Sfar So Far: Identity, History, Fantasy, and Mimesis in Joann Sfar’s Graphic Novels

Sfar So Far is the first monograph in any language devoted to the graphic novels of Joann Sfar, an artist whose abundant and innovative work has profoundly marked the contemporary French comics scene. This book examines how, over the past two decades, Sfar has constructed an idiosyncratic universe with its own thematic and stylistic recurrences: a playful drafting style, contrasting with the thoughtful introduction of historical, theological, and philosophical matters; a sophisticated use of literary, filmic, musical, and pictorial references; an exploration of his own Jewish heritage in the context of a multicultural, postcolonial French society; an affinity for magic realism, fairy tales, heroic fantasy, the fantastique, and science fiction, often filtered through irony or parody; and a predilection for romantic musings and an interest in unconventional love stories.