Bigfoot

by Pascal Girard

Jimmy is a teenager in a crummy little town. He's got a lousy best friend, Simon; a porn habit; and an uncle whose miserable existence is the embodiment of life stalled in its tracks. He's also got a tender soul, a pure-hearted crush, and the makings of a budding artist. A horrible YouTube video of Jimmy dancing in his living room becomes viral, courtesy of Simon, and makes every sweet and hopeful thing about Jimmy seem utterly pathetic. Everyone from fellow classmates to the clerk at the corner store has seen the video, and Jimmy finds himself a celebrity in his town, just for the wrong reason. Unfortunately, the YouTube antics do not stop there.

As in his debut graphic novella, Nicolas, Pascal Girard showcases a spare, deceptively simple style that is wonderfully expressive with pitch-perfect dialogue. Girard utilizes a drawn line full of tentative, exploratory, and intuitive emotion, a line as sure of the treasure it carries as is the book's quiet hero.