Finally, the glorious day has come when we can announce to the whole wide entire world that our beloved Pascal Girard’s new hardcover edition of Nicolas is now in stores!
Finally, the glorious day has come when we can announce to the whole wide entire world that our beloved Pascal Girard’s new hardcover edition of Nicolas is now in stores! We’re sure we made you jealous with our early San Diego Comic Con copies, with their pretty bookplates and their classic Pascal “so-detailed-and-perfect-penwork-it-looks-fake” signatures. But now you too can have a book like this! And as a bonus for hometown Montrealers, read on for information on Pascal’s September 8th event at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly.
Nicolas is Pascal Girard’s exploration of the long-term effects his brother’s death had on his childhood and adult life. Complete with a new introduction and additional comics set in the present-day, this new hardcover continues that lifelong questioning of why we lose people, and what those who remain mean to us. He does so with extremely minimal and affecting line drawings, life-vignettes whose small moments in time manage to convey—in very little space—the confusion and weight that comes with grief.
Those who have experienced grief know it is anything but simple, and anything but consistent. One second you’re weeping uncontrollably and the next you’re cracking a joke about it; you want to talk about it all the time but then don’t want to talk about it at all.
Girard captures all of those feelings and more, through his childhood and into his teen years, when grief and angst intermingle to make a muffled anger. What I love the most about Nicolas (and there’s a lot to love, so don’t take it lightly!) is the way that Girard refuses to fall into the trap of portraying himself as a saint in his grief. Often, when reflecting on death, there is a tendency to distance yourself from it, to present a more polished version of the truth, or one that reflects where you have gotten to with time, and not where you were in the moment. Girard shows us grief in all its mess, all its cruelty and even its boredom (will people stop distracting him from playing video games with death talk? He’s trying to concentrate!)
The afterword for Nicolas, a short comic tackling his relationship with his younger brother Joël, is similarly wise; Girard loves his brother, but is not as close to him as he feels he should be. All the reasons he has for this distance seem to come up short whenever he is confronted on them by the people around him, and he is forced to reflect on why he has always treated his younger brother so differently than Nicolas. It’s beautiful stuff, and it’s lovely to come full circle on such an impactful story.
So go on with your cute selves, get a copy of Nicolas to hold and love and cherish. I bet you it’ll even fit in your pocket!
PRAISE FOR NICOLAS
“The honesty and immediacy of Nicolas take my breath away. There’s humor in it, but there is also real, gut-wrenching grief. I feel thankful that this book exists, and that Pascal allows us into his heart so completely.”—Melissa Mendes
“In a small volume that is both gorgeous and raw, Pascal Girard generously shares his own story of loss and coping in an extremely affecting manner. I love it very much.”—Leslie Stein
PASCAL GIRARD LAUNCHES NICOLAS IN MONTREAL:
Join us for the hometown launch of Pascal Girard’s Nicolas, taking place at Librairie D+Q (211 Bernard O. in Mile End) on Thursday September 8th at 7 pm. Pascal Girard will be presenting from the new and expanded edition of the book, and will be joined by cartoonist Michel Hellman.
Montreal, QC | Thursday, September 8, 2016 | 7:00pm | Librairie Drawn & Quarterly | 211 Bernard O