I was surprised to find Joann Sfar's Caravan in a local bookstore in Helsinki.
This is one peculiar item: a French diary-like comic book that shows - among many other things - how the author discovers Gypsy jazz. In the pages there are chord diagrams (actually quite good ones), contemplations about history and aesthetics of the genre, descriptions of Sfar's guitar lessons, some familiar figures (Angelo Debarre, Tchavolo Hassan, Chiquito Lambert, Antonio Licusati, Doudou Cuillerier...) etc.
The massive content (850 pages) carries also other stuff (family life, work, travels, meetings/parties with friends and colleagues, etc.), and sometimes the writer could have used maybe a little less words, but I found this fun to read - at least it gave me the excuse to recall some French before this year’s Samois.
Nice cover too.
kimmo
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kimmo
http://www.jazzpartout.com