Euro Comics: Reviews of Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker, and The Green Hand and Other Stories

Time Codes: 00:00:29 - Introduction 00:03:36 - Edward's big life changes! 00:08:09 - Billie Holiday 00:26:53 - Josephine Baker 00:59:14 - The Green Hand and Other Stories 01:20:36 - Wrap up 01:22:17 - Contact us After having to readjust for a few major life changes -- including a new baby for first-time parents! -- Edward and Derek are back with the monthly Euro Comics series. For November they discuss two graphic biographies devoted to early twentieth-century artists as well as a collection of surreal and experimental fiction. They start with Carlos Sampayo and Jose Muñoz's Billie Holiday (NBM Publishing), a text that fully utilizes the somber, even noir uses of black-and-white (Muñoz's art was an inspiration for Frank Miller's Sin City, after all). Originally published by Fantagraphics in 1993, this work provides a skeletal overview of Holiday's life and career, both its artistic highs and its drug-filled lows. A much more detailed graphic biography is Jose-Luis Bocquet and Catel Muller's Josephine Baker. Published by SelfMadeHero, this is an extensive look at Baker's life and includes encyclopedic back matter that supplements the narrative. This is a more conventional biography than the one on Billie Holiday, a chronological accounting from a more objective, detached point of view. Perhaps most notable is the fact that Edward, himself, did the translation of this text (although not the back matter). As such, he provides insightful behind-the-scenes information about the preparation of this album, its editorial handling of sensitive racial issues, and the dynamics involved in the art of translation. Finally, Derek and Edward wrap up with very different kind of work, Nicole Claveloux's The Green Hand and Other Stories (New York Review Comics). In addition to its longer titular story, the collection includes seven other Claveloux short comics that vary in style and narrative conventionality. All of the pieces are dreamlike, even psychedelic in nature, originally appearing in Métal Hurlant or through Les Humanoïdes Associés between 1979 and 1980. With an introduction by Daniel Clowes and an interview with "Green Hand" co-creator Edith Zha, this is collection that serves as a great introduction to the often-overlooked Claveloux.