Amours Fragiles 2: A Summer in Paris

In 2006, Casterman published a follow up to their original "Amours Fragiles" album, a historical fiction series featuring a German protagonist coming of age along the backdrop of the conflicts that culminated in World War 2. Debuting five years after the initial album, writer Phillipe Richelle and artist Jean-Micheal Beuriot revisit their creations with an album that makes several difficult choices.

From the very first caption the reader is aware that they are returning to the story seven years later, hinting that this 1939 episode will culminate with the German occupation of Poland. The story is set in Paris, and features a completely new set of characters, save for the protagonist Martin, and his former flame, Katherine, who plays a relatively minor role in the series second outing.

Despite all these changes, arguably the most noticeable one is the change in process undergone by the artist Beuriot. With "A Summer in Paris", the artist stops painting the series in oil and reorients himself to what appears to be traditional pen and ink method of working in comics. The contrast is striking when compared to the gorgeously painted pages from "The Last Spring", but it's not difficult to understand why Casterman and the artist decided to continue in this fashion. As noted by Gipi in the back matter of the "Notes from a war story", the process of making comics using the techniques having to do with oil painting is particularly time consuming and difficult.

At a more standard page count than the original's 84 pages, "A Summer in Paris" invites the reader once removed from the Franco-Belgian comics scene to second guess the publishing decisions involved. Considering the long break between the first and the second volumes, and the subsequent three albums being released in a much timelier fashion, it could well be that Richelle and Beuriot simply returned to their creation, once devised as a single volume story, to re-purpose it as a multi volume series. This would explain the change in page count and the simplified artistic technique employed, but is otherwise pure conjecture.

In any event, as a story, "A Summer in Paris" is a solid piece of low key drama, well researched and dramatized in what appears to be a completely genuine fashion. The series' unorthodox protagonist Martin is working on a doctorate in the City of Lights and has assembled a network of friends from different walks of life. Chief among them is Henry Emmerich, another German expat, that tries to make his living as an actor in Paris. The traditionally languid Martin takes an even more passive role in this album, as most of the story revolves around Henry, and his relationship with his fiancee, as well as the toil unemployment and administration take on him.


As a character the bohemian starts out as a likable young man with boyish features, yet he quickly becomes so self-obsessed that he turns borderline unsympathetic. Both his relationship with Maria as well as Martin appear to be exploitative, especially in spite of the sacrifices both of these people make for him. All the while, Henry is completely engrossed in his struggles of first finding employment, and then on his fight to gain French citizenship. The latter actually seems so realistic that it borders on anticlimactic.

For all of the observed character work that Richelle does in what eventually becomes something resembling a love triangle between Henry, Maria and Martin, the rest of the cast doesn't fare as well. Simply put, there are too many of them, which is again, realistic, but somewhat unnecessary in such a slim volume. Henry's friend the traveling salesman has a somewhat larger role but he could easily have been excluded to make for a tighter plot. The writer's intention was probably to slightly confuse the reader with so many of the new faces, so not to too deftly foreshadow the role Martin's lawyer friend's has in the book's conclusion.

The inclusion of a high society painter introduced in aforementioned prologue in "The Early Spring" exists only to introduce the set up another set the characters for a future volume, but is otherwise completely inessential.

On the other hand, the volume's understated nature is nowhere apparent then in the characterization of Henry's fiancee, Maria. And while the hard work she puts up with to provide both for herself and Henry does show in Beuriot's rendition of her tired, yet youthful face, Richelle is very subtle when it comes to a much dearer prize she pays to keep a roof above their heads. Her subsequent relationship with Martin is also interesting, in that it feels much more mature than the protagonist's previous infatuation with Katherine, where he was still infatuated in the romantic woes of the first love. The post-graduate student's bond with Henry's fiancee, following Emmerich's rude rejection of her, feels borne out more of the need than anything else. This does not escape Martin's actor friend, but at that point he's too occupied with his own troubles to get back at the lover he's already found a substitute for.

Even more nuanced is Richelle's treatment of the role Katherine has, as she return in Martin's life. The writer deliberately keeps her on the periphery of the plot, and out of Martin's reach, until the melancholic German is once again powerless to stop her from falling into another's grasp. By repeating the same pattern we have already seen Martin struggle with in high school, Richelle is keen to explore the difference that the passage of years has played on his character. A passing mention one of the cast members makes, that indicates their involvement with Katherine leads Martin to despair, but his spiral is much more pragmatic this time around. The distraught young man simply reorients to Maria, as they find solace in each other's embrace. The brilliance of Richelle's script is in including the scene where her new suitor introduces her to his present as an Evangelist, setting her up with another break up based on her true Jewish heritage.

Overall, the aforementioned subtlety somewhat undermine the impact of the volume. It's clear that the creators aimed for a character piece where the ominous tone of the pre-WW2 tensions would hang over the plot, before stepping in to brutally drag the German expats back in line with their country's fate. Yet, Richelle and Beuriot's focus on Henry Emmerich and his struggle so overshadows the historical context that it takes place in, that even when it finally collides with the French authorities forcing the German expats out of their country, the post occupation of Poland real world overtones feel tacked on. Likewise, Martin's return to Germany and the necessary re-positioning of Katherine for the later volumes seems necessary but doesn't make for a very powerful climax.


As is typical with most Franco-Belgian offerings, the album features a completely accessible story, with a clear beginning and the end, but a new reader is still advised to start with "The First Spring", the extended opening that communicates its themes much more directly.

Amours Fragiles: the Last Spring

"Amours Fragiles" is a poetic title of the series of French albums, started in 2001. The Casterman published historical fiction title featured the work of writer Philippe Richelle and artist Jean-Micheal Beuriot and has yet to be translated and published into English. It opens with "The Last Spring", the oversized volume taking place in 1932, documenting the beginnings of the Nazi's rise to power from the vantage point of a young man, German intellectual Martin.

Utilizing a time consuming oil painting technique similar to Gipi's work in "Garage band" and "Notes on a war story", Beuriot achieves a highly arresting effect, which eases the reader into Richelle's slow boiling plot. In the first place, the idea is to dramatize the historical events through the use of a middle class protagonist, who comes of age in a rapidly changing society. Young Martin goes to a high school in the last days of the Weimar Republic, and is a first hand witness to its shaky grasp on the democracy. The facade of a civil, functional society based on equality still manages to inspire the youth to maintain an informed idealistic outlook, which is to be severely tested as the rapid changes in sociopolitical climate begin to catch up with the people close to him.

Richelle opts to frame the story in such a way that Martin's fight is from the start portrayed as ultimately pointless. Not only is the reader aware that his homeland is sliding into the slaughterhouse that punched out the hole of the twentieth century, but the writer underscores the point by featuring a flash forward featuring World War 2 era Martin reluctantly engaging in an affair with a married woman, while serving his country as a soldier. The short opening works to cast a shadow over all of his idealism and innocence in the succeeding story, but also serves as a statement of intent on the part of the creators. "Amours Fragiles" will be their World War 2 epic, but told from a point of view of an ordinary young man, whose strong feelings against the overwhelming fascism ultimately lead to his complicity in his government's policies.

Thus, "The Last Spring" reads more like a period piece love story with strong political current than a dry historical account, even if its languid pace does call for patient, if highly rewarding reading. The complexity hails largely from the numerous facets of the daily life Richelle and Beuriot want to touch upon. Starting with Martin's school life, Richelle depicts just how a forward thinking teacher and a slow, unprivileged student simply fall between the cracks of Hitler's new order. The students are swept up in the current that still seems to imply merely a change of politics, and not a wholesale turn to genocide for a nation that will hardly ever live down its war time excesses.

Yet, most of the daily politics get discussed through the medium of Martin's father, a loudmouth radical professor who feels frustrated by the perceived weakness of the Weimar government, and expects a strong leader in Hitler. The man is initially depicted as highly overblown caricature, who dominates his wife and aims to indoctrinate his liberal son to the right. A lot of the book is taken with his bitter monologues, that render him as a stereotypical Nazi supporter, who dominates his wife and treats the family to radio broadcasts of Hitler's speeches. Yet, at the crucial moment, the father shows himself as an advocate for the Jew's rights to continue living in Germany as their traditional neighbors and small shop owners.

For all of their clear definition, Richelle's characters remain multi-facated, escaping the trap of showing the protagonist as the only three dimensional personality in the sea of archetypes. The key to understanding Martin in 1932 prove to be not in his relationship with the father, but much more prosaically, in his interaction with his age peers. For all of his reading habits and strongly felt democratic spirit, the youth suffers the most through the vantage point of his feelings for the Jewish girl living across the street. The lessons he learns from her fate in the turbulent times are intentionally ambiguous, with the creators stopping the album's story as it climaxes, without a proper epilogue to reassert their protagonist's perspective.

The second volume shows him several years after the events of "the Last Spring", thus it was imperative that the creators cover a lot of ground in the initial outing. In many ways, "Amours Fragiles" reminds of Giardino's "A Jew in Communist Prague" published in America by NBM, and Richelle and Beuriot benefit from the comparison. Where the Italian creator hurries and works in generalities, his French contemporaries proceed from a more thoughtful perspective. For a start, their protagonist is somewhat older and better educated, and most importantly, isn't a victim. Martin isn't a son of a political prisoner and the creators seek his complicity in growing up under an increasingly oppressive regime.

In fact, as a protagonist, despite his protests, he exhibits an irritating indecisiveness, with only Richelle's carefully layered characterization stopping him from being despicable. The chief narrative technique the writer utilizes in portraying Martin as a flawed, yet sympathetic character is by introducing his best friend, a better adjusted teenager defined by his actions. Where Martin stops to listen and contemplate, Gunther comes forward and simply lives according to his years and the political climate. Thus, Gunther starts out as a fun loving skirt chaser, with Richelle thankfully stopping short of making him an outright bully, like Martin's father.

Beuriot distinguishes well between the two male characters, with Gunther sporting darker hair and shorter stature, as well as a self-indulgent smirk on his face, all in all a much more understated design than that of Martin's father. The protagonist's awkwardness and shyness generates most of the book's drama, as Gunther moves past Martin's subtle advances towards the girl, and leaves him once again thoughtful and repressed. The book loving Martin views his outgoing friend's behavior as banal and repellent, while himself rejecting the advances of the girl's best friend.

That the plot allows for the role of the fourth part of the love triangle provides a fresh dose of realism and goes a long way to balancing the album's length. Once again, Beuriot provides a difference in the anatomy to his main female characters, while reversing the color scheme of their new male friends. Even though formally repelling his friend's attitude towards the fairer sex, the protagonist still sticks to the couple until his friend finally crosses the line, and exhibits the prevalent political trend in rejecting Katharine on the grounds of her Jewish heritage. Unfortunately, the torrent of the Nazis' rise to power dooms the budding romance, but at that point the story's subplots converge for a strong finish and a great showing for both creators.

And while there is no doubt that a discerning reader would continue to the "Amours Fragiles" second volume, there yet remain some chief points of contention in the introductory volume. First, despite Beuriot's carefully studied cartooning there remains a layer of artifice that escapes the expressive faces and the frequent changes in perspective. The artist has no problem conveying the long conversation with clear, albeit conventional panels, where his stylish, expressive figures talk in a way that feels natural. The settings likewise reinforce the historical setting of the story but the well chosen color hues don't hide the fact that at inopportune times the storytelling glitches.

And while it's generally fairly clear what's going on, the panel flow is sometimes stilted and Beuriot clutters some of the panels avoiding the simplicity inherent in his layouts. These are relatively minor flaws in a very strong work, that was recognized by the prestige Angouleme festival in 2002. "Amours Fragiles"(despite the generic title) remains a serious work, that succeeds both as historical fiction and a compelling visual narrative. Even if its disparate goals somewhat detract from "the Last Spring" achieving its fullest artistic potential, the result is still a rare understated work about the period, especially when it comes to comics, with its closest recent comparison, 2008's "Spirou: A boy's diary", which treated the subject from a much lighter point of view, despite Emile Bravo's much stronger command of the comics form. Richelle and Beuriot's series' five album cycle is definitely in the upper echelon of the Franco-Belgian mature offerings, and hopefully in time it will find a broader audience and wider acclaim.