François Vigneault's Blog, page 8
May 24, 2021
World Turtle Day — Projet Carapace
It’s #WorldTurtleDay! Let’s all take a moment to think not just about how cool and cute these radical reptiles are (they are VERY cool and cute), but also to think about concrete steps we can take to help protect turtles and other animals! Here in Québec, the Nature Conservancy/Conservation de la Nature (@ncc_cnc) sponsors a fantastic program called the Carapace Project, which calls on individuals to report turtle sightings to help protect these vulnerable animals, especially during the summer, when turtles are on the move to search for food, find a new habitat, look for a mate, or lay eggs. Unfortunately, traveling on land and crossing roads has its share of risk for turtles because it makes them vulnerable to collisions or disturbance. Check out their website for info on how you can help, and find inspiration for other everyday activities we can do to help animals all year round! 
carapace.ca
#carapaceproject
***
C’est la #JournéeMondialeDeLaTortue! Prenons un moment pour penser non seulement à quel point ces reptiles radicaux sont cool et mignons (sont VRAIMENT cool et mignons), mais aussi pour réfléchir aux mesures concrètes que nous pouvons prendre pour aider à protéger les tortues et autres animaux! Ici au Québec, la Conservation de la Nature / Conservation de la Nature (@ncc_cnc) parraine un fantastique programme appelé le Projet Carapace, qui invite les individus à signaler les observations de tortues pour aider à protéger ces animaux vulnérables, surtout pendant l’été, les tortues se déplacent pour diverses raisons : trouver de la nourriture, changer d’habitat, trouver un partenaire pour s’accoupler ou pondre des œufs. Malheureusement, les déplacements impliquent une part de danger pour les tortues puisqu’en traversant des routes ou des milieux terrestres, elles sont très vulnérables aux collisions et aux dérangements. Consultez leur site Web pour savoir comment vous pouvez aider et trouver de l’inspiration pour d’autres activités quotidiennes que nous pouvons faire pour aider les animaux tout au long de l’année! carapace.ca
#projetcarapace
The post World Turtle Day — Projet Carapace first appeared on Tour de François.
May 4, 2021
Orcs in Space #1+2 in PREVIEWS Now!
Exciting news! The double-sized first issue of my new monthly comic book series ORCS IN SPACE (created along with the talented team of Justin Roiland, Abed Gheith, Rashad Gheith, Michael Tanner, DJ Chavis, and David Pender Jr., edited by Amanda Meadows, and published by Oni Press) is in the current Diamond Comic Distributors PREVIEWS Catalog!
What does that mean, you ask? Well for those of you who aren’t regulars at your LCBS (that’s Local Comic Book Store, FYI), PREVIEWS is the big huge catalog of all the comic books that will be coming out in three months or so… Comic book shops work on very tight margins so they really rely on customer pre-orders to determine what books they will carry and how many they will stock.
So this is where YOU come in! If ORCS IN SPACE looks like something you would enjoy, please consider popping into your LCBS (or giving them a call, or an email), and let them know you want a copy! All you need to do is give them this code (you can also just show them this post, ask for the comic by name, etc):
Thanks so much for considering it! Pre-orders can make a HUGE difference to a books fortunes! 
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ORCS IN SPACE 2 IN 1 CVR A VIGNEAULT
ONI PRESS INC.
Diamond Code: MAY211591
(W) Justin Roiland, Michael Tanner, Rashad Gheith, Abed Gheith (A/CA) Francois Vigneault
Double-issue debut! Gor, Kravis, and Mongtar are three Orcs trying to survive while on the run from everything and everyone on their homeworld. When the naive bureaucrats from StarBleep land on their planet, the orcs unwittingly steal the most advanced ship in the fleet and blast into the dankest reaches of the outer galactigon. Now the universe’s most wanted, the Orcs befriend the ship’s AI, D.O.N.A., in a bid to get free… but will that be enough to escape StarBleep?
In Shops: Jul 07, 2021
SRP: $6.99
ONI PRESS INC.
Diamond Code: MAY211592
(CA) Nicole Goux
SRP: $6.99
ONI PRESS INC.
Diamond Code: MAY211593
(A/CA) Francois Vigneault
In Shops: Jul 07, 2021
SRP: $6.99
The post Orcs in Space #1+2 in PREVIEWS Now! first appeared on Tour de François.
April 13, 2021
In Conversation: April 19, 2021
I’ll be chatting with Michael E. Sinatra and Gabriella Machado Colombo of the Université de Montréal and GREN about my graphic novel TITAN as well as the history of science fiction, from Frankenstein to Watchmen to Black Mirror. The event is part of a university course but will be online and open to the public, and I’ll be taking questions from the audience as well. If you are free come by and check it out!
March 2, 2021
Have You Posted a Reader Review? (It’s OK if You Haven’t!)
Hi friends!
Hope you are all doing well and are staying happy and healthy. I just got some great news that bodes very well for creative projects in 2021/2022, I’ll be sharing with you all shortly. For the moment, I hope you don’t mind if I post a gentle reminder about rating and/or reviewing TITAN!
Online ratings and reviews are an oddly powerful way to spread the word about a book… While you who are reading these words are doubtless a very hip and informed consumer of graphic novels (otherwise how would you know about me and my work?), there are so many other readers out there who will never come across an indie book like TITAN without a nudge in the right direction from a cool person like you! There are also weird, potentially evil algorithms at work, and I must bow to their supremacy.
If you have the time and the inclination, I would be so so grateful if you took the time to rate and/or review TITAN on your preferred platform(s)… And if you have already posted something, thank you again! I’ve included some links below, not just to the big ones like Amazon and Goodreads, but also to others you might not have thought of like Powell’s Books, Barnes & Noble, etc. As always, please be honest… Whatever you think of TITAN I would love to see it!
Naturally, feel free to spread the word about TITAN any other way you see fit too… Talking to friends and booksellers about the book, tweeting about it, etc. Everything really helps!Thanks as always, and talk soon!F.
Amazon.com (and Amazon.ca, etc)
February 16, 2021
Orcs in Space — Oni Press
Preorder Orcs in Space Volume 1 at your local comic book shop now!I’m very excited to announce I’m drawing a brand new series from Oni Press: Orcs in Space!
Orcs in Space is created by Justin Roiland along with writers Michael Tanner, Rashad Gheith, and Abed Gheith, writer-illustrator François Vigneault (that’s me!), and colorists DJ Chavis and Dave Pender.
Preorder Orcs in Space #1+2 at your local comic book shop now!
The comic follows the adventures of eponymous orcs Gor, Kravis, and Mongtar. When their primitive homeworld is visited by StarBleep space bureaucrats, the orcs accidentally steal the most advanced ship in the entire fleet and then blast into the dankest reaches of the Outer Galactigon. Befriending the ship’s AI, D.O.N.A., the orcs must now go on the run as the universe’s most wanted criminals, leaving disaster in their wake wherever they go.
Preorder Orcs in Space #3 at your local comic book shop now!Orcs in Space will be a monthly comic book series with collected editions following each four-issue arc. The double-sized issue #1+2 will be out on July 7th, followed by issue #3 on August 11 and issue #4 in September. The first collection drops on October 6, 2021!
Here is a sneak peek from the double-sized first issue, in comic book shops on July 7, 2021, and you can see even more over on Screenrant!
The post Orcs in Space — Oni Press first appeared on Tour de François.
Orcs in Space
I’m very excited to announce I’m drawing a brand new series from Oni Press: Orcs in Space!
Orcs in Space is created by Justin Roiland along with writers Michael Tanner, Rashad Gheith, and Abed Gheith, writer-illustrator François Vigneault (that’s me!), and colorists DJ Chavis and Dave Pender.
The comic follows the adventures of eponymous orcs Gor, Kravis, and Mongtar. When their primitive homeworld is visited by StarBleep space bureaucrats, the orcs accidentally steal the most advanced ship in the entire fleet and then blast into the dankest reaches of the Outer Galactigon. Befriending the ship’s AI, D.O.N.A., the orcs must now go on the run as the universe’s most wanted criminals, leaving disaster in their wake wherever they go.
Here is a sneak peek from the double-sized first issue, in comic book shops on July 7, 2021, and you can see even more over on Screenrant!
December 18, 2020
My Year of Books 2020
I’ve continued to log, rate, and review my reading over on Goodreads, and as always I encourage you to follow me over there if you wanna see more of my writing on books (by the way, Goodreads is somehow is still the best site for such a thing that I know of, despite the fact that the site is really ugly and clunky… I can’t believe there hasn’t been an upstart with a sleek, Letterboxd-style alternative).
This year found me reading the entire Once and Future King saga by T.H. White, and I really, really dug it. As I discussed over on the Book Marks site, I came to White late:
“I’m very surprised I never got turned on to it when I was younger, since I loved myths, legends, and fantasy. I suppose I thought it would be a straight-forward telling of the King Arthur myths, something dense and old-fashioned that I really ought to read but wasn’t very excited about diving into. I had seen the Disney film The Sword in the Stone and I liked it, but it didn’t really click with me that I needed to seek out the source material. It was only in reading Helen Macdonald’s memoir H is for Hawk a few years back that I got an inkling of what a strange, moving, and hilarious series of tales The Once and Future King really is. The writing is smooth, the humor layered, the central morality of the story is deeply touching.”
It was a big year for reading (or re-reading) comics and graphic novels, including finally making it through the first compendium of Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples (fun and imaginative but ultimately left me flat), revisiting Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (really impressive how well everything clicks into place and as an artist Rodriguez develops from being “pretty good” in Welcome to Lovecraft to “flat out amazing” in Small World), a bunch of Mignola-adjacent work including The Visitor How and Why He Stayed with art by my old fave Paul Grist and the cheeky Mr. Higgins Comes Home and Our Encounters With Evil by Warwick Johnson Cadwell (I found the latter particularly delightful), finishing up the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga with The Tempest (I think Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill manage to tie everything up with a nice little bow), and rereading stuff from my formative years like Paul Chadwick’s Concrete: Think Like a Mountain (beautiful and sorrowful) and The Extremist by Peter Milligan and Ted McKeever (ugly and brutal). I also made a point of reading some new graphic novels by friends and fellow-travelers and wasn’t disappointed in the least: Odessa by Jonathan Hill, A Map to the Sun by Sloane Leong, Junior Citizens by Ian Herring and Daniel MacIntyre, and The Cursed Hermit by Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes were all really enjoyable. A bande dessinée series was one of the most impressive things I read this year: The Ogre-Gods books by Bertrand Gatignol and the late, great Hubert were an eye-popping take on an epic fantasy tale, I am looking forward to reading the newly-released fourth tome, Première-née, and very sad that Hubert died this year—far, far too young. I haven’t had the time to fully process these books so far, I think I’ll try to write a longer review of the entire series next year.
Back on the “real books” side, my reading leaned pretty heavily towards various flavors of science fiction: Golden State by Ben H. Winters, Red Mars and The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, Replay by Ken Grimwood (so fun and also quite philosophical), and some shorter works like The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal, The Daughter of Odren by Ursula K. LeGuin, and Lyra’s Oxford by Phillip Pullman.
For whatever reason I started but still haven’t finished a bunch of non-“genre” (tho’ I believe “literary fiction” or “memoir” are very much genres of their own) books; my currently reading pile includes The Overstory by Richard Powers, Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow, and many more titles that will have to wait until 2021. I think I’ll be focusing on a bit less sci-fi and fantasy in the coming year.
Overall by book count I read a bit more than last year, but again a lot of them were graphic novels, so that is a bit more forgiving. I’ll see if I can improve that a bit next year as well.
Here is my list, including “blurbs” from the linked reviews, and links to my Bookshop in case you want to pick any of them up (I get a refferal fee):
The Daughter of Odren by Ursula K. Le Guin 
Review
“A simple stand-alone tale of trauma, revenge, and healing…”
Lyra’s Oxford by Philip Pullman, illustrations by John Lawrence Review
“A fast-paced adventure that ends almost as soon as it gets going, which is certain to frustrate many readers, but works nicely if you just enjoy it for what it is.”
The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Locke & Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez Review
“Re-reading it I was really impressed by how clearly thought out the forward trajectory (and even more importantly, the convoluted backstory) of the series is right from the start.”
Locke & Key: Grindhouse
Locke & Key: Small World Review
“Quick little jaunt into the backstory of Key House, this one-and-done tale has some fun characterization of some old figures in the Locke family and a nice and simple adventure narrative, but it is mostly and excuse to do some playful visual action.”
Millennium Fever by Nick Abadzis and Duncan Fegredo Review
“Fun, propulsive read, dealing with issues of racial and gender identity in a way that’s fairly ahead of its time…”
Mother Earth Father Sky by Sue Harrison Review
“I picked this book up from a free library while traveling in South Africa, and had never heard of it and would likely never have picked it up in the shop. There is a bit of fun in reading something that is very much out of your wheelhouse, chosen for you by happenstance.”
The Extremist by Peter Milligan and Ted McKeever Review
“…McKeever’s drawings are purposefully unpleasant, rough graphic slashes and drybrush, the characters all angles and sneering lips. Almost all the superficial sexiness is (appropriately) drained out of the story to reveal something deeper, darker, and crueler.”
Hellboy Omnibus Volume 2: Strange Places by Mike Mignola, Richard Corben, and Gary Gianni Review
“Overall this is probably the weakest of the Hellboy Omnibus editions, sort of stuck between the straightforward adventure vibes of the early arcs and the more epic tales to come.”
The Visitor How and Why He Stayed by Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson, and Paul Grist Review
“A rather sweet and introspective tale with a few bits of action thrown in. At the heart of the story is a romance that is quite touching despite being very loosely sketched in, more suggested than described.”
In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang Review
“The plot progresses in an entirely believable and thoughtful manner, with characters’ actions and conflicts making perfect sense in the context of their development (mistakes, suffice it to say, are made).”
Saga: Book One by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples Review
“The bad side of this ‘anything can happen’ approach is that literally ‘anything can happen.’ There is rarely a sense that this universe operates by any sense of rules, order, or logic.”
Uptight #5 by Jordan Crane Review
“Fantastic.”
Your Black Friend by Ben Passmore
Mr. Higgins Comes Home by Mike Mignola, Warwick Johnson Cadwell
Our Encounters with Evil Review
“The stories definitely have a touch of Mike Mignola throughout, but Cadwell really makes the tales his own here, and thankfully these adventures are not connected to the greater Mignolaverse, so no need to worry about prophecies of Anung Un Rama getting in the way of the fun. Highly recommended and can’t wait for more!”
Spider-Man: Life Story by Chip Zdarsky and Mark Bagley
Concrete: Think Like A Mountain by Paul Chadwick Review
“Chadwick does such a good job taking his central sci-fi conceit (man is abducted by aliens and has his brain implanted in a super-strong, rocky alien body) as a starting point, and then using that platform to examine ideas and experiences that are obviously near and dear to to the author’s heart… In particular a multi-faceted engagement with environmentalism, on display most prominently in this volume but a major thread throughout the entire series. This look at the earth has been really moving to me… I know this work, which I first encountered in my teens/early twenties, has had a major influence on my own thinking about the natural world and the (human-created) problems facing it.”
Black Widow: The Complete Collection by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee Review
“All this is intriguing, but in point of fact little pays off… Without getting into spoiler territory I think it is safe to say that almost as soon as new characters and ideas are introduced they end up being variously sidelined, revealed to be unimportant (remember those top-secret files? Not such a big deal after all), or killed off rather prematurely (suffice it to say this book has a rather high body count).”
The Prince in Waiting by John Christopher
Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons by Patrick Rothfuss, Jim Zub, and Troy Little Review
“The creators brought their A-game and made something that’s very rich.”
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill Review
“Absurd, virtuosic, and bombastic, The Tempest is also somehow rather touching in the end.”
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson Review
“Other moments are bizarre and terrifying, with some really rough moments of violence and war, especially as the plot moves closer to our own time. One element that is really intriguing is that I think you’d be hard pressed to say which timeline was “better,” both our own world and this alternate history abound with a mix of the horrific and the sublime, progress and regression.”
Odessa by Jonathan Hill Review
“Despite their cartoonish feel, Hill’s characters retain a surprising sense of realism; the reader gets the sense that every line is important to the full expression of Hill’s protagonists, their allies, and their many enemies.”
The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White Review
The Witch in the Wood
The Ill-Made Knight
The Candle in the Wind
The Book of Merlyn
“The writing is smooth, the humor layered, the central morality of the story is deeply touching. The figure of Merlin, who T.H. White brilliantly envisions as a man moving backwards through time, is absolutely brilliant and delightful.”
Junior Citizens by Ian Herring and Daniel MacIntyre Review
“Incompetent fools fail upwards into the highest echelons of the corporate hierarchy, while at the same time no good deed goes unpunished amongst those “juniors” who are trying their best to muddle their way through a world that views them as disposable cogs in a machine.”
The End of October by Lawrence Wright Review
“This book, originally written as a screenplay, is less Contagion (i.e. realistic, sober, concerned with everyday heroes) and far more Inferno, an over-the-top, borderline sci-fi potboiler complete with an infallible protagonist with an outlandish tragic backstory, a silver-haired ecoterrorist super villain in a modernist lair, rather dull action, and more.”
A Map to the Sun by Sloane Leong Review
“Gorgeously drawn with a loose line and a vibrant color palette, A Map to the Sun captures a dream-like Southern California vibe that stands in sharp contrast with the very real issues Leong’s “wrong-side-of-the-tracks” female teen protagonists face.”
Replay by Ken Grimwood
The Cursed Hermit by Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes Review
“Bertin and Forbes are definitely “playing for keeps” here… Characters are wounded, suffer, and die. Past actions, from a character’s life-altering injury in the previous book to the malevolent and often invisible forces of colonialism, racism, and sexism all rear their ugly heads here, and what starts off as a loving pastiche of light-hearted adventure fare is quickly transformed into a rather moving and disturbing look at pain and sorrow.”
Golden State by Ben H. Winters Review
“A rumination on truth and the social compact that couldn’t be more relevant.”
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson Review
“Really an impressive feat of imagination and detail, grounded in reality but encompassing remarkable ideas and concepts, occasionally I found it veered into boring, but there were always amazing twists and turns along the road that made it well-worth the effort.”
Destination inconnue by Agatha Christie
Petit by Hubert and Bertrand Gatignol
Half-Blood
The Great Man
December 15, 2020
Night Hunters x TITAN
Jan. 8 – Night Hunters x TITAN digital conversation with Alexis Ziritt, Dave Baker & François Vigneault
Night Hunters and Titan are two new comics depicting the bloody struggles of humanity’s future, on Earth and beyond in our solar system. Join us on Friday, January 8 at 6pm for a livestreamed conversation and book release party with the creators, Alexis Ziritt, Dave Baker and François Vigneault.
Night Hunters is cyber punk comic book about life on the streets of Venezuela’s dystopian police state 100 years in the future.
On the moon of Titan, a massive mining colony is plagued by tensions between the giant, genetically-engineered Titan workers and the Terran management. As anger mounts, Homestead must be pulled back from the brink of disaster… Or Titan might be the spark that sets the entire solar system ablaze.
WHO: Alexis Ziritt, Dave Baker, François Vigneault
WHAT: Livestream book release party
WHEN: Friday Jan. 8, 6-7pm PST
WHERE: twitch.tv/floatingworldcomics
“(TITAN IS) A GRIPPING, KNOTTY, EPIC TALE of exploration and solidarity, and a stern reminder that rights are never given, only taken.” –Cory Doctorow (Radicalized)
“NIGHT HUNTERS is a neo-world cyclone of claustrophobic cyberpunk intensity.” –DoomRocket
December 13, 2020
2020 in Review
2020: The year of the Zoom interview. With the Comix Claptrap crew—Rina Auyang, Thien Pham, and Josh Frankel
This is where I usually say something like “another year has gone by,” but I think in all honesty 2020 wasn’t just “another year” by any stretch of the imagination. I can still remember the day (March 7th) where I was doing some “back of the envelope” calculations about the R0 of the new Coronavirus and I realized things were about to get bad… Just ahead of the wave of government lockdowns and mounting infections. But I personally could never have anticipated all the twists and turns this year has thrown at us, from the gigantic protests for racial and social justice to the violent backlash against those demands, to the conspiracy theories that undercut social discourse and intelligent action, and just how blatantly the outgoing President and his allies would attempt to undercut the will of the voters. It’s been a year for the history books, that’s for sure, tho’ at times 2020 has felt more like an awkwardly-plotted sci-fi potboiler with a few too many twists and turns.
It was obviously also a huge year for me creatively and professionally, and it has often felt weird to be trying to promote my work in a moment that can feel nigh-apocalyptic (my friend Jonathan Hill, whose excellent book Odessa came out on the same day as TITAN, wrote a great essay on this subject). I tried my best to muddle through it all, and I do think that I am especially proud of the ways that TITAN reflects on the current political landscape, especially since the book originally came out in French over three years ago. As I mentioned in a my author letter that went out to libraries and booksellers earlier this year,
“While TITAN is inspired by some of the darkest chapters in our history, the book also shamelessly—perhaps foolishly—puts forward themes of connection, love, and reconciliation as well, and I believe that those ideas are timeless. Let’s hope they are timely as well.”
I wrote that letter before the election, when there was maximal uncertainty about what kind of world my book would be “born” into. I am very, very happy that there is some semblance of hope on the horizon now. The road ahead is going to be a tough one, the existential challenges we face in the coming years and decades are going to make 2020 seem pretty small in comparison. But I do think we took a step back from the brink this year, and I hope that the path forward will be better… “There’s reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last.”
As always, many thanks to everyone who has supported my work this year and throughout the years (by the way this is the sixth year I am doing one of these “Year in Review” posts, here are links to 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019). I consider it a truly great honor and privilege that so many people are interested in my work and my creative voice… I can’t believe how lucky I am to have the opportunity to be creative for a living. I recently posted an extensive (yet still far from complete) list of acknowledgements for TITAN, I truly couldn’t do what I do, for better or for worse, without the support of so many, and if you are reading this, that includes you. So my sincere thanks for your interest, your support, your feedback. A happy new year to all and a peaceful holiday season!
TITAN
Obviously this was the big event for me creatively this year… After a long search with several bumps in the road, TITAN ended up being published in English by the wonderful Portland-based publisher Oni Press, and I couldn’t be happier with the final result. Even though TITAN was published in 2017, this new edition was a ton of work, I was doing lots of last-minute edits to the book, touching up artwork and doing some rewrites to get the whole book reading as smoothly as possible, drawing new pages to add some depth to the book, designing the new cover, re-lettering, and more, which made this new edition a huge proportion of my creative output for the year. On top of that I spent a ton of time doing interviews and other outreach in the hopes of connecting TITAN with the biggest audience I can given the pandemic… This lead to some super fun conversations, like my talk with the aforementioned Jonathan Hill, appearances with dear old friends on podcasts like Comix Claptrap and Serious Moonlighting, and the official launch of the book with Ben H. Winters hosted by Librairie D+Q.
The TITAN window display at Librairie D&Q in Montréal
I’m happy to say that so far the critical response to TITAN has been very positive. Quill & Quire ran a starred review and said that TITAN is a “fast-moving page-turner, but it is also a complex, visceral, even chilling exploration of the ways our identities, and our very humanity, are enmeshed with the larger political landscapes in which we find ourselves – for better and, sometimes, worse.” Grovel rated it 5-stars and said TITAN is a “perfect storm of European-style science fiction, packed with drama, character, understated futurism and a deep intelligence.” and I loved that Montreal Review of Books called it “…a pointed adventure that is incredibly deep and complex.”
Reader reactions have also been a delight, with some people loving the book and others less so, I read all of them and really appreciate the time and energy people put into thinking about my work, including the ones that are critical. I posted quotes from some of my favorites earlier this year, and I just put up a new one, Reader Reviews Redux, which has some great reactions (I’ll take a moment to encourage you to honestly rate and review the book on the platform(s) of your choice, like Goodreads, Amazon, Powells Books, etc… It makes a big difference in other people discovering the book).
PRIX DES LIBRAIRES
13e Avenue Tome 1, the series I co-created with writer Geneviève Pettersen, won the inaugural Prix des Libraires Jeunesse for Comics, a huge honor! This comes in addition to the whopping seven nominations the book had already garnered. Work is set to begin on 13e Avenue Tome 2 soon, I’ll be sure to keep you updated with some sneak peeks once that book gets up and running… Hopefully it won’t be long before I can announce it’s coming to a libraire near you (and eventually get released in English)!
Geneviève Pettersen and I accepting the Prix des Libraires (Photo © Charles Bélisle )
CECI N’EST PAS UNE PUB
Most of my comic projects this year are still under wraps until 2021, but one comic I drew was most definitely on public display, right in the middle of the Place d’Youville in Québec City as part of Ceci N’est Pas une Pub, part of the Québec en Toutes Lettres Festival. The final project, a collaboration with the writer Alexandre Fontaine-Rousseau, was huge, nearly four feet across! So cool to see my art displayed in this format!
Photo by Paul Bordeleau
LETTERS TO MONTRÉAL
Another project I was really delighted to be part of was the “Letters to Montréal” anthology from the Montréal Comic Arts Festival! My four-page story, inspired by the city I have now been living in for over five years (!?!), was a nearly silent look at a post-apocalyptic Montréal. A ton of great artists were involved and the sales benefit the Montreal Comic Arts Festival, so well worth checking out!
MAGAZINES
As I always say, magazines have a special spot in my heart, I am always just tickled seeing my art running alongside an article, interview, or short story. This year I did the reading-themed “cartoon” for the Summer issue of the Montreal Review of Books, an illustration of disappointed punks and an homage to one of my favorite spots in Montréal for Maisonneuve, more work for the Monitor, a couple pieces for the Feathertale Review (including two pieces in their upcoming 25th issue), and a cover and full “package” of drawings for Precedent magazine. Looking forward to what mags I’ll have work in next year… Art directors, hit me up!
BOOKS, PODCASTS, ALBUMS, AND MORE
I got the chance to work with some fantastic clients new and old this year to help them bring their visions to life. I designed the first two books in the Five-Finger Jazz series by Brock Chart, the wordmark for the new Too Legitimate to Quit podcast, a free-to-download coloring page for Super Essential Workers, a bunch of illustrations for Fair Vote Canada’s Building a Better Democracy campaign, the cover for Silly Songs (the sophomore album from Kids Songs Rule, actually drawn a couple years back but updated for the release), designed the cover for film director S. Craig Zahler’s new geraphic novel Forbidden Surgeries of the Hideous Dr. Divinus, and another volume in the You Can Write It series.
LOOKING TO 2021 AND BEYOND
Next year will see the appearance to more than a few projects that I have been working on throughout 2020, including the as-yet-still-secret monthly comic I have been drawing (I think the publisher is just about to finally officially announce it, so expect some news from me soon!) and other long-simmering projects like the release of Brecht Evens’ City of Belgium which I entirely hand-lettered, coming out from Drawn & Quarterly. I am also hoping to start writing and drawing a brand-new graphic novel called Blue Moon, and illustrating the second volume of 13e Avenue as well. There are sure to be lots of other surprises along the way as well, I’m sure!I am very hopeful about our world in the coming year, I think we have turned an important page and, I hope, we will be headed in a better direction going forward. As all of us move in to an uncertain future, together or apart, I wish everyone reading these words a bright new year, and a peaceful holiday season. Thank you as always for your interest and support.
Reader Reviews Redux
Photo by Matthew SciarappaEarlier this year I posted quotes from some of my favorite early reader reviews of TITAN, including the good, the bad, and the just plain funny. Now that the book is officially out, here is a new round of critiques and praise culled from sites like Goodreads, Amazon, Netgalley, and more.
If you have read TITAN I strongly encourage you to rate and/or review the book on whatever platform you prefer, including on the websites of booksellers like Powells Books, Indigo, Barnes & Noble, etc… It can really help new people discover the book who otherwise wouldn’t ever hear about me or TITAN!
As always a huge thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed TITAN, regardless of if they loved it or loathed it… As I think you can see here I really appreciate the time people take to review the book and I don’t mind criticism at all, I really appreciate the chance to learn what people thing, negative or positive.
“I love the minimalist color palette of TITAN. The tones of red and pink give a cast of warning throughout the entire book—as if a siren were constantly flashing light on each scene. Its lucidity allows Vigneault’s ability to craft texture and dimension through line work to shine. This is a graphic novel that utilizes every millimeter of its form to storytell. The result is completely satisfying.”
—Matthew Sciarappa
“An engaging exploration of class, body, anger, lust and love…with space mining! The balm to those of you who want to love the film “Outland” but have sworn off of Sean Connery. The colour and art-style work together beautifully, both sweaty and vibrant.“
—Adam A.
“The crux of Titan is about questioning capitalism, especially the fidelity to profits over living beings. Vigneault uses intense violence to show the outcome of those priorities. The overall story focuses mostly on violence and showing the errors of the way of capitalism, at the detriment of some plot development. Things go from bad to worse extremely quickly, but we spend an entire chapter with Phoebe and João that seemed entirely unnecessary. The ending wraps everything up in a nice bow with a major time jump, and I would have rather liked to see how Phoebe ended up the way she did, rather than being told what happened afterwards.”
—Sara S.
“While a very relevant story, I had trouble connecting to the characters and several plot points felt rushed or confusing. The artwork was interesting but not consistent: sometimes the Titans appeared to be twice the size of the Terrans, and sometimes they were only slightly taller (even when comparing the two main characters, Phoebe and João, it was unclear what their size difference was).”
—Lauren F.
“The book has a really interesting art style that I really enjoyed. It takes a minute to get used to but once I did, I loved it. “
—Jill K.
“The art work is BEAUTIFUL. Each panel is well done and there is a surprising amount of detail in each scene that adds to the story and really helps you feel like you’re on Titan… There were some twists (especially towards the end) that I did not expect, which was refreshing since I was worried that I was able to predict the climax and conflict resolution, but there were definitely things I had not guessed or thought about.
PLUS, there was representation of diverse sexualities, with a character having depicted relations with both men and women, which was nice. Yay for LGBTQ+ rep!
Even though I liked this graphic novel over all, I definitely did have some issues with it. I was surprised when the romantic relationship between Pheobe and João was revealed because I personally felt that the two had no chemistry, so to me the relationship felt forced and weird. Also, was not expecting such detailed sex scene going in, so that was definitely a surprise. Left nothing to the imagination.“
—Jordan R.
“I think this graphic novel does a good job exploring the gaps of workers, worker’s right, and capitalism. The story itself is fast-paced, so it will be a suitable reads for those who wants a meaningful story that moves fast.“
—Farah F.
“Science fiction about social and political revolution, and the compromises we make for progress. Excellent storytelling, but part of me felt the book should have been longer. I know it was originally published in a series of comics, and early chapters have that feel of a creator slowly exploring his world without worrying about an overall arc for a specific final volume. But then about half way through it seems to start barreling down a path of plot and theme, that feels more like being written for the final graphic novel. But still happy to see a well told graphic novel exploring themes about the inherent problems with capitalism and the hypocrisies of revolution.”
—Chris D.
“I really enjoyed the world created by the author, with its complex politics and obvious parallels to current world situations. The plot was cleverly constructed, having several interesting twists, although some of the dialogue between the characters felt unrealistic. Towards the end, a couple of aspects of the story were slightly rushed, and I would have preferred more time for it all to play out.“
—Jon B.
“TITAN attempts to be subversive, but I’m not entirely certain if it pulls through… The story tries to tease out a class struggle & eventual uprising, but inherently, I feel like the story’s centering of João as our focus and semi-narrator, as opposed to Phoebe or another Titan, makes it imbued with the gaze of the managerial Terran class.”
—Vicky Again
“…after a slow start, I found this a highly effective graphic novel about the struggle for workers’ rights on a moon of Saturn with the extra bonus of a touching love story featuring star-crossed lovers.“
—Vivienne O.
“Vigneault also doesn’t shy away from showing the enormous costs of the struggle for equality: the conflicts in this book aren’t resolved easily, but with violence that escalates into years of war. This sort of honesty about what it looks like to engage in long-term struggle against oppressive forces is essential. By literally drawing the Titan workers as massively larger than their Terran managers, Vigneault visually illustrates the imbalance of power between the 99% and the 1%. Probably my only qualm here is with the theme of corruption in union leadership; not that this doesn’t happen in real life, of course, but it’s been a disproportionate plot device in a lot of media that I’ve consumed lately… Lastly, this book has a great extended sex scene, between a curvy woman and a male POC! And we get to see a penis multiple times! (So, definitely for adults.)”
—Michelle Hogmire
“This was more like what I was hoping The Expanse would be like. My only complaint is that I want to know more of the story… It’s fun to think that two hundred years from now, people could still play records and they may call all the music of today “folk.” What I learned: This book turned me on to Margo Guryan.”
—Ryan Fohl
“I thought Phoebes’s character development’s well done, she felt unique yet relatable her back story is so cool and I loved seeing where she lived who she hung out with who raised her…etc. Joao’s character on the other hand seemed a bit flat, I wanted to know more about him about his backstory, his life before this moment, I wanted to see what he brought with him from home to take on this mission, what photo does he have on his desk, what made him be open with the Titans and put his cards on the table like he did. “
—Reem Aliadib
“For a sci-fi story, Titan surprised me with its focus and careful attention to labor relations and implications of colonization and scientific advancement in space. I wish there had been more time to focus on the interpersonal aspects of terran/titan divides, but that is more of a personal preference for my fiction consumption rather than a negative of the narrative as a whole! In particular, I’m interested in sci-fi that really interrogates the ways that colonization past and future influences our narratives of space: João is afro-Brazilian, and interacting with terrans and titans of different racial backgrounds — Pheobe and João talk about music that is grounded in terran history! There is a thread there that would have interested me so much to chase down.”
—Celia M.
“Definitely for a mature audience, and the gritty, ugly aesthetic matches well. Doesn’t make for the most pleasant experience necessarily, but it certainly fits the story the author is trying to tell.”
—Benjamin Elliott
TITAN is the kind of Science Fiction you’ve been waiting to make a comeback, very quickly I felt very nostalgic! The art work is both simple and overwhelming, it’s this lovely-to-devour artistic machinery that ties it together… I was quite content reading along this almost stereotypical set up to a Sci-fi story set on another planet. HOWEVER out of nowhere this story then became visually and fictionally sexual, brutal and depressingly relevant… When you get into the last half of this book it becomes war disguised as revolution; tackling death and deceit within topics like differences of species, destruction of worlds, sacrifice and always, this ‘rule’, that there must be two separate sides so there is someone to bite at someone else, whether there is reason or no… I enjoyed it because as a Sci Fi lover, particularly of old movies like Logan’s Run, Solaris, 2001; it felt like home.“
—Flamingo C.
“The two main characters were intriguing, if underdeveloped and cliché (more 20th century music lovers?? At least the music choices were good). Phoebe’s backstory and arc was my favourite, with her inner conflict and loyalties. It was also interesting to see how João, as part of the privileged ruling class, realises that he can’t be the saviour, and only antagonises the Titans further by trying to single-handedly solve Homestead’s problems. The other characters were diverse but a little one-dimensional.”
—Ella B.
“I liked this story of conflict and rioting on another planet. The space and technology aspects kept it interesting. The art wasn’t completely to my liking at first, but I ended up liking it and it works really well for the story.”
—Wayne M.
“Whilst the graphic novel explores interesting concepts and issues I would have preferred for it to have given more depth, and to have explored the nuances of the ideas it was challenging. This graphic novel also suffers from a problem a lot of others suffer from: I wanted to know the characters further. I felt I only learnt about João and Phoebe on a surface level and can’t fully detail their motivations, fears and passions; I would have preferred to have spent more time with them and learn what truly makes these characters tick.”
—Evelyn B.
“I enjoyed this little graphic novel. I think it has a nice commentary on class divide and revolution. On social hierarchies and how differences can separate or bring us together.“
—Brandilyn B.
“DNF at 40%. The art style was absolutely GORGEOUS but I had no idea what was happening to the point where it was hurting my head. It wasn’t the book, I think, it was just me. One Star.“
—Tessie J.
