Le Goût du Chlore（A Taste of Chlorine）

A boy who is suffering from scoliosis starts visiting a swimming pool on his therapist’s advice. At first, he is not enthusiastic, but he becomes close to a girl he meets in the pool who is a good swimmer. He enjoys meeting her every Wednesday and as he becomes attracted to her, he also becomes aware of the pleasure of swimming itself. This volume includes Le Goût du Chlore (A Taste of Chlorine), which won the New Face Award in the Festival International de la bande dessinée d’Angoulême and led the bande dessinée (French-language comics) scene’s attention to his talent as well as Dans Mes Yeux (In My Eyes) which depicts a couple’s trivial conversations and misunderstandings from “my” perspective throughout the story. It’s a little “salty” boy-meets-girl comic drawn by Bastien VIVES, the up-andcoming artist of bande dessinée, with his fresh style.

Original edition: Published in May 2008

The comfort of being in water is sensuously delivered through this work. The detailed illustrations; the change of swimming strokes as the boy improves gradually, the height of the ceiling as he looks up while swimming backstroke and other scenes are gently depicted in quiet colors using simple lines. In contrast, the other piece of work, Dans Mes Yeux (In My Eyes), portrays the cuteness of the main character’s girlfriend through his eyes in many different colors with colored pencil. Readers can feel the joy of expression through this comic. Bastien VIVES who is still in his late 20s is a promising young artist receiving attention from the bande dessinée scene and deserves the New Face Award. (YAMADA Tomoko)