Emmanuel Guibert has written a great many graphic novels for readers young and old, among them the Sardine in Outer Space series and The Professor's Daughter with Joann Sfar. In 1994, a chance encounter with an American World War II veteran named Alan Cope marked the beginning of a deep friendship and the birth of a great biographical epic. Another of Guibert's recent works is The Photographer. Showered with awards, translated around the world and soon to come from First Second books, it relates a Doctors Without Borders mission in 1980s Afghanistan through the eyes of a great reporter, the late Didier Lefevre. Guibert lives in Paris with his wife and daughter.
"Guibert writes and draws for American G.I. Alan Cope in this
poignant and frank graphic memoir of a young soldier who was told
to serve his country in WWII and how it changed him forever. When
he first enters Fort Knox at 18, he is young and impressionable,
more of a dreamer than "the military type." Slowly, Cope grows
through his experiences in the war. He forges candid friendships
with his fellow soldiers and remains ever insightful in his
recollections of the war and his life afterward. Together, Cope and
Guibert forge a story that resonates with humanity. Guibert's
illustrations capture the time period vividly. While the subject
matter is familiar from many wartime memoirs, Guibert's fluid,
simple but assured linework captures the personalities of Cope and
his friends, elevating the material to a far more affecting level."
--Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review"This epic graphic memoir spans
oceans and generations, with a narrative as engrossing as the
artistry that illustrates it.
In his preface, renowned French graphic novelist Guibert
(co-author: The Professor's Daughter, 2007, etc.) explains the bond
he shared with the much older Cope, who had served as an American
soldier during World War II and left his native country to return
to France in the aftermath. "He spoke well; I listened well,"
writes Guibert. "Save two or three, his anecdotes were nothing
spectacular. They evoked only very remotely what movies or books
about the Second World War had taught me. Still, I found them
captivating, because of the accents of truth they contained. I
could literally see what he was describing." Now the American
reader can as well -- (the first volume of the collaboration was
initially published in France in 2000, the year after Cope's
death). As the title suggests, this is one man's war memories,
filled not with tales of larger-than-life heroism but with the
chance encounters, tragic absurdities and small kindnesses
experienced by a sheltered young soldier of uncommon intelligence,
as recollected by an older man who has come to take stock of his
life and reconsider the values by which he has lived it. He comes
to question himself, his country and humanity in general, while
retaining a humanitarian warmth and a deep appreciation for the
arts.
The narrative voice is captivating, and the black-and-white
illustrations are often stunning, whether capturing the grandeur of
Big Sur and the giant redwoods of California or showing the
destruction of European villages by soldiers who shared a common
bond of humanity with the civilian "enemy." The Veteran's Day
publication befits a volume that underscores the resonance and
legacy of war.
Thankfully for readers, Guibert promises a prequel volume on Cope's
childhood in California, in testament to "the storyteller in him
that I was drawn to-his personality, his style, his voice, and his
astounding memory." --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review"After churning
out a series of popular children's books, French graphic artist
Guibert recently detoured into biography. His chronicle of reporter
Didier Lefevre in Afghanistan, The Photographer (in three volumes,
so far), won several awards and raised the bar for Guibert's
versatile drawing skills. The unlikely subject of his latest
biography is World War II veteran Alan Cope, an American retiree
living in France, with whom Guibert developed a close friendship in
the early 1990s. Cope's charismatic demeanor and storytelling
penchant gradually put a spell on Guibert, inspiring him to capture
Cope's life in a fascinating tapestry of illustrated anecdotes,
reproduced letters, and photographs. Cope, it turns out, saw very
little action during his extended European tour in the latter half
of the war, yet his peculiar misadventures as a radio operator,
tank gunner, and chaplain's assistant carry their own appeal. His
encounters with temperamental officers, friendships with fellow
soldiers and German musicians, and struggles to find work in
post-war France reveal a fascinating side of wartime life rarely
seen in military films or history books." --Carl Hays, Booklist"In
1994 a chance meeting between comic artist Guibert and an American
expatriate living in France, Alan Cope, sparked a friendship that
continued until Cope's death in 1999. During that time Cope shared
the story of his experiences during and after World War II, and
Guibert added illustrations to those tales. The result is this
volume, a comic memoir of a man's life. Unlike so many memoirs,
Cope wasn't unbelievably famous or heroic or, frankly, much more
than ordinary, and therein lies the magic.
His tales have a literary quality about them that aptly highlights
the drudgery of a soldier's life, the "hurry up and wait" attitude
of much of the war. Guibert's illustrations of thick ink lines over
paint perfectly flesh out the anecdotes. Unfortunately, the
collection begins to lose its impact after Cope's departure from
the Army. Guibert packs too much into the last third of the book,
making the end seen rushed and too crammed full of information.
Even with that failing, this is still a fine collection of war
memories. Alan Cope may have been an ordinary guy, but Guibert was
right to recognize the extraordinary nature of the everyman."
--ICv2"Relating the experiences of Alan Cope as a graphic novel
memoir, Guibert (Sardine in Outer Space) adopts a conversational
tone that makes readers feel as if they are overhearing the G.I.'s
memories of World War II, both humorous and poignant. Guibert met
Alan Cope "by chance" in 1994, when the former G.I. was 69 and
Guibert was 30, and Cope began to relate his experiences to the
graphic novelist. We watch Alan grow up on the page just after he
is drafted in 1943 at the tender age of 18. Having only ever ridden
a bicycle, the first thing Alan learns to drive is an army tank.
Elements of the book may remind older readers of Catch 22, as when
Alan's crew must wait two months after their arrival in Europe
because the army has "misplaced" their weapons and vehicles.Guibert
uses this format to great effect, emulating the soldier's feelings
of claustrophobia, for instance, when a 300-pound fellow soldier is
sleeping above him. And when Alan attempts to descend from a barn's
hayloft and discovers too late that there's no ladder to support
him, Guibert divides the panels and employs the page turn to build
optimal suspense leading up to the soldier's fall. The artist also
evokes the awe-inspiring views for this young American seeing
Europe for the first time ("We don't have villages like that where
I come from. They were charming--tree-lined streets, fields, farms
. . . everything was different and fascinated me, you know?") and,
having returned safely home, viewing General Sherman, the largest
tree in Sequoia National Park ("You know, you can't begin to
imagine that tree until you've seen it, and you can't quite grasp
it when you do. You just feel it, that's all"). Guibert leaves the
tree's trunk colorless, allowing the audience to use their
imaginations, with Alan's words as the launch point. Graphic novel
fans will also appreciate the ease with which Guibert shifts
between Alan's flashbacks and foreshadowing. The narrator comes
across as a laid-back fellow who gets along with even some of the
tougher members of his unit, and he accepts the homosexuality he
detects among several of his fellow soldiers. His placid
temperament helps to explain how easily he makes friends with
Germans after the Yalta accords, especially his influential
friendship with German composer Gerhart Muench and his
American-born wife, Vera, a poet. This friendship becomes a kind of
measuring stick for Alan's growth. Gerhart, being older and more
worldly, attempts to guide Alan (on his "calling" as a minister and
his choice for a wife), and although they have rifts, they overcome
them. Much of the memoir reaches into Alan's post-war life, but
what will be of most interest to older teens is Alan's candid view
of his military training, the war itself and what he discovers
about human beings' commonality more than their differences."
--Jennifer M. Brown, Shelf Awareness"Gr 10 Up-Cope was a paper
delivery boy in California in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. A
couple of years later, at 18, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and
shipped off to Europe. In 1994, he met cartoonist Guibert and
recounted his wartime experiences and what he'd thought of them
during the intervening years. The resulting book-published in
France a year after Cope's death in 1999-puts readers nearly inside
the skin of a young man who learns to deal with Army regulations, a
number of Western cultures, friendships, and what turned out to be
a lifelong exploration of life's possible meanings. Guibert allows
Cope to speak directly from the pages, where the images he is
describing unfold in small, neat panels in which grays, black line,
and open white space provide details of expression, furnishings,
the open countryside, and military equipment. Guibert and Cope are
well matched and compelling as storytellers. There is no central
dramatic moment here-Cope's major wartime work involved neither
attacks nor defenses-but the complete honesty offers insights and
answers often omitted in war stories. Cope becomes so real that, as
he ages across the final quarter of the book, teens will stay
involved with how his youthful experiences and ideals colored his
mature choices and memories." --Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public
Libraries, Nova Scotia, School Library Journal
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