Blexbolex: "People"
and other books
Blexbolex is an pseudonym of French illustrator Bernard Granger. Born in 1966 in Douai, Bernard learned silk-screen printing in Angouleme in the late 80s, eventually reaching the level of skill and identity that brought him worldwide fame and awards.
Since 2008, Blexbolex has been living in Germany, but still published mainly in France. Four of his children's books — "L'Imagier des gens", "Saisons", "Romance" and "Nos vacances" (all first published by French publishing house Albin Michel Jeunesse), have been translated into several languages, and UK-based publisher Nobrow specialised on graphic novels, published in English three his adult books — "Abecederia", "Dog Crime", and "No Man’s Land".
For children
"People" (L'Imagier des gens) is so far the only Blexbolex's book translated into Russian (by Pink Giraffe publishing house). At each spread there represented a pair of people, between whom there is a certain connection. Sometimes this connection is obvious (pupils/teacher, biologist/astronomer, spectator/director), sometimes it needs to be thought out, found in dialogue with oneself or other people, explained to children. This book provokes thoughts about how diverse humanity is and what paradoxes it sometimes contains. Each spread of this book can be transformed in exciting story, full of historical references, drama, or comedy, on the contrary.
"People" — the first part of nominal trilogy conceived by Blexbolex: "People" (L'Imagier des gens), "Seasons' (Saisons) and "Ballad" (Romance). All three books retain the word-image structure, but otherwise they are independent of each other and you can read them (assuming that you actually read books even if they have no words at all, but differently) in any order.
In the "Seasons", which are logically divided into guess which four parts, the images also mostly go in pairs, but in the links between them there are less brainteasers and more contemplation.
From season to season, the landscape is changing, people’s activities are changing, their mood and feelings are changing. And certain objects, sets and characters reappear, adding a bit of memory game and attentiveness practice to the contemplative, almost meditative process.
And "Ballad" ("Romance" on original French) is a book of fairytales. It starts from the simple path home from school, and then grow into an enormous world full of magical creatures with their own twisted storylines.
Single words in the book give a hint how the story should flow, but the main meanings are contained in the illustrations. Here and there, instead of words, gaps were left so that the reader could act as an active co-author of the plot. By the way, in order to better understand the structure of magical stories, Blexbolex before creating this book read the "Morphology of the tale" by Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp.
The result was a trilogy about people, about their relationship with nature and about imagination. That is, only through these three books only the whole human life can be explained.
Next Blexbolex's children's book, outside of the trilogy, was a silent book "Nos vacances" ("Vacation"). This is a story about a girl who spends every end of summer with her grandfather in his house. But this time a guest arrived on the train, a little elephant. The girl does not accept the elephant, because it violates her usual rhythm and distracts the attention of grandfather from her. The girl offends the elephant, pours water on him, takes away toys, and even drives him away so that grandfather will spend time only with her, as before. And only when the little guest finally leaves, she realizes that she's rather sad than happy that he's gone.
In 2018 Albin Michel released new Blexbolex's book "Maître Chat", but I haven't seen it in the flesh yet to be able to write something informative about it. I found only a couple of pictures on the Internet and a description from which it follows that this is a story about a Puss in Boots, a rabbit and a girl. Seems like true if you look on the cover. Interesting fact — almost the same cat and exactly the same rabbit can be found in Blexbolex's graphic novel "No Man's Land".
For adults
"Abecederia" ("Die Flucht nach Abecederia") was published in German by Büchergilde Gutenberg in 2007. This is an alphabet for adults drawn in the style of noir films. Two French delinquents, Leon and Bernard Blanchett, are hiding from international persecution in the mysterious jungle of Central Africa after an unsuccessful bank robbery. In 2008, 'Abecederia' was published in French, in 2012 - in English at Nobrow.
In the same year, Nobrow released the 40-page comic strip "Dog Crime" ("Crimechien", Pipfax, 2008) and its big sequel, "No Man’s Land" ("Hors-zone", Cornélius, 2012). The first book tells another criminal story about a man on the other side of the law, which [SPOILER ALERT] ends with him putting two bullets into his head. The second book immerses us in the psyche of this man in the short moment between life and death, playing out in agony numerous surrealistic and quite creepy plots.
What else?
Blexbolex has neither a personal website nor a public instagram.. Some of his commercial projects can be viewed on Illustrissimo. Between these projects — Blexbolex's illustrations to Panasonic Japan's advertising campaign 'Life is electric'. This is an excerpt from the commercial video: