Alan’s War - Emmanuel Guibert

Alan's War is something pretty unique in the world of comics or autobiography and something very special indeed. Emmanuel Guibert illustrates the memoirs of a regular American soldier, Alan Cope, recounting in his own words his ordinary experiences during the Second World War while shipped off to Europe, where he would eventually settle down to live. It's very much the perspective of an ordinary soldier, just doing his duty, but in the process learning a lot about himself. The graphic autobiography continues after the war, the friendships he makes, and the friends he loses on the way extending a learning experience across a whole lifetime. 

The overall impact of this reflection and relating of an ordinary life becomes something extraordinary, Guibert's expressive and beautiful artwork, drawn from references and from imagination, bringing it all together and making it come alive. FirstSecond deserve credit for making great work like this available to English readers. Published in full across over 300 pages of high quality paper in this outstanding edition, reproducing photographs and letters, and costing next to nothing this really deserves to be read by more people. I can't imagine anyone being reading this wondrous, heartbreaking and thought-provoking book and not being deeply moved.

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