We're keeping the comic train rolling with our second graphic novel review for Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme. This comic is originally written in French, and there is very little that is comical about it.Title: Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme
Published: July 12, 2011 (English Version) by Gallisol
Pages: 544
Buy: Amazon
Rating: 80%
Synopsis: With Lucille, Ludovic Debeurme takes on the difficult world of adolescence, following the life of a young anorexic woman and the difficult relationships she has with others, who have significant problems of their own.
Story Review:
Plot - 15/25 points The story was mildly interesting, but I have a feeling I was only intrigued by the morbid parts of the story (which seemed rather abundant). Not a lot happened, and it felt like too much of a fast adult read for my tastes.
Voice - 18/25 points The voice itself was okay, but not necessarily anything to write home about. This can't be entirely credited to the author, though, because it was translated into another language (which might not make that much of a difference, but I am not really a master of translation - I don't know how that affects the diction). At any rate, this was nothing extravagant.
Graphics Review:
Artwork - 22/25 points The artwork was one of my favorite things about this graphic novel. It wasn't too distracting from the story and didn't linger too much on any one scene. One thing I didn't like was the simplicity of the art - there wasn't a lot of intricate detail work. Now that I look back, I notice that this may be the most fitting style for the content of the book. Either way, it was a little less than perfect, but still very nice.
Another note - there were a lot of pages where I was left wondering what they had to do with the story. For instance, there were several pages of the various characters' heads put onto the bodies of bees. This might just be some kind of deep message that I'm missing (the short, tortured life of the average honey bee?), but I was not on board with these images.
Coloring (or lack thereof) - 24/25 points I think the decision to make all of the artwork black and white really added to the impact of the story. It all came together quite nicely.
Bonus points:
I'm going to go ahead and award one bonus point for the bee drawings. While they were a little too poetic (and slightly cheesier than I like), they still got a little chuckle out of me.
Total Score - 80 points out of 100 possible, or 80%
