Fabrice Neaud

Thanks to Bernard Alapetite I've finally learned the identity of the artist whose work I've seen and admired frequently, without knowing much about it. According to Wikipedia, Fabrice Neaud is a forty-to year old artist/philosopher who uses the "bande dessinée" style as a narrative tool.

He is a co-founder of the Ego comme X association. In 1994, the first number of the Ego comme X magazine was released. In it, Fabrice Neaud published his first works. It was the beginning of his Journal (which is a diary in comics), an ambitious autobiographical project. The first volume of the Journal was released in 1996. It got a prize Alph'art (best work by a young artist) in Angoulême in 1997. Wikipedia

But what particularly caught my attention was his collaboration with Thierry Robberecht on Alex et la vie d'après, a story by about a young man coping with a recent sero-positive diagnosis. It is a 55 page, public service, fully illustrated comic-book edited by Ex Aequo, Bruxelles, 2008 which can be downloaded here. And, although only available in French, is so beautifully detailed and passionately felt that it can be easily understood by anyone. It is also an excellent introduction to Neaud's very cinematic style of rendering and beautiful use of black and white in dramatic compositional variation.

The four volumes (so far) of his Journal and most of his other works are available here and there is a fairly comprehensive English fan site here if you would like to know more.