I just picked up this GN by Michel Rabagliati because I liked the art on the first flip-through.
It was a great read. A little formulaic from time to time, but overall a very moving coming-of-age story set at a wilderness summer camp in Canada during the 1970's. Beautiful, brushy, impressionistic artwork.
I've never seen anything by Rabagliati before. Does anyone know of any other work he's done? Has anyone else read this?

He's pretty talented alright. D&Q translated and reprinted "Paul in the Country" from his self published attempt, and it's similar in style and scope to "Summer Job", although with not so many pages. I'm pretty sure he's been in a couple of anthologies as well, but can't think of what they might be.

He's a good fit for D&Q in that he matches pretty well with Seth in style and temperment, both looking at the past with curator's eyes and ears. Although he's only been in comics two years or so I think he's around 40.

It's a marvel.

The most beautiful thing about this comic book is how from the start it's so charming -- sweet and downright heartwarming -- but... See, if it had continued to be no more than that, it would've been a success. But, almost imperceptibly, surprisingly, somewhere towards the final third, the lovingly-etched details of Paul's experience this pivotal summer accumulate to a truly profound and moving ode to the way people grow up, the way life changes.

It's just freakin' beautiful.

Paul in the Country was a lovely warm up to Summer Job, containing all the warmth and insight of which Rabagliati is capable, but not going as deep as he was able to in Summer Job.

The story Paul: Apprentice Typographer appeared in Drawn & Quarterly Vol. 3. Paul stories also appear in the second, third and (new) fourth volumes of the anthology Spoutnik, from the Quebec-based publisher, Les Editions de la Pasteque. Problem for me, tho, is that these anthos feature a mix of "silent," English and French stories; I don't speak French, and two of the volumes include translation booklets/indexes, while the other two don't.

Still, track down all the damn Paul you can possibly get you're grubby hands on, I say. You'll be glad you did.

Matthew

The french edition of Paul in the Country wasn't self-published; it was published by La Pasteque.

A pair of recent anthologies of Canadian comics both have new Rabagliati stories in them. They are Cyclops - Aim for the Eye (Conundrum/Goutte D'Encre) and L'Enfance du Cyclope (Mille Iles). The English one is available through Cold Cut and probably Last Gasp as well.

Hard to believe that the guy never drew a comic until he was 40, huh?

"Paul has a Summer Job" is one of my favourite GNs published this year (I've got it signed with a sketch .
I liked all of his other stories, as well.
Perhaps the reason he is so good and yet has only started drawing comics is that he is not coming to comics field with all the usual fanboy baggage. He is primarily an illustrator and I think he said in some interview that he only read and liked Asterix and TinTin as a kid and didn't read comics much after that.

Jamie,

Thanx for that tip!

But, those two anthologies, they're similarly-title but actually different books???

Matthew

The two anthologies were edited by the same people. The contents don't completely overlap; they each have different Rabagliati stories, for example. The English one has some pieces that appear in the French one, as well some material that appeared in the first Cyclope (in French), and some stuff that didn't appear in either of the French books.

Jamie,

Hey, thanx again for the info. If those Cyclope Paul stories aren't the ones that appear in the Spoutnik volumes, I'll try to get ahold of them -- at least the one in English!

Matthew

Matthew: The MG story in Cyclops appeared in one of the Spoutniks, so it sounds like you're all set for now, as far as English Rabagliati goes.

There's supposedly a new story by Rabagliati in the upcoming Drawn & Quarterly vol.5.
One would expect that it will likely be a translation of one of the stories from Cyclope or the most recent Spoutnik.

later,
dave