Wall picture and framed photography by Alexandre Bonnefoy

I'm back on the blog! We have just spent a week at Issekinicho publishing in Strasbourg, to proofread and validate together the files of The Shadow Festival volume 2, before the final sending to the printer. After two years of intense work on this project, we wanted to celebrate the end together. And I take a few well-deserved rest to pick up my blog posts.

Left picture by Alexandre Bonnefoy - Right picture by Jordy Meow

Alexandre and Delfine were very attentive and cooked a lot of good things for us every day. If I had to sum up this week in a few words, I would say: cooking, meals, proofreading, drawing, walks, cooking, meals… Did I say it twice?

After 2 days of proofreading the texts and sending the comic files to the printer, we took a day to take a nice walk in the Vosges moutains in the middle of medieval ruins. At the picnic : Mauricette sandwiches. These are Alsatian brioche buns with a pretzel taste, so good!

We take advantage of these few days to draw the ex-libris which will accompany the pre-orders of volume 2 while Alexandre and Delfine begin to set up for us a signing tour for the release of the book: study of schedule, dates, making contact with booksellers etc. Doing so, they explain us everything about the book chain, the difficulties encountered, communication strategies and future projects. It’s exciting and we learn a lot. We also learn everything about the Bakery because Alexandre has been passionate about this activity for some time. In the evening, he goes to bed at 1 a.m. so that we have good milk breads for breakfast. How lucky we are !

The Issekinicho publishing also have a small vegetable garden where they grow, among other things, kabocha and edamame! What a joy to be able to eat edamame as an aperitif. To accompany this little taste of Japan, we cook onigiri and inarizushi for the next day's walk to Mont St Odile.

Mont Sainte-Odile

In the evening, they make us try a virtual reality headset. Visit of the ISS and walks in Tokyo via Google Earth. It’s fascinating and it’s hard to stop. To be able to explore small Japanese villages like in a model and discover every little alley in its smallest details, that's a bit of a comic book artist's dream ... we would like to sit down and draw. A real gold mine of documentation. I couldn't resist the urge to "return" to Niigata city with a touch of nostalgia ... And before bed, we dig into Delfine and Alexandre's well-stocked library. Art books, old mangas, Japanese culture magazines and of course, all the books of Issekinicho publishing. There is plenty to read !

SARU - éditions Issekinicho

Neko Land - éditions Issekinicho

Tokyo Ohanami - éditions Issekinicho

Kotchi Kotchi ! / Les Secrets du Saké - éditions Issekinicho

Tokyo Ohanami - éditions Issekinicho

We also had lovely walks in the Orangery park and in Strasbourg, attended a hypnothic sound and light show at the cathedral, browsed the cookie shops, ate homemade Flamenküche, and chatted ... a lot of chat! The last time we saw each other was at the Brussels Book Fair, a few days before the first French lockdown. We were just starting working on The Shadow Festval. In other words, things had happened since. It was great to see each other again and celebrate the end of this great adventure together!