Love for the ages.

A shortish post today, fitting for its subject: The Professor's Daughter, at a scant 64 pages, is slender even by graphic novel standards. I think it took me all of half an hour to breeze through it, and that included a trip to the kitchen to toast a bagel. It's a simple enough story of forbidden love, two people from alien cultures struggling to overcoming thousands of years of history and the bonds of society to somehow start a life together.

It sounds melodramatic, and I think it's fair to say it's over the top. But Joann Sfar's story has the nice twist that the particular culture gap is more like a culture canyon--our Romeo is the dashing mummy Imhotep IV, his paramor, Lillian Bowell, the daughter of Britian's leading Egyptologist. Together, they wander through a sepia London curiously comfortable with daily sightings of active mummies. Still, the world is fraught with danger for the two lovers, from a cup of tea which has nearly devestating effects on Imhotep, to the fathers of the lovers, both of whom will go to (or in Imhotep's case, resist) the grave to in order to keep the lovers apart. A little kooky, but whatever. The real reason for the story is to give artist Emmanuel Guibert an opportunity to show off his brilliant depiction of nineteenth century London and its penchant for antiquities. Working mostly in watercolors, the panels have the muted warmth of old photographs. Interior scenes, especially, glow with the flickering of gaslight or a solitary candle. The damp gloom of the Tower of London or the London docks is immediately established by a blue cast or an eerie green. Guibert mostly sticks to a standard six panel page, but when he opts for larger scenes (too rarely, in my opinion), the perspectives are creative and expansive.

I read The Professor's Daughter in First Second's fine 'collector's edition,' which includes some sketches Guibert made in researching the book. His images of the British Museum and London scenes are beautiful in their own right, considerably different from the panels. Judging by the other works by Guibert, The Professor's Daughter might be a bit of a departure. Originally published in France in 1997, the translation here by Alexis Siegel only just appeared last year. Enjoy the pictures, don't expect too much from the story, and hope that Guibert does more of this type of graphic novel in the future.