Word: rabagliati
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...loathed summer camp. Forced to go by my parents, it meant being away from television and having to participate in physically demanding, often competitive, group activities. In spite of this prejudice I came away from Michel Rabagliati's summer camp memoir, "Paul Has a Summer Job," (Drawn and Quarterly; 160 pp.; $16.95) with a warm sense of second-hand nostalgia. It has the restorative effect of a sunny day by a sparkling lake...
...Both funny and touching, Michel Rabagliati's "Paul Has a Summer Job," has an authenticity sorely lacking in most forms of entertainment, not least of all comix. Exactly like a restorative trip to the woods, it reminds you of what you really enjoy literature for -- the chance to connect to others and what's real -- and get away from superficiality and irony. If only my summer camp had been like this...
Taking place in Rabagliati's native Quebec during the heyday of Queen and Supertramp, "Summer Job" begins with Paul, the author's alter-ego, having just quit school and suffering the tedium of working at a printing press. Artistically inclined, he had acquired a government grant to paint murals on the school walls, but a ruthless principal pulled him off the job due to low marks. Bored, directionless and angry, the last stroke comes when Paul's pet bird dies. Luckily an acquaintance calls to offer Paul a job as a counselor at a woodsy camp for underprivileged children...
...bonus to Paul's increased maturity, Annie begins to take notice of him and the book soon becomes a charming first-summer-love story as well. Rabagliati does such a wonderful job of creating real characters that it is almost like we are falling in love as well. Well, we are, actually. Like any proper summer camp story, "Summer Job" has adventure as well. A canoe trip down some rapids soon turns dangerous when one of the boats cracks in half, trapping a camper under the swift current. Later, Paul and Annie find themselves in charge of Marie, a camper...
...Growing up in Quebec (the book first appeared in French as "Paul a un travail d'été") Michel Rabagliati had more exposure to French comix than American ones. Consequently his style looks more like Tintin than the X-Men. Called "bandes dessinées," or the "clear line" style, he uses big, simple outlines with a minimum of chiaroscuro shading -- perfect for a bright, outdoorsy story. Rabagliati has a wonderful knack for caricature. Paul, for example, is distinguished mostly by thick brush strokes over each dot of an eye, and three vertical lines of "scruff" on his chin...
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