Our most recent release of Renaud Dilles’ work, Betty Blues, is garnering some very positive reviews.
The Quietus, in a rare interview, took some time to speak with Mr. Dilles about his work including Betty Blues, Abelard and Bubbles & Gondola.
Check out the interview HERE, and after the jump read what some of the critics are saying,
Continue reading “‘BETTY BLUES’ – “a powerhouse piece of work””
Here’s what’s being solicited from us in comics stores this month, to come out in September:
Dillies of Bubbles & Gondola and Abelard, both nominated for Eisners is back!
New from ComicsLit:
BETTY BLUES
Renaud Dillies
Little Rice Duck has built himself quite the reputation around the West Wood, playing his trumpet in bars with their smoky, sweaty ambience, tequila sunrises, and jazz. But between his trumpet and his flame Betty, things are going astray. Betty is drowning her need of him in expensive champagne, something someone else is more than happy to provide… something he’d much prefer, like her, would just stay chilled.
8 ½ x 11, 80pp., full color hc, $18.99, ISBN 9781561637584
AND NEW FROM EUROTICA:
SIZZLE #59
The kinky lavishly rendered fetish story Magenta Noir continues, along with “It Could Happen to You”, the roguish “District 69” and the return of Cornnell Clarke’s “Peanut Butter” series. Cover by Kevin (“Girl”) Taylor.
Quarterly magazine, full color, $6.99
Dillies, of Bubbles & Gondola, which received effusive praise and got 2 Eisner noms, has his next GN out, Abelard, and you can get it at your comics stores now! as well as everywhere else, including soon as an e-book or from Comixology.
“The timing of this book couldn’t be better, speaking as it does to what the citizens of a well-off community value, and how they shirk social responsibility. The lesson is plain, yet sensitively and elegantly rendered.”
The AV Club on The Fairy Tales Of Oscar Wilde: The Happy Prince
“Wilde’s beloved allegory is beautifully and smartly adapted by master craftsman Russell…The tale of the lifeless boy and the faithful avian is conveyed sweetly and with great heart.”
The Miami Herald on The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde:The Happy Prince
“P. Craig Russell has taken an interesting approach to illustrating this tale: he includes all the text from Wilde and adds a visual element to enhance and compliment that text…It’s his classic and timeless art style that elevate and enhance this story so well. It’s worth noting that Russell does everything on this book: layout, design and lettering along with the art. A meticulous artist who doesn’t do anything without a reason.”
Comic Book Daily on The Fairy Tales Of Oscar Wilde: The Happy Prince
“I first read the prose in my late teens and it’s stayed in my heart ever since. Here P. Craig Russell has done wonders with the work, his fine, clean line lit with lambent colours. I even love what he’s done with the speech bubbles linked to their square-boxed, qualifying commentary. More than anything, though, his art here is the ultimate essay in tenderness.”
Page45.com on The Fairy Tales Of Oscar Wilde: The Happy Prince
“The book is charming and sweet and well told. Gillies does very attractive comics, and his work can definitely be shared with kids who will probably appreciate this story.”
Comics Bulletin on Bubbles & Gondola
“Dilles’ engaging cartooning style is a bod to Krazy Kat, and he paces the book with a categorial whimsy that is simultaneously well-plotted and fanciful.”
Comic Buyer’s Guide on Bubbles & Gondola
“Despite the whimsical drawing and fanciful setting, one can’t help but feel that this is an intensely personal book for Dillies. This isn’t simply a book about writer’s block, but about a specific kind of aspiration and the blocks against that aspiration.”
“Despite focusing on two young girls, this is a very adult book. There are strips making jokes about the theory of relativity, adult toys, violence, and alcoholism. The twins’ mother’s sexual frustration and odd ways of coping with that frustration is a major storyline throughout the collection. The book derives a lot of its humor from the ridiculousness of seeing 8-year-olds make jokes about adult topics, such as the Neo-Nazi classmate who says the Holocaust never happened or when Kinky and Cosy have drinks in a bar with some aliens…The plotline involving the mother falling in love with the recycling bin, for example, was a bit too out there.”
No Flying No Tights on Kinky & Cosy
“A very bittersweet tale about love and how it fills our lives when it’s there and how we feel its absence…This is a book for pet lovers, the romantic, and anyone needing a pick-me-up.”
Portland Book Review on Stargazing Dog
“This melodramatic horror story should be popular with manga fans…The black-and-white drawings are bathed in pastel shades of pink, blue, and lavender, adding to the otherworldly tone of the story.”
School Library Journal on Rohan at the Louve
“Renaud Dillies does something only a few comic artists are good at: he purposefully uses a series of simplistic images only to surprise us when beautiful scenes show up all of a sudden. Chris Ware is a master at that, but Renaud Dillies brings in a vintage appeal that will fascinate anyone who likes old Disney cartoons or fine art. Bubbles and Gondola is one of the few comics I’ve ever found that came close to attaining the synthesis of high and low art that I haven’t seen since Jacques Tardi‘s comics from five decades ago.”
Have you read it yet? What are your thoughts?
Caught this one a bit late admitedly, from Library Journal on Bubbles & Gondola:
“A delightful and well-executed story recommended to those needing a spiritual lift or creative inspiration… fresh, quirky perspective.”
Another review for this in School Library Journal:
“Disguised as a cute animal story, Dillies’s substantive tale of writer’s block, social anxiety, and the magical and restorative powers of allowing oneself to take a break and have fun proves striking it its visuals and narrative.
Dillies and his publishers have used some very physical choices here to show the magic Charles finds as he steps outside, makes friends, allows himself to delight in things as winsome as soap bubbles and a hot air balloon.”
Little Nothings get more comments:
“Lewis Trondheim plays up his own foibles to masterful comedic effect.” says Playback:Stl.
“This book will hook your interest in an instant, make you more teary eyed than you’d ever admit, and leave you with a deeper respect for companion animals.”
Comic Book Resources put Salvatore, vol.2 on the top of their ‘6 most criminally ignored’ books of 2011 saying: ‘Certainly there’s nothing quite like it being published right now.”
Chris Mautner, CBR
Midwest Book Review says of it:
“The absurdities mount in this wry, whimsical tale. Highly recommended.”
Library Journal had a couple sweet short comments about two of our frecent books:
For Kinky & Cosy: “Could easily kick Bart Simpson’s butt and love it”
Bubbles & Gondola: “Boast[s] whimsical drawings with surreal, dreamlike plots.”
+ Graphic Novel Reporter has a nice holiday gift guide that can also stand in as a best of 2011.
“It is the perfect book to enjoy on a quiet evening, preferably with a dog by your side. And chances are you’ll wind up taking your dog for a walk afterwards, pondering what you’ve just read as you gaze up at the starry sky above you.”
No Flying No Tights on Stargazing Dog
“With an artistic style recalling Herriman’s Krazy Kat and a fanciful imagination evoking St. Exupery’s simple, elegant flights of whimsy, Dillies takes his audience on a strange trip through Charlie’s fears and inadequacies. Billed as an all-ages book, the plot and narration are simple yet crafty, the real storytelling technique coming through in the visuals. Dillies’ transitions are particularly slick, as he moves between the real world of Charlie’s humdrum, lonely existence and the vast, dreamlike realms of his burgeoning imagination.”
Broken Frontier on Bubbles & Gondola
The Miami Herald on Geary’s Sacco & Vanzetti:
“Geary is almost universally praised for his stylish and crafty art, with extreme attention to detail and dead-on historical depiction of characters and settings. Sadly overlooked, however, is his writing. He’s often deadpan and hilarious but in the latest entry in his current series, A Treasury of XXth Century Murder, he masterfully organizes the story surrounding the infamous 1920 murder, subsequent trials and ongoing controversies into a highly readable and fascinating package. His art, as always, is ceaselessly expressive and charming, but let’s also give credit to this modern American master as one whose complete craft is at its peak.”
Two cat lovers on this dog’s tale, The Stargazing Dog that is:
“I may be a cat person, but I am certainly not immune to the touching tale of a good-hearted and grateful dog who is faithful to his master until the very end. Poignant.”
“I was surprised, really, at how much I got sucked in by this book, especially because I’m a cat person. But the universality of Daddy and the dog’s tale works no matter who you are. Recommended.”
says Marc Mason at Comics Waiting Room.
And Playback:Stl makes a good point on Sacco & Vanzetti:
“In this increasingly xenophobic and classist era, Geary does us all a service with this stylish reprise of their case.”
Kinky & Cosy, you either hate or love it:
“Now this is the kind of crazy crap I like to see in my comic strips. Arson, didlo jokes, cripple jokes, Fair Trade ripping, addressing the issue of violence in schools in an insensitive manner — all this and more is within the pages of Kinky and Cosy, from the Belgian comic strip from writer/artist, Nix. You’re pretty much going to have to toss all your self-righteousness out the window because if you don’t, you’ll just get offended and end up missing something that is cute, funny, and disturbing all rolled up into the form of two twin girls who get into their own brand of trouble.”
Comics Bulletin, giving it 4 bullets (it’ll take more than that to kill’em). The very same goes on to critique Bubbles & Gondola:
“This is an awfully charming book. Renaud Dillies is a wonderful artist, able to capture the intense and sweet fairy-tale life that Charlie the Mouse lives in, a world of bright colors, intense emotions and frustrating disappointments.”
