EVERYWHERE ANTENNAS

EVERYWHERE ANTENNAS JULIE DELPORTE, HELGE DASCHER

A poetic novel that plumbs the depths of self-doubt and technological fatigue A poetic novel that plumbs the depths of self-doubt and technological fatigue Julie Delporte's Everywhere Antennas is a deeply affecting, sparely constructed novel, equal parts Walden and The Bell Jar. Told in the first person, it offers diary-like entries from an anonymous narrator who is undergoing a nervous breakdown and struggling to hold together a failing relationship. In soft, flowing colored pencil, Delporte shows her narrator coming to terms with a rare and misunderstood sensitivity to the radiation emitted by the televisions, cell phones, and computers that permeate urban life. On each page a few words are paired with an image or two, conveying a moment or a thought simply but effectively. Over the course of the book, the anonymous narrator moves from place to place, looking for solutions to her melancholy in the countryside via isolation and in the city with friends, sometimes turning to medication for answers. Throughout, her emotional and intellectual landscape receives as much attention as her physical surroundings. Everywhere Antennas is the portrait of a woman caught in the margins, struggling to balance the demands of technology and modern life with the need to find meaningful relationships and work. Roughly hewn figures, sketched in pencil crayon on brightly contrasting backgrounds, populate the pages of this flowing, emotive work. With Everywhere Antennas, Delporte proves herself a master craftswoman of heartbreakingly personal, beautifully literary graphic fiction.

JULIE DELPORTE, HELGE DASCHER

Born in Saint-Malo, France, in 1983, Julie Delporte lives in Montreal, where she publishes books and zines. Journal, a collection of her journal comics, was published by Koyama Press in May 2013. In 2011-2012, she was a fellow at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. She has published a French children's book (Je suis un raton laveur), as well as some short pieces at L'employé du Moi (Belgium) and in various anthologies. She was the former organizer of Montreal's forty-eight-hour comics festival and newsprint anthology, and she runs the comics-centric radio show Dans ta Bulle. Colored pencils and dogs with long ears are her favorite antidepressants.