A look into a handful of unsympathetic people's lives in Paris. All of the people in this were pretty awful. It's a little snippet of time in their lives and how they randomly intersect. The art and coloring is really fugly as well.

A short slice of life graphic novel that does a masterful job of weaving together the lives of several seemingly random people: a mild-mannered office clerk, a voice actor, a high powered exec and his two rebellious daughters and a 50-something obsessed with plastic surgery.
They all come together seamlessly in a story that urges you to appreciate the people around you, since you never know what the seemingly average life may be hiding.

Self-centered, oversexed and unsympathetic French characters populate Body and Soul.

Mrs. Lopez, a 50-year-old woman, is trying to use plastic surgery to maintain her youth. Her husband, Victor, is working himself to death. He is trying to get the rights to a book from an elderly woman named Mrs. Fruttero. Their two daughters, Agnes and an unnamed younger sister, are not falling too far from the tree. Agnes is in a relationship with a man that owes a lot of money to a street thug. Her sister is fat and a shoplifter. A lonely man, Jean-Pierre, feels invisible. He gets conned by a young redhead, amazingly Agnes, in the street. He tries kickboxing without success. He meets Mrs. Lopez in the street. While they are talking they hear a nearby car crash. Later, we discover that the car crash is caused by one of the major characters. Jean-Pierre looks for a connection with an acquaintance, Cyrus. Cyrus meets Agnes at her father’s office. They begin having an affair that night. In the meantime, Mrs. Lopez and Jean-Pierre have sex in a men’s room. Jean-Pierre and Mrs. Fruttero meet in Cyrus’ hallway.

The coincidences in this graphic novel just don’t stop. There are two sex triangles within the eight characters within this novel. Are there only eight people in this town? I was expecting the fat younger sister to start having an affair with the elderly woman because they were the only two not having sex. The artwork is good but contains multiple images of female and male genitalia so Body and Soul is definitely only for adults. I usually like slice of life graphic novels in foreign lands. However, this book is just too contrived. I also disliked every single character.
I’m disappointed that I can only give Body and Soul 2 stars and those are only for the illustrations.

Thanks to the publisher, Europe Comics, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

'Body and Soul' by Gregory Mardon is a slice of life graphic novel. I wasn't sure I liked it at first, but it got better as it went along.

The story starts with a group of aging women who are discussing all the plastic surgery they have to keep themselves looking young. There is a man who works in a doctor's office who feels like he's a victim, so he takes up boxing. There is a young shoplifter who feels like her family doesn't care. There is a young woman who travels the world and collects tattoos. The story winds all these lives together into a story about how we are all connected and all trying to find ourselves.

It felt a bit vacuous and empty at first, but seeing how all the characters connect made the trip worthwhile. The art is not too bad either.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Some people in Paris are connected, and life happens, and then they make more connections between them, and then you know, more life, and more connections, and then, you know, it stops. The end. Apparently it's part of a series, which would have been nice to know. Either way, an ending or an actual point would have been nice too. Come here if you want exceedingly broadly-drawn and often unlikable characters in a La-Ronde-with-clothes-on kind of piece.

An interesting story with some great color work. A lovely graphic novel.

Something Happens As You Keep Reading

At the outset this feels like it's going to be just a soapy tale of Parisian angst in graphic novel format. Everyone's having a crisis of some sort and it's all just so dramatic and agonizing. But wait. Remarkably, with humor and flair and generosity, Mardon ends up showing us a dozen or so connected and vital characters whose stories make sense, complement each other, and offer us more insight into la condition humaine that one would expect possible in a graphic novel.

We start with one family - Mom is resisting the ravages of aging, Dad's a workaholic, daughter 1 is a wild child and daughter 2 aches for some attention. Two men, who happen to be friends, separately cross paths with Mom and daughter 1. Other characters drift into and out of the frame. Bit by bit we begin to bring each character into focus. Each one of them reveals dimensions and aspects of their personalities that are unexpected, unpredictable, and often amusing or touching or illuminating.

French reviewers, (my French is a bit rusty), emphasize Mardon's rare ability authentically to trace the paths by which we cross and recross each others' paths, and celebrate his humor and imagination. There are a number of Mardon volumes, most apparently connected by the central figure Jean-Pierre, (who is featured here and feels suspiciously like a stand in for the author), but all of them seem to focus on the ordinary and the extraordinary moments in each life, and on the surprises hiding in each person's individual history. This is ambitious and true work, and a startling departure from the usual sort of storytelling one encounters in contemporary graphic novels.

It might seem that the graphic medium would be ill suited for such personal and rather ordinary appearing, (in a visual sense), life, but actually the visual aspect is an important part of these tales. The style varies as the story requires - sometimes the art is cartoony, sometimes sketchy and ugly, sometimes vivid and sometimes murky. Pencils and inking and color vary as need requires, and occasionally scenes are exaggerated for effect and sometimes they are understated. At many points this looks like a story board for a movie production, and that's not a bad way to describe the overall effect.

So, this ended up being engaging and rewarding, and all existential angst should be drawn so well. (Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

This is brilliant!

This graphic novel tells the story about a group of people who are connected to each other in different ways. Some of this connectedness is obvious, such as family and friends, but some of it is tenous such as strangers who meet each other and then form connections, and neighbours who are living close by but who are really unknown.

The story illustrates this connectedness through one family. The family has a mother, father and two daughters. One daughter is young in her 20s and very pretty. She doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. The other daughter is in her teens and is overweight, grumpy and crying out for attention in her own way.

The parents are distracted and absorbed bytheir own issues. The father is distracted by his work demands and success. He is focused on the need to get things done and to earn money to keep his family in the style they are accustomed to. The mother is in her fifties and yearning after her looks. She is obsessed with hanging onto her youth and beating back the signs of ageing.

The story focuses on the different connections this family makes with other people and two of these other people are young men who connect with the mother and daughter in quite a random way. These two young men are friends with each other and are also conneceted to other people. One young man encounters the family through the elder daughter, the other young man encounters the family through the wife.

As the story unfolds we have a network of relationships and connections. These are family relationships, relationships with friends and lovers, and we get to see how each person has needs which sometimes are not met by the person that you think should meet them.

The story is intriguing. The artwork is good with bright pictures and a really strong continuity amongst the characters which threads itself through the story. As the story unfolds the reader gets to see the different networks and connectedness and understands what is happening.

I think this is an incredibly fascinating book and quite powerful in the way it uses pictures to tell this story. At the end the reader is left to ponder their own network of relationships and how they may or may not be meeting the needs of others. Once again another great comic published by Europe comics. My only criticism is that it ended too soon.

Comic provided by Europe Comics via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Read this in a couple of hours. Really enjoyable and expressive animation. The stories linked up nicely. A slice of life story.