3/5

Interesting way to tell Dalí's life.
I liked the art and think it was spot on for the period this graphic novel is set.
Considering it's written V1 and "to be continued" at the end of the book, there's definitely going to be a continuation to it, problably getting deeper into Dalí's life.

So far we didn't see much of his life, we start from his school period till his first encounter with Gala.
From this first volume tho, we can already get his different perception of the world and his way he connects with the people around him.

Good start to this series.

I am a fan of some of the other artists comics in this series, but felt this entry was only okay. Several of the recounted events seem historically inaccurate and the very thinly drawn side characters - like Luis Bunuel - are not given proper weight. There is still much to recommend here - especially the coloring - but I do not think I will be adding this to the library collection.

I loved the art in this, and I really wanted to love this more, but having no historical knowledge of Dali's life, I don't think this was the starting point book for me. I felt like it skipped around a lot and assumed that we already had a knowledge of these events and who's who. But I didn't and felt somewhat lost mostly. Having said that, I'd give any sequels a read to see if I could get anything more out of the story.

First published in France in 2023; published in translation by Europe Comics on October 25, 2023

Dalí is the first installment of a graphic biography of Salvador Dali. It begins with Dali’s childhood and follows him to age 22. The story depicts Dali as a young man who is tormented by grasshoppers. His father wants him to find an occupation that will produce a reliable income but recognizes that his son is too spacy for the business world and eventually basks in the glory of his son’s success.

Before Dali becomes known in the art world, his father sends him to art school in Madrid, hoping his son will at least earn a living by teaching drawing. Deciding that he looks like a sewer rat and hoping to blend in with his new friends, including Luis Buñuel and Federico García Lorca, Dali gets a Rudolph Valentino haircut, changes his wardrobe, and learns to drink cocktails, including one of his own bizarre invention. He still stands out, in part because he is obsessed with female armpits. I don’t know if the armpit kink is true, but the story gives the sense that the reader is getting to know the real Dali.

Dali is expelled when, after being asked to draw a sculpture of the Virgin Mary, he draws a scale (he admires the balance in the sculpture and is told to draw what he sees). He is accused of being a political revolutionary in a turbulent period of Spain’s history, is tossed into jail, and uses his notoriety to score a show with a gallery in Barcelona. He isn’t gay but he has sex with Lorca by proxy when he shags a woman who Lorca chooses for him.

Dali earns more shows and becomes an artistic hit in Catalonia, although Julie Birmant & Clément Oubrerie do not try to reproduce Dali’s work. The reader will need to look elsewhere to get a sense of Dali’s early style.

Buñuel is introduced to surrealism in Paris. During a visit to Catalonia, Buñuel introduces surrealism to Dali.

When Dali finally visits Paris, he flees from a bordello after seeing the women as praying mantises who want to devour him. I appreciated the graphic renderings of Dali’s nightmares and fantasies. Dali also discovers that random Parisian women will not satisfy his requests to display their armpits.

Dali clearly lived an interesting life. So far, Birmant and Oubrerie appear to be doing it justice in an abbreviated fashion, although I can’t say that I know much about Dali or art in general. The graphic style of Dalí is similar to the style of most graphic stories. When Dali visits an art museum and admires Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” the painting is rendered more as a blur than a reproduction of the original, although a greater effort is made to showcase a small portion that captures Dali’s attention. I’m a bit surprised that the first installment of a graphic series about Dali doesn’t focus more on Dali’s early work — it barely gives a sense of the art that earned so much praise — but the volume has value as an introduction to Dali the man, if not Dali the artist.

RECOMMENDED

A fun graphic novel telling the story Salvador Dali’s youth, his student days and friendships including Bunuel. The book finishes when he meets Gala. Nicely drawn and humorously told.

I rifled through the NetGalley catalog and this title caught my eye. The colors were bright and I've always loved Dali. Once I read further into the comic, unfortunately my interest dwindled. The illustrations and color palette were vibrant, but the story paled in comparison. It relayed the early life of Salvador Dali, but it was told in a boring and flat manner. It's tragic that a larger than life figure was muffled through a mediocre narrative. Although this was merely volume one, I don't believe I'll be continuing with the series. I can appreciate the author's dedication in sharing the life of this influential artist, but it didn't fully capture my attention.

Thanks to Europe Comics for giving me the ARC of this graphic novel in exchange of a honest review.

Dalí is one of my favorite artists ever. When i had the opportunity to see his work live it impacted me in such a way that from there on i simply adopted the Surrealism artistic movement as one of my favorites after German romanticism.

This graphic novel is about Dalí's early life, the trouble he had in university as a art student, how he and his friends, other important figures in art, began the surrealist movement and what it meant back then when there's a difficult political situation in both France and Spain. His journey is told in a very dynamic and fast-paced way that sometimes leave you lost, but i found it apt for portraying a character like Dalí. Though i would have liked more panels.

I'd recommend this to anyone interested in the subject, however i feel this is way more enjoyable if you already know a bit of the background of the characters and topics presented here.

I have mixed feelings about this book.
It starts with the cover, I don't love it, but after reading the story I could appreciate its meaning.
I enjoyed the drawings and the way the story was told. But after a certain part of the story I lost focus, it got slightly messy. I guess it truly is Dalí-like.
In general, it's a good story, a good book. It left me wanting to read more about Dalí's life.

3.5*

A truly fantastic look about Dali's early life and how he came into his own as an artist. The narrative is short but it allows its characters to become three dimensional. The illustrations are also amazing.

I liked the illustrations of this graphic novel but was at a loss with the story here and there. I'm aware that I'm lacking in knowledge when it comes to artists and maybe with a stronger background in the history of art I would have had a different experience. At some points I couldn't follow the events which was frustrating.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for this Advance Review Copy.

4.5★

This graphic novel, written in a humorous tone, tells the story of Salvador Dalí, a Spanish surrealist artist known for bizarre images in his works. The biography is part one - before he met Gala (the love of his life). It is about his student years when he was friends with José Bello, Federico García Lorca, and Luis Buñuel. In those days, no one would say he would become one of the 20th century’s best-known painters.

I like the illustrations. They are perfect for the story of Dalí.

Thanks to Europe Comics for the advance copy and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

I thought this was an amazing way to deal with a nonfiction topic. This is about the early life of Salvador Dali, but it's presented both seriously and with fantasy elements.
It's especially interesting to me because the book manages to deal with personal and political issues well, and I always feel as though my knowledge of that historical period is lacking. I hope I get to read the others in this series so I can learn more about these fascinating people.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

As with many historical figures, I am not familiar with Salvador Dali and his life, only with his name. This volume follows his childhood to his adulthood which seems to be filled from cover to cover with misadventures. Anyhow, since I'm not familiar with his life, this graphic novel makes me dizzy with how many details are in it and how little notes exist to actually explain them. I struggle to catch up and to see the artist and the writer's big terms and little nods until the book gets to the point of "Un chien andalou," the only movie made by him that I've seen. This is a good book. I'm not sure it's a great book for people who doesn't know his life already.

I really liked the drawing, although the text sometimes jumps in time and you don't know very well when Dalí arrived again to this or that city or what happened in between. The comic explores the relationship Dali had with his father and with Buñuel and Lorca, how his genius acted and his relationship with sex and his nightmares.

I don't know if it was really so important in regards to An Andalusian dog, because they basically say that the idea was his and not Buñuel’s.

By the way, both the drawing of the characters and the part of Madrid have reminded me of this other comic, The Knights of the Order of Toledo. From that time on is when it becomes more confusing regarding Dali’s biography and how he arrived to Paris...

My thanks to Europe Comics for a review copy of ‘Dalí 1: Before Gala’ with script by Julie Birmant and illustrated by Clément Oubrerie. It was translated from the French by Edward Gauvin.

This is the first volume in a biography of Salvador Dalí in a graphic novel format. It opens in November 1929 with Pablo Picasso and the poet Paul Éluard discussing Éluard’s wife, Gala, and Salvador Dalí. Picasso warns the poet about Dalí’s intentions and draws a sketch of a black cat with Dali’s signature moustache, saying of him: “there is something baleful and ancient about him. This is Dalí: Mephisto”.

The Dalí-cat then takes over the narrative telling the enthralled Gala about Dalí’s early life in Figueras as the son of a bourgeois lawyer and later his time in Madrid where he attended art school. At first he is a shy, dreamy, eccentric young man with long hair and unfashionable clothing. He is befriended by a group of young men associated with the emerging avant-garde movement: José Bello, Federico García Lorca, and Luis Buñuel.

They collectively draw Dalí out of his shell and encourage him to embrace modernity. There follows a number of misadventures in Madrid and eventually Paris where he becomes a member of the Surrealists. At the very end of Volume 1 Gala enters his life and the Dalí-cat teases the readers with a ‘to be continued’.

I was impressed with how well Birmant and Oubrerie were able to encapsulate Dalí’s early career, including his collaboration with Luis Buñuel on the groundbreaking film, ‘Un Chien Andalou’.

Clément Oubrerie’s art was excellent throughout and quite restrained, only occasionally moving into hallucinatory scenes, such as when a group of women morph into grasshoppers, an insect that fills Dalí with dread.

Overall, I found ‘Dalí 1: Before Gala’ an excellent example of how graphic novels can be utilised for a nonfiction topic, such as a biography. I can see that Birmant and Oubrerie have written a number of biographies of 20th century artists and hope that these too might find their way into English translations. I also plan to read Vol 2 of ‘Dalí’ when it is published.

Salvador Dali was a fascinating figure with an impressive talent and a strange personality. This graphic novel did a great job of depicting his life and rise to fame.

A very windy and often surreal (appropriately!) telling of Salvador Dali's early life, from his unusual stumbles through childhood until he moves to Paris to meet his destiny in the form of a woman: Gala.

3,5/5 | Very promising story that serves as an introduction to this version Dalí, the story might take some liberties but it reads so nicely and the art is just incredible.

I've been fascinated by Dali's art and cinematography for years, so I jumped at the chance to read this graphic novel.

Dali - Before Gala is the first volume in the series and tells about Dali's early life and art before the widespread fame. I enjoyed the context of his friendships and other relationships with other artists of the age, as well as his family dynamics and motivation behind becoming an artist. One of my favorite scenes was the imagining of his famous movie, Un Chien Andalou, together with his friend Luis Bunuel.

There's some confusion however and the story is rather disjointed, mostly due to the fact that Dali rarely says anything 100% intelligible. He is portrayed as perpetually doing and saying odd things that have nothing to do with the context, but everyone around him somehow enjoys and celebrates him for it. For this reason it's not really a biography, but rather an abstract interpretation of his life. Fitting that it leaves a lot to the interpretation, but some scenes just left me wondering what it was that I just read.

What I did love was the artwork. It has nothing to do with Dali's art style, and I didn't expect anything of the sort either. It's light and sketchy and portrays the general weirdness really well. There's also a Dali-as-a-cat narrator that's delightful throughout the book.

Overall, an interesting book - I'm just not sure where it's going! Maybe Vol 2 sheds some light.

✨ Disclaimer ✨ I received a free copy of this book and this is my honest review.

Volume 1 (?) Before Gala

The story of Dali, in comic book form. I love surrealism, and I am familiar with Dali's artwork, even doing a paper on his 'The Persistence of Memory', (1931) in college. His early life was a mystery to me and this comic lays out Dali's early years. Kicked out of art school, being famous for his early works, the artists he hung out with, only makes me desire to grow as an artist (myself) at that time in his life.

The artwork in this comic took liberties at showing us what it looks like in his head. I did know he was a bit of a nutcase.