Fabrice Neaud (born December 17, 1968, in La Rochelle) is a French comics artist. He got his baccalaureate in literature (option graphic arts) in 1986. He studied philosophy during two years. Then he entered an art school and studied there four years. In 1991 he quit the school. For four years he had been looking for a job, making a living on various works. He’s co-founder and member of the Ego Comme X group (“ego as x”, pronounced “ego comix”), and the only gay artist there. In 1994, the first number of the Ego comme X magazine was released. In it, Fabrice Neaud published his first works. Since the beginning, Fabrice Neaud has been undertaking an innovative and ambitious task: drawing his autobiography, his diary, in comics, a project is expected to last throughout his life. The first issue of this impressive work appeared in 1996 and won the Alph Art Coup de Coeur 1997; the other three have been released at intervals of about two years (last delivery 2002), then temporarily interrupted. After four books (Jurnal I-IV), he is now seen as one of the most interesting authors among French comics authors.
In her book ‘Bande dessinée’, Ann Miller says: “The most complex and accomplished example of the BD autobiography genre is Fabrice Neaud’s four-volume Journal. Neaud’s realist graphic style offers, in places, an almost forensic rendition of life in an averagely homophobic small town, while elsewhere his experiences of marginality and of euphoria or rejection in a number of relationships are conveyed through metaphor or through blurred subjective images.”
The reasons for appreciating his work are numerous: the more obvious ones, those you discover after but a few pages are his beautiful drawing and the richness of the topics he deals with. There are many other reasons: his composition skills, the variety of ways in which he tells his stories, the diversity of his sources of inspiration, from John Sebastian Bach to David Hockney, from Grünewald to Dave Mc Kean. In his Jurnal homosexuality is no longer a problem, nor a source of guilt. It is no secret to hide from his parents, or a social issue. It’s just something that exist, and he doesn’t shy away from talking about his park cruises or his being gay-bashed. But Neaud isn’t a simple diarist: he’s also an artist concerned with various problems of our society, including homophobia and gay life in small towns (he lives in Angoulême, the town where the famous French comics festival takes place), but not only. He uses photographs in his works, but works hard at building comics with a strong and meaningful narration. His Journal is among the best comics coming from France, for its strong point of view and its constant inventiveness. Like many true innovators, his talent is deeply rooted in quite a classical tradition. His description of passion, his social commentaries, his depiction of many pitfalls of our society, his pointing out at any kind of poverty (social, intellectual or affectionnal), his views on arts and comics are only some points of interest.
He published also many short stories in Ego comme X, Bananas and other magazines. Some of his works have been translated into Italian and Spanish. Unfortunately his works are not translated into English yet (he is still looking for an English editor), but you can read online an English translation of his short novel Emile on edition ego comme x site and to taste a sample of the first Journal on Words without Borders’ site. More information and extracts of his work can be found here.
