Aya is the first "African" graphic novel I've come across. At least as an actual, physical specimen. It's a collaboration of an Ivoirean writer (Marguerite Abouet) and French illustrator (Clément Oubrerie) and put out by Drawn & Quarterly.
It's beautifully put together, the illustrations are straight-forward but evocative (and I do enjoy the way that Oubrerie uses washes of color to set the visual tone for the panels), and the story itself couldn't be more simple. I'm not sure that I would refer to it as a "comedy" or even self-consciously "humorous" as various blurbs and reviews have noted. Not that it's humorless -- not by a long shot.
But it is more gentle than anything else: the story, the characterizations, even the illustrations -- there is a softness to this short work that is very appealing.
I seem to rely on the gentle these days.
You can read the opening pages here (pdf). Do so.
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