They come from the North
Sti, François Boucq, Alain Dodier or Marion Poinsot: do you know these names? They are authors of comics with an (inter)national reputation and scope. Their works are read, reread, shared and commented on with each new publication. And do you know what they have in common? They were all born in the North!
Their artistic production is as rich as it is varied, touching on all fields, from fantasy to fiction, including detective stories, graphic novels and the First World War, and giving birth to heroes and heroines who have marked entire generations! So, who doesn't know Jérôme K. Jérôme Bloche, the four-eyed detective who can never pass his driving test? This series, born from the talent of Alain Dodier, originally from Dunkerque, has been awarded at the Angoulême Festival in 2010!
Also from Dunkerque, Marion Poinsot took advantage of the emergence of the Internet to participate in one of the craziest hexagonal roguelike adventures: the Dungeon of Naheulbeuk! What was at the beginning only a joke between friends became, from 2005, a comic book whose success never faded.
A massive, eclectic work, with a constantly renewed quality: this is how we could (too) briefly summarize the career of François Boucq (aka Zorro) from Lille. Holder of the Grand Prix of the city of Angoulême, awarded in 1998 for his entire career, he has collaborated with Fluide glacial and Pilote. We owe him, among many other successes, The Adventures of Jerome Boucherot, an opus of Super Dupont, THE franchouillard superhero, or Bouncer !
Among the new generation of authors adored by young people, Sti is in a good position! He is the author, in particular, of the series Les Rabbit and Mes premières fois. He also brought his stroke to collective albums: Les Tuniques Bleues, Le Marsupilami and Les Profs.
Comics that take place in the North
Many comic books feature the North. However, among them, only one has had the honor of being adapted into a film, and a film that subsequently won a Palme d'Or at Cannes! It is Le Bleu est une couleur chaude, by Julie Merah, adapted to the screen by Abdellatif Kechiche under the title of La Vie d'Adèle! Lille, where the love story between Clementine and Adele takes place, is also featured in many other comics: the fourteenth volume of the soccer adventures of Eric Castel(Fifth goal for Lille) or in the ninth volume of Leo Leden, entitled Chaud beffroi. The link between Lille and the ninth art does not stop there, the history of the city has been a fertile ground for many! Proof of this is, among many others, Robert 1944: de Roubaix à Amiens, les derniers mois d'un résistant by Jean-Michel Vanweydeveldt. Even LOSC has had its own books: Complètement Dogues and Hors Jeu!
The story of destinies and life choices is also a central theme in the literary production of the North: Vagues à l'âme by Gregory Mardon, Pain d'alouette by Christian Lax or Les Bonhommes de pluie by François Dupras are all testimonies, moments captured and narrated with a certain gentleness tinged with melancholy and a pinch of irony.
Of course, mines, the "corons" and industry are also favorite subjects for comic strip authors. Some tell of childhoods at the foot of the slag heaps, in the "corons", while others superimpose the periods to rewrite famous episodes with the hindsight of time. Les Gueules rouges by Eddy Vaccaro, Les Mangeurs de cailloux by Jean-Luc Loyer, La Salle du pendu by Gaëtan Guyot, and even the adaptation of Germinal by Jean-Michel Arroyo, are all facets of this mining universe that still fascinates and challenges.
Finally, there are the ULOs, the Unidentified Reading Objects. Works that make you laugh, smile and that have no place in any specific category: the astonishing Les Mots contre les Maux by Gregdizer, which features Lille and M, the singer, El'z'avintures ed'Biloute, en ch'ti, by Olier, Les Carnavaleux by the Dunkerquean Bloz or the historical and dramatic Fourmies la rouge by Inker.
The emblematic authors of the North
The historian and academician Alain Decaux, the writers Annie Degroote and Marie Desplechin, the author Jean Piat, the literary critic Sainte-Beuve, the renowned Franck Thilliez, the fantastic poet Théo Varlet and the mythical Marguerite Yourcenar are only a few names in a list that would make more than one publishing house green with envy! Moreover, the last named, Marguerite de Crayencour of her real name (and who was the first woman elected to the French Academy), gave her name to the Villa départementale Marguerite Yourcenar, located in Saint-Jans Cappel, a place where those who love words and want to follow in the literary footsteps of their illustrious predecessors come for a writing residency.
Among the illustrious works born from the fertile pen of writers and which take place in the North, some are emblematic and unavoidable: Germinal by Émile Zola, with this striking portrait of the working class and mining society in the 19th century, L'Orme du Mail by Anatole France (first part of the tetralogy L'Histoire contemporary and which takes place not far from Tourcoing), A summer in Flanders by Michael Jenkins, a novel of apprenticeship tinged with a subtle sweetness and touching portraits, or Weekend in Zuydcoote, the first novel by Robert Merle (which won the Goncourt prize the year it was published, in 1949).
