BY FABIEN NURY AND SYLVAIN VALLÉE Dear Reader, I’m excited to be previewing for you the first few pages of Once Upon a Time in France. For years readers all over Europe have known what the English-speaking world will learn in the Fall: This book is special. When I first read Once Upon a Time in France, I was in a series of airports, hopping from connection to connection, on my way between conventions. The usual annoyances were as terrible as ever. But thanks to my stack of roughly translated print-off pages, every kick to the back of my seat, every gate announcement, every overly loud cellphone conversation completely melted away. I was so enthralled that I completely forgot I was surrounded by hundreds of people and began openly weeping at a scene late in the book. Moments like those are covetous and rare. And I know, somewhere in this moral quagmire of Nazi-occupied France, where there are few innocents, and none have the luxury of ethical purity, that you will find that your walls have disappeared, and your distractions faded away. Best, Gary Thompson, Graphic Novel Lead
Based on a true story, Once Upon a Time in France follows the life of Joseph Joanovici, a Romanian Jew who immigrated to France in the 1920s and became one of the richest men in Europe as a scrap-metal magnate. For some, he was a villain. For others, a hero. As Germany occupies France, Mr. Joseph thinks his influence can keep his family safe, but he soon finds that the only way to stay one step ahead of the Nazis is to keep his friends close and his enemies closer. Though he plays both sides of the fence as a Nazi collaborator and French resistant, a tangled web of interests forms around him that proves it will take a lot more than money to pay for the survival of his family. An international bestseller with over 1 million copies sold, the French series Once Upon a Time in France, collected here in one omnibus edition, has won the BDGest’Arts Best Scenario Award, BDGest’Arts Album of the Year, and Angoulême International Comics Festival Best Series Award, among many others. Fabien Nury has scripted more than fifteen comics series, including Once Upon a Time in France, which won the Best Series Award at the Angoulême Comics Festival and The Death of Stalin, which was adapted to the film with Steve Buscemi. Nury is also a television screenwriter and has created the Guyane TV series. Sylvain Vallée graduated from the Saint-Luc School of Brussels. He started as a cartoonist and a freelance illustrator in advertising. He published his first comic book with Glénat at age 25 and has worked on a dozen series.
Once Upon a Time in France is available in September. For an advance review copy, please contact Jacqline Barnes at publicity@deadreckoning.org
isaac! nooooo!
By order of His Majesty Tsar Nicolas II, all enemies of Great imperial Russia, Bolsheviks or Jews…
…are to be punished by death!
19 November 1905. Kishinev, Bessarabia, Romania…
3
There’s no one here, Commander!
Keep looking!
The children cannot have gone far.
Go away! You’re going to get me caught!
Pssst!
Please don’t leave me alone…
Eva? Mine’s Joseph. Stay calm, Eva. it’s almost over. Try to think about something else. Ev… Eva.
Shhhh…What’s your name?
4
I will extol Thee, my God, O King; And I will bless Thy name for ever and ever…
…Every day will I bless Thee; And I will praise Thy name for ever and ever…
…And His greatness is unsearchable.
…Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised…
I love you, Joseph.
I love you, Eva.
5
Eva!
She’s gone, Joseph. She left a long time ago.
Lucy…my good, loyal Lucy…you’re the only one left? Where are our friends?
I…I… I saw her… she’s waiting for me…
it’s me, Joseph, your old Lucy-fer… Remember?
it’s only us now, my love…
He came to see me… to see me die!
He’s here!
That stinking little judge from Melun…He never gives up…even if it serves no purpose…He’s still there, isn’t he?
He’s there.
6
Go and see, Lucy…tell me if he’s still there…
6 February 1965. Clichy…
Mitterand Candida against De Gaulle te
Are you a policeman?
I am a retired judge.
Excuse me?
Oh! I was close; I would’ve sworn that you were on surveillance.
You’ve been sitting there for a week without saying a word to anyone and watching the building across the street…You’re a policeman, right?
I’m waiting for a friend. For a week?
For eighteen years.
7
“To portray Joseph Joanovici in a graphic novel is to plunge into the dark alleys of World War II. The Gestapo, collaborators, inhuman sufferings, the Resistance—Joseph Joanovici combined a little of it all, blended into a dark, maleficent alchemy. . . . The story is breathtaking, and readers [are] riveted by the force of Fabien Nury’s script and the intensity of Sylvain Vallée’s graphics.” — JEAN-PHILIPPE LEFEVRE, Coup de Coeur BD “Once Upon a Time in France is one of the best series in recent years. Public and critical plaudits include the Parisian readers’ award in 2009 and the best-series award at Angoulême in 2011. The series traces the life of Joseph Joanovici, a Romanian Jewish scrap merchant who became one of the richest men in France during World War II.” —Le Parisien “The final years of an ambiguous, magnificent character full of paradoxes are portrayed brilliantly by the two authors, disturbing notions of good and evil. Masterful!” — L’Écho Républicain “Combining cinematographic narrative with graphic skills in the best of the Franco-Belgian tradition, this story in history reveals not Manichaeistic good-evil oppositions but the depths of a complex individual and the darkness of a historical period.” —THOMAS RABINO, Marianne
Publication date: 18 September 2019 $29.95 8½” X 107⁄8” • 368 Pages • Full Color ISBN-13: 978-1-68247-471-6 Paperback Publicity Contact: Jacqline Barnes, Publicity Manager Phone: 410-295-1028 Email: publicity@deadreckoning.org Sales Contact: Robin Noonan, Sales and Marketing Director Phone: 410-295-1046 Email: sales@deadreckoning.org
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