Reading bandes-dessinées

My husband is like most French: he loves bandes-dessinées.

I initially associated bandes-dessinées only with comics like Asterix and Tin Tin, and the first summer I was in France I was "assigned" several Asterix comic books for my general knowledge. Suffice it to say I never really fell in love with Asterix.

Fast forward several years, and my husband came home with copies of Blacksad. I was a bit wary given my experience with Asterix, but by page 3 I was asking my husband to set aside volumes 2 and 3 for me to read once I finished the first one.
Written and illustrated by two Spanish artists (but always published in French first for the Franco-Belge audience), the series is about a detective and his sidekick in a 1950's film noir setting. The characters are all animals, and the detective is a cat and his sidekick a weasel.

Then he had me read Le Combat Ordinaire by Manu Larcenet. I couldn't get enough.

I read some of Bastien Vivès's albums, some Pénélope Bagieu, a bit of Boulet. We bought the bandes dessinée version of Les Fables de La Fontaine at the Musée de la BD in Brussels.

My most recent favorite is Les Vieux Fourneaux.

I love the compelling stories and beautiful artwork.

Which is why I accepted a week or so ago to read the graphic novel The Sculptor by Mark McCloud when my husband handed it to me. An hour later when I reached the end I was nonplussed. The protagonist is childish, the motivations of the various characters are poorly explained, and the story ends with little growth or change for the protagonist. To these criticisms my husband replied "Well, it's American. It's not a BD franco-belge."

I don't listen to a lot of French music, read French novels, or watch many French films, but I think I will be keeping my BD reading French (plus Spanish for Blacksad because it's so great).