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This is a photo

I've always

fantasized about moving to France. I've visited often and even lived at times with friends in Paris and various towns around the country. Most of my books have been publis
hed
there, and the comics community in France is a family. Everyone knows everyone. At the many comic shops
and festivals
I've been to over the years I have consistently received warm welcomes. I suppose you could say I'm a Francophile when it comes to comics.

If People Were Honest At The Office

One month ago I was having a signing at a little comic-book shop in the 11th arrondissement in Paris. It was rainy out and not a lot of people showed

up

, but the mood was good, and the shop owner was more than hospitable. There was another American author there, cosplaying as "unemployed man." We were both signing, drawing, and chatting with the shop's c

lients. After

the

sign

ing we all headed to a little Korean restaurant nearby to talk comics and drink Korean beer. It was a good time, something that se

ems

to happen often when I'm in that city in the company of other comic-book lovers.

  1. And innovation
  2. On whats actually considered cold
  3. On the daily grind
  4. On the daily struggle

I don't care how your weekend was

The following day I met up with my friend Nicolas in the same neighborhood. We walked down the little boulevards and sleepy alleyways talking comics. During the stroll we passed through the narrow Rue Nicolas Appert. A month later, terrorists would come to that same street, shouting praise to Allah and executing their victims. I had no idea at the time that we were walking right below the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo. My friend told me all that later.

The methodical, horrific murder of th

e

Charlie

Hebdo team is a bigger deal for the French than most of us realize. The French live and breath comics; they have a special relationship with them, a relationship that goes back to childhood, when they were reading Asterix and TintinÑFranco-Belgian staples of the medium. This massacre, for some, was like seeing a beloved part of their childhood assassinated.