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Summary
Summary
At the start of the nineteenth century, John James Audubon embarked upon an epic ornithological quest across America with nothing but his artist' s materials, an assistant, a gun and an all-consuming passion for birds...
This beautiful volume tells the story of an incredible artist and adventurer: one who encapsulates the spirit of early America, when the wilderness felt limitless and was still greatly unexplored. Based on Audubon's own retellings, this graphic novel version of his travels captures the wild and adventurous spirit of a truly exceptional naturalist and painter.
Author Notes
Fabien Grolleau has written and created several comics for Vide Cocagne (which he co-founded) as well as the graphic novel, Jaques a Dit.
Jérémie Royer is an illustrator and designer. After studying art for two years in Nice, he specialized in comic book art and illustration in Brussels.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this gorgeous graphic novel account of Audubon's life, another character accuses the naturalist's art of being "too sentimental, of coming "from an artist's, not a naturalist's point of view." In historical retrospect, that's damning with great praise. It's also the philosophy of this romantic and nontechnical portrayal of Audubon's life and work. Expressive design and subtle color impart the wonder of natural discoveries on the page, accompanying a sometimes nonlinear account of his life. Royer's art holds a mirror to nature that's both idealized and surreal. Royer's depiction of flights of birds so numerous they blot out the sky, or bison herds stretching across the horizon, are so distant from modern comprehension that they feel almost like feverish hallucinations. But it's easy to empathize with the rapture at nature as portrayed in the lush, strange beauty of these pages. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
French pair Grolleau and Royer base their biography of John James Audubon and his nineteenth-century quest to paint all of North America's birds on Audubon's own accounts of his life. Audubon's dogged passion-project requires him to effectively abandon his wife and children, and he's thwarted all along by publishers' preference for his predecessor and former mentor's recent, more scientific drawings his are confusing in their emotional component, they say. Grolleau and Royer don't shy from portraying Audubon's slippery, name-changing past; historical cultural insensitivities (Audubon relies on Native American guide Shogan and encounters an escaped slave on his travels); and his budding naturalist's practice of killing his prized birds to better paint them. For this tribute to an artist, Royer's art is appropriately resplendent; the majority of his outdoor scenes feature lighting that immediately relays time of day, weather, and season. Elsewhere, human characters' expressions play second fiddle to a detailed and colorful natural world bursting with life, and breathtaking skyscapes warrant much more than a passing glance.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2017 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Scenes from the life of the famous 19th-century naturalist John James Audubon, presented in graphic-novel format, demonstrate his passion.Grolleau and Royer introduce the ornithologist in a dramatic prequel in which Audubon, enraptured by a skein of Canada geese, ignores a coming thunderstormbehavior that will recur throughout his life as he ignores his family, his physical well-being, and the opinions of others to follow his dream of painting all the birds in America, a new and relatively unexplored world for white settlers in the early 19th century. The narrative is organized into 5 sections, roughly identified by the location of his travels: to Kentucky, down the Mississippi, New Orleans, Great Britain, and west on the Missouri. Flashbacks provide background: meeting his faithful wife, feuding with scientists, and competing with ornithologist Alexander Wilson. He bands birds, kills a bear, experiences a three-day flight of passenger pigeons, and laments the disappearance of wildlife with the coming of Europeans. In embellished or imagined episodes he is guided by a Native American, helps a runaway slave, and meets and encourages Darwin. First published in French, this has been smoothly translated by Gilfillan, but it is the picture story that will most engage American readers. The inclusion of four reproductions of Audubon's birds as well as a portrait of Audubon adds a lovely grace note. A luscious, reimagined biography that will attach a personality to a famous name for 21st-century readers. (biography, notes, selective bibliography) (Graphic novel. 10-15) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
To paint every bird in America was Frenchman John James Audubon's (1785-1851) obsession. Yet his magnificent 435 avian portraits (Birds of America) that finally brought him fame, fortune, and even scientific respect also chronicled human destruction of wildlife. A keen observer and skillful painter, Audubon was a man of his time, and his attitudes about non-European peoples and killing the subjects he painted may perplex readers. Grolleau (Jacques a dit) bases his somewhat "romanticized" retelling on Audubon's writings, providing a receptive framework for Royer's (-Yesterday, Vol. 1) engaging watercolor washes that feature dreams and fantasies. Women turn into mermaids or forest goddesses, men morph into birds-and as the aging Audubon dies, he transforms into a magnificent bald eagle, destroying his rival Alexander Wilson and settling atop an immense tree of avian life. The artist's own paintings come across in jewel-like miniature glimpses, with several full-page reproductions appearing at the end. Audubon's epic quest will inform and feed the imagination of high schoolers and adults who may have heard of the passenger pigeon extinction but never grasped what the "before" looked like: migrations topping one billion birds. -VERDICT Environmentalists, artists, and birders will find this volume enchanting and affecting.-MC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Foreword Jean Rabin. Fougère. Laforêt. Jean-Jacques Audubon. John James Audubon. A man of many names and many lives - an adventurous and complex spirit. Though his journey was rich in real life stories and incidents, these weren't always enough for the man who lived through them: there is no doubt he invented, embellished or modified certain episodes - sometimes in good faith or forgetfulness, perhaps finally believing in his own confabulations. His writings in particular have inspired our own retelling, which should be read as a more 'romanticised' version of Audubon's life. We hope this will give a fuller sense of the man than the mere facts ever could. The views expressed in Audubon's writings and in the speech of the characters is reflective of the oppressive attitudes and terminology of the time towards African Americans and indigenous peoples, and does not acknowledge the destruction caused by colonial expansion. Despite the foibles, history will remember Audubon as an unparalleled ornithological painter, one of fledgling America's pioneer landscape adventurers, as well as a writer and one of the fathers of modern American ecology. Enjoy. Fabien Grolleau Excerpted from Audubon, on the Wings of the World by Fabien Grolleau All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
