedy road to becoming my favorite manga artist haha

Delicious in Dungeon, by Ryoko Kui

While not marked as my year’s favorite, I still consider this series among my favorite manga ever. The art and writing are amazing, and it’s both heartfelt, well concieved and plain hilarious. The story follows several parties of dungeon diving adventurers each on their little quests with a premise of our protagonists, on a panic rescue mission, surviving in the dungeon by cooking and eating the monsters they come across. From a DnD party turned cooking manual dinner of the week beginning, the plot creeps up on you and slowly thickens. I don’t want to spoil anything about the overarching story of this because it was a delight to discover for myself. While everything about DinD rules, I am especially fond of the design philosophy of the author, who puts great detail in the practicality and biology of what she draws, as well as the character writing. Everyone even side characters has so much charm and depth to them, the cast is so diverse and entertaining...! Each character is just a bit lame enough but endearing, and has their own little backstory that shows in the way they exist. It’s a delight

Chainsaw man, by Tatsuki Fujimoto

I went into CSM expecting a borderline campy hyperviolent dumb fun thing to read and was very surprised to find an uncomfortably well written story about a teenager being groomed. The hyperviolent dumb fun fights are here nonetheless and the series still qualifies as shonen for some reason, but the more mature character writing as well as some truly outlandish visuals make it something very special. If you can’t stand shonen, not sure you will like it, but if you don’t mind it, worth trying.

Witch hat atelier, by Kamome Shirahama

The oh so elegant fantasy seinen every cool kid started posting about this year, who I also succumbed to and fast. Witch hat is hard to explain, as most of it’s plot revolves around the rules of the world it’s set in, specifically the regulations around it’s magic and the social and historical reasons for them. It’s about growing up, learning, disability, making art. You follow a little girl taken in by a witch as an apprentice, her magical education, and learn little by little why her lovely teacher is so willing to break a lot of rules... While a bit too gentle and pretty for my taste at times, Witch hat has great worldbuilding and explores sensitive themes I rarely see in manga, much less in fantasy. And Berserk wishes it had art this good