Book picks similar to
Babette by Hermann Huppen


comics
graphic-novels
historical-fiction
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The Hunting Party


Pierre Christin - 1983
    In the icy haze of the Soviet forests, a unique “hunting party” is organized. A young French translator is invited there by his mentor, Evguéni Golozov, interpreter and trusted man of the mysterious Vassili Alexandrovitch Tchevtchenko. This silent strategist of communist power, appears throughout the intrigue as the Machiavellian conductor of the bloody abuses of decadent rulers. When the little story merges into the big one, the reader rediscovers the dark events that marked the period of the Eastern Bloc. With this title, Bilal signed with Christin, one of the major works of modern comics.

Red Dust


Greg - 1972
    Sound familiar? Here is yet another take on the beloved Wild West trope, complete with corrupt law enforcement officers, a town drunk, guns for hire, a brave young woman trying to hold on to her failing ranch, vicious people with wealth and power trying to take it from her, a couple of cow-herders, and a colorful cast of characters with names like Red Dust, Ten Gallons, and of course… Comanche.

Isaac the Pirate: To Exotic Lands


Christophe Blain - 2001
    He runs into a rich Captain who is taken by his abilities and hires him with a handsome stipend to come along in his voyages. It turns out he's a pirate. Isaac went to make some quick money and come back and marry the love of his life but has embarked upon a series of at turns hilarious and dark adventures on the high seas from the Caribbean to the icy North, with apparently no end in sight. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is getting attention from another.

You are There


Jacques Tardi - 1979
    A quarter of a century later, this dark, funny, consistently surprising masterpiece has finally been translated into English.An unexpected yet smoothly confident collaboration between the darkly cynical Jacques Tardi and the playful fantasist Jean-Claude Forest (of Barbarella fame), You Are There is set on a small island off the coast of France, where unscrupulous landowners have succeeded in taking over the land from the last heir of a previously wealthy family. That heir, whose domain, in a Beckettian twist, is now reduced to the walls that border these patches of land he used to own, prowls the walls all day, eking out a living by collecting tolls at each gate. His seemingly hopeless struggle to recover his birthright becomes complicated as the government sees a way of using his plight for the sake of political expediency, and the romantic intervention of the daughter of one of the landowners (who has her own sordid history with the politician) engenders further difficulties, culminating in an apocalyptic, hallucinatory finale.Set in Tardi’s preferred early 20th century milieu, You Are There is drawn in his crisp 1980s neo-“clear line” style, gorgeously detailed, elegantly stylized, with impossibly deep slabs of black. You Are There is a feast for both the eyes and the brain.

Transports of Love


Nicolas de Crécy - 2005
    The privacy, as it turns out, is to build a mode of transportation that can get him through earth and seas to his beloved far, far away. As unpredictable and totally original as 'Glacial Period,' this is a Plymptonesque tale filled with absurd, irresistible bittersweet humor.

Cain's Eye


Alejandro Jodorowsky - 2001
    Alexandro Jodorowsky. "Bouncer also features the spectacular art of Francois Boucq one of the pasters of European comics. To avenge his parents murders. young seth must learn to use his father's guns under the tutelage of his uncle a tough as nails one armed Bouncer. However, seth is now part of a cycle of violence and greed that has cursed his family for generations. Gan Seth and Bouncer avenge the murder of Seth's family and put an end to the deadly cycle?

Asterix the Gaul


René Goscinny - 1961
    Only one small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. But how much longer can Asterix, Obelix and their friends resist the mighty Roman legions of Julius Caesar? Anything is possible, with a little cunning plus the druid Getafix's magic potions! Their effects can be truly hair-raising...

Kings in Disguise


James Vance - 1990
    Hailed as one of the top 100 comics of all time by The Comics Journal, Kings in Disguise now reemerges as a classic. It is January 1932, and movie-loving Freddie Bloch is trading his father's liquor bottles for the cost a matinee: "Dreams were only a dime, but empty bottles [only] brought a penny apiece." When his father disappears and his brother gets arrested, Freddie finds himself homeless and adrift, trying to survive during the Detroit labor riots and amid the furor of violent, anti-communist mobs. Winner of the Eisner Award and the Harvey Award for Best New Series and an additional Eisner Award for Best Single Issue.

The Death of Stalin


Fabien Nury - 2010
    Fear, corruption and treachery abound in this political satire set in the aftermath of Stalin's death in the Soviet Union in 1953. When the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, has a stroke—the political gears begin to turn, plunging the super-state into darkness, uncertainty and near civil war. The struggle for supreme power will determine the fate of the nation and of the world. And it all really happened.

King of the Flies Vol. 1: Hallorave


Mezzo - 2005
    (He is the titular King.)King of the Flies is designed as a trilogy of albums, which will combine to form a single graphic novel of stunning intricacy and intensity. (Vol. 2, “The Beginning of All Things,” will be released by Fantagraphics in the Summer of 2010.)

Blacksad


Juan Díaz Canales - 2000
    Imagine New York as a city of criminal rats, jazz-playing gorillas and rhino thugs. Enter a mystery where the suspects have tails. Find out why comics' biggest names are wild about one of the freshest graphic novels in years—a 2005 Eisner and Harvey Award nominee. Enter the world of Blacksad. Natalia Wilford is a famous actress. To the world, she had everything anybody could want—beauty, fame, glamour, and lovers who would do anything for her. When she is found murdered in her home, it touches the man who had not seen her since their bitter breakup many years ago. private eye John Blacksad. He vows to find Natalia's murderer.

Approximate Continuum Comics


Lewis Trondheim - 1999
    Trondheim’s typically graceful, confident cartooning shows him wrestling with his own demons (sometimes, in dream sequences, literally) and an often malevolent world, while trying to maintain his rising career as one of Europe’s most beloved cartoonists.Approximate Continuum finally brings American readers the first portion of the “Trondheim autobio trilogy” that also comprises the Eisner nominated “At Loose Ends” meditation serialized in Mome (which will be released as a graphic novel in 2012) and the ongoing “Little Nothings” series of short slice-of-life stories (three to date from NBM Publishing).This volume contains the first three chapters serialized in the Nimrod comic book, the last three (never-before-translated) chapters, and a hilarious “rebuttal” section in which Trondheim’s family and cartoonist friends (including Epileptic creator David B. and Trondheim’s mom) dispute (or ruefully agree with) Trondheim’s depictions.

Wake: Fire and Ash


Jean-David Morvan - 1998
    A French graphic novel saga features Navee--a beautiful human girl living alone on a lush, post-nuclear Earth--and her adventures in a universe of varied forms of intelligent life.

The Killer, Volume 3: Modus Vivendi


Matz - 2001
    What brought him back? Boredom, fatigue, the need for action? His old friend, Mariano, recommends him for a quick-and-dirty freelance job. Except the job, obviously, is worse than it seemed at first. Remove one banker and one international oil broker, sure, no problem. But why is his third and final target a nun, Madre Luisa, so devoted, selfless, and invested in her ministry to the poorest of the poor in all of Latin America? Our Killer suspects something fishy, so he sets out to strike a deal, but instead decides to play a double game. Complicating matters is his affair with a lovely Cuban officer, who convinces him to side with the Cubans, but the Americans are closing in on him fast…

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion


Will Eisner - 2005
    Purported to be the actual blueprints by Jewish leaders to take over the world, the Protocols, first published in 1902, have become gospel truth to international millions. Presenting a pageant of historical figures from nineteenth-century Russia to today's ideologues, including Tsar Nicholas II, Henry Ford, and Adolf Hitler, Will Eisner unravels and dispels one of the most devastating hoaxes of the twentieth century.