Pfor their 81e edition, the Rossel prizes will reward a novelist and a comic strip author on Wednesday. The Victor Rossel Comics Academy Grand Prize will also crown an author for her entire career. A readers’ prize will complete the 2024 list. All the winners will be known at 1 p.m. They will receive their awards during an official ceremony at 7 p.m. in the premises of the Soir, 100 rue Royale. This year, Adeline Dieudonné is the honorary president of the literary jury. Bernard Hislaire presides over the choices of the Victor Rossel Comics Academy.
“Review Comanche” by Romain Renard
With this graphic novel in homage to Comanche, a legendary series from the newspaper Tintin created in the 1970s by Hermann and Greg, Romain Renard revisits the world of the western and brings it into a new dimension. You had to be pumped up to tackle this classic and the author does not lack breath in his story, nor graphic mastery. The cinematographic plates of Review Comanche recall the great Hollywood days of Panavision. Beyond the passion and love of the work that inspired him, Romain Renard goes beyond the homage to tell a true story, that of disenchanted America. In this sublime book there are echoes of the vengeful poetry of Jim Harrison, the dark despair of Cormac McCarthy and the grandiose imagery of The Trail of the Giants the Raoul Walsh…
“GI Gay” by Didier Alcante and Bernardo Munoz
With elegant modesty, G.I. Gay deals in an intimate tone with the question of homosexuality within the armed forces of the United States. Didier Alcante and Bernardo Munoz tell the story of an impossible love on the battlefield of the Second World War. At the time, homosexuals were still considered mentally ill. It was not until 2010 that President Barack Obama changed the course of history. Now gays and lesbians would be integrated into the military without having to lie about who they were to serve their country. In a neorealist graphic style with accents sometimes close to Victor Hubinon and Buck Danny, the authors attack the clichés, bullying and extreme violence of which homosexuals have been the targets. A true indictment against discrimination, this graphic romance is a hymn to the right to be different.
“The true story of Saint Nicholas” by Thierry Van Hasselt
There are books that shake up the codes and open new horizons to comics. Thierry Van Hasselt’s latest graphic novel is strongly in this daring vein. His angry Saint Nicholas works to give children a future in a world where forests are on fire, where the police beat up undocumented immigrants, where young people demonstrate in vain for justice and ecology. So the “Great Saint” sets fire to the house of the rich and powerful, deaf and blind to suffering… Why are we on Earth? Does love exist? Do we still have the right to marvel? The true story of Saint Nicholas of Thierry Van Hasselt draws furious answers to the questions that anger our humanity in this book as a universal declaration of the right of children to life and to daydream.
“The Sharing of Worlds” by Olivier Grenson
At the heart of barbarism, what power can the tale have? Does Alice’s White Rabbit have the power to heal us from the trauma of war? Is there, somewhere, deep in a London underground tunnel, under the bombs of the Blitz, a wonderland? The poetry of Olivier Grenson’s line takes the reader beyond words, in search of beauty and escape of the mind. The author invites peace and rebirth at the foot of the “World Tree” of a better future. From his luminous brush emerge images of hope. As the apocalypse is unleashed, the artist plays with a thousand colors to preserve the innocence of Mary, his young heroine. In Sharing worldsOlivier Grenson re-enchants life through the power of fiction and the power of the imagination of comics, at the same time as he takes a real look at the military and ecological perils that darken the horizon of the 21ste century.
“Impenetrable” by Alix Garin
Magician of the emotions of the body and the mind, Alix Garin breaks a taboo with humor, modesty, spontaneity of line and delicacy of words. Her second graphic novel explores female desire, love, and married life. Suffering from vaginismus, the author reveals her intimate sufferings with natural sincerity, supported by a liberating drawing. Impenetrable is a quest for desire and oneself, admirable in its accuracy, timidity, and honesty. Alix Garin sublimates this serious subject with the fluidity of the subject and the euphoria of the drawing. It makes us taste the happiness rediscovered when existence has really pissed us off. His book sparkles with courage, joy, sparks of life, without being burdened with morality. The author goes beyond the conventions and sexual norms that prohibit us from living as we wish to invent another look at the romantic relationship.
