ON OUR COVER : A FOX IN MY BRAIN
ON OUR COVER : A FOX IN MY BRAIN
AN HONEST & HUMOUROUS MENTAL HEALTH STORY
After troubled years , Lou finally discovers what ’ s causing chaos in her brain : it ’ s her cyclothymia ... a bipolar disorder that appears to her in the form of a fox ! Lou will have learn how to embrace and tame the Fox and to overcome her condition .
A Fox in My Brain takes a positive look on the relationship a person has with their mental health and provides a breath of fresh air that will give everyone an extra boost of self-love ! Read on as Fairsquare Comics publisher , Fabrice Sapolsky discusses Lube ’ s work .
DIAMOND : For those who aren ’ t familiar , can you tell us what readers can expect from this book ? FABRICE SAPOLSKY : It ’ s an investigation . It ’ s the author , Lou Lubie ’ s journey to understand and find answers to a disease that has plagued her life since she was born : cyclothymia . We follow her as she asks questions about mental health and try to find answers about her condition , then how she manages to live with it . All that with an amazing sense of humor .
How did this project come about ? A FOX IN MY BRAIN is Lou Lubie ’ s sixth graphic novel . She confessed that it took seven years before a therapist finally nailed her condition . Basically , she wanted to write the one book that she would have liked someone to hand her when she was lost in the dark .
Can you tell us more about the selection process for deciding which stories go in the book ? Lou simply described in length everything she went through . It ’ s one single story with different scenes and vignettes . And she chose to represent her cyclothymia as a Fox .
Did you pair artist and writers together , or did some come already working together ? Lou prefers working alone . In a 2021 interview , she said : “ I don ’ t like it when someone comes to me with a story idea and asks me to draw for them . I already struggle for myself because I don ’ t see myself as a good artist . it ’ s a skill that is learned and acquired on my own , I ’ m selftaught . My drawing is very clean , very clear , very wellfinished . It resembles the way my mind works , which is super structured and is made up of Excel spreadsheets .”
What kind of obstacles did you face while putting this title together ? The adaptation , from French to English was tricky . There are a lot of medical terms , some articles that were only available in French and never translated that I had to adapt in the style of the original authors . But the most challenging part , was the graphic adaptation . A FOX IN MY BRAIN is , first , created in duo tone . And second , a lot of balloons and texts are written directly into the art . Which meant carefully erasing and rewriting directly on page . I sometimes even had to emulate Lou ’ s handwriting . It took two and a half months , whereas a traditional graphic novel of that size takes 2 to 3 weeks .
What would you say is the most rewarding part of the process ? It ’ s the same for every graphic novel , like A FOX IN MY BRAIN , that we adapt from other countries : to discover that American readers can enjoy books that were created for another audience and treasure them the absolute same way . So far , everyone who read this graphic novel loved it and thought it was an important topic to talk about . The beautiful thing about our medium is that because talent is not duplicable , every creator brings their own flavor . Lou Lubie claims she ’ s not a cartoonist because she started as a game and web designer but she is . And her style , her tone , her approach to storytelling is really unique .
In terms of audience , who is this book for ? I believe this graphic novel is for everyone , from 15 to 100 years old ( laughs ).
What are you hoping readers take away from this book ? A human experience . The emotional journey of a young woman trying to understand how her mind works and find her own path to happiness . But what I ’ m really hoping is that , just like in France , the book will be an outstanding success so we can publish the next graphic novels Lou has created . She ’ s a raw talent and a magnificent storyteller .
ABOUT THE CREATOR : Lou Lubie is originally from Reunion Island , where she published her first five books : two novels for younger readers , and three comic books . In 2008 , she founded the Forum Dessiné , a community website that allows artists of all origins and skill levels to create digital comics together . In 2016 , she published Goupil ou face , a popular science comic book that humorously explains cyclothymia , a mood disorder . In 2019 , her collaborative experience on the Forum Dessiné inspired her to create La Fille dans l ’ écran , a comic book co-written and co-illustrated with Manon Desveaux telling the story of a long-distance relationship . The graphic novel is unique for its atypical format : each author draws a character on the opposite page , thus allowing their parallel lives to unfold . The graphic novel L ’ Homme de la situation is her eighth book ( Dupuis 2021 ; The Man for the Job , Europe Comics ).
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