This is a happy album. That transmits a contagious joy that accompanies us until the end. An evocation of past summers through a series of vignettes that we contemplate as if we were leafing through an old photo album. Its pages transmit a healthy and carefree happiness, tinged with a hint of nostalgia that excites us and makes reading very pleasant.
Los buenos veranos (Editorial Standard) is a series of six albums that are now being reissued in a comprehensive 344-page volume. It tells the story of a family, the Faldéraults, who every year embark on a journey with a car loaded to the brim, an iconic vermilion-colored Renault 4L that becomes one more protagonist. Each chapter, and there are six in total, evokes one of these vacations in search of sun, nature and tranquility.
The series is written by Zidrou, a prolific Belgian screenwriter living in Spain, and the drawing is the work of the Catalan Jordi Lafebre. These biographical details are important because the series has a strong Belgian accent, not only because the protagonists are Belgian, but also because the Belgian identity – the belgitude – is a recurring element to generate various comic moments. On the other hand, Spain and the Franco dictatorship are also present, albeit as a backdrop, thanks to the figure of the protagonist’s father, a Spaniard who emigrated to France and who has made his son swear not to go on vacation to Spain while Frank live.
Zidrou is skillful at portraying this family, each of its members has a very marked personality and the ties between them are very well defined –the complicit relationship of the couple or that of them with their children– which means that as the pages progress Let’s stop feeling like readers of this work and become spectators of the life of this crazy but absolutely endearing family. Zidrou knows how to introduce tenderness and emotion in his conversations, in the pauses in the story and in his skilful way of mixing present and past in history. Starting from simple ingredients, she combines them in such a way that the emotion always ends up jumping.
This narrative ability is transferred to paper with the splendid drawing of Jordi Lafebre, undoubtedly one of the most talented cartoonists in our country. The expressiveness of the faces and gestures, the imaginative framing, and his ability to sweetly and accurately portray a beach, a forest or a country house are memorable. It is a precise and suggestive drawing. Friendly and rich in nuances, reinforced by a perfect color to evoke these holiday landscapes, with all their light and beauty. It is a drawing that feels.
The Faldérault family is made up of the couple – he is a comic book artist – and their three children, although we will soon see that another is on the way. As each episode takes place in a different year, from 1962 the oldest to 1980 the most recent, we also see how fashions change and slightly transform the characters. We will also see how the relationships between them evolve and how, invariably, the father must finish his last story in a hurry before going on vacation.
The work of Zidrou and Lafebre complement each other perfectly. The sensitivity of one when telling us the story is added to that of the other when he captures it in images and that makes Los buenos veranos such a pleasant, close and emotional read. A comic that is enjoyed with the pleasure of returning, for a few moments, to the warmth and happiness of what in a topical but very graphic way we call the good old days. Despite the fact that it is a somewhat chaotic family and undoubtedly very special, it is inevitable to become fond of the Faldéraults. Soon we will take them for some old friends whom it is a pleasure to meet again. It is worth spending the holidays with this family.
