750 Years of Paris by Vincent Mahe

 In a harrowing image, the Protestants of Paris are stabbed, run down and lanced by knights, thrown out of windows, and hanged from the roof. In a later scene, a procession marches past banners and flags. Then the building is torn down, a bigger one built in its place, massive holes mar the façade, larger windows are put in, people drink tea on the balcony and more. 750 years of history come and go in this book, told through the story of one particular building.

My first reaction to this book was the illustration. It uses very simple imagery, in the form of faceless people and blocks of color. In some ways it reminded me of the 1950’s children’s books here in the USA. As for the story, there isn’t any text, but the chronology is shown using the building as an example. In each era, the view changes to reflect the times. 1950’s Paris has movie posters, cafes, and trucks passing by. The 1968 unrest has burned wood and barricades. Then the building gets a facelift, and a glass solarium added to the roof. A procession of demonstrators march past, in support of Charlie Hebdo.

Though I don’t want to take attention away from Vincent Mahe’s work, it does remind me even more of Will Eisner’s Dropsie Avenue series.  In that set of comics, Eisner gave us 120 years of a South Bronx neighborhood, shown through the changes to a building. New tenants came and went, new owners bought and sold it, good and bad things happened in there. In a lot of ways, Paris is like New York; it was built on history, saw major changes to the nation, was a hotbed of radical ideas, had an immigrant population, changed dramatically every time there was a war, and became a center of food, art, literature, music, and philosophy.

My research shows me that the author is a Paris-based illustrator, and his artwork looks a lot like Herge’s Tintin. Maybe Parisians like this style, with stark blocks of color? As for the publisher, the book came from Nowbrow press, which gave us an equally great book about Robert Moses.