'Sartre' by Mathilde Ramadier with art by Anais Depmmier is a subpar biographical graphic novel. If you decide to read it, you'd best know something about the subject at hand.

The philosopher of existentialism is the subject of this graphic novel. There are some facts about his life, like how he met his life companion Simone de Beauvoir. His history of publications is mentioned, as well as some of the notable people in his life, like Albert Camus and Jean Genet.

What is missing is a basic understanding of why he is important. There is some talk about what he was fighting for, and his on and off relationship with the group of people in his life, but missing is an overarching sense of why he might be considered important. Which is a shame.

The art is quite good, and I enjoyed the range of facial expression of Sartre, Beauvoir and other characters. It's too bad you have to have a better understanding of this character to get much out of this graphic novel.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from NBM Publishing, Papercutz, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

This is a good graphic novel biography of Satre. I liked the portrayal of Simone. The art work fit the story. This is a good introduction esp for those who are not familiar with him. Enjoy

It embarrasses me to admit that though I had been curious about Sartre's relationship with Simone de Beauvoir--it has an almost legendary feel to it--I'd never sought it out. one more embarrassing confession, I've never read their work either. This proved an interesting introduction to Sartre, the man, the legend--including his relationship with Beauvoir. However it does not inspire me to seek out more narratives either about or by either of them.

This book seemed like a good opportunity to expand my graphic novel horizons. I knew almost nothing about Sartre. Honestly, I don't know that I understand much more now. The entire text is heavily philosophical. NOt something you're going to slam your way through.

Esta es más una semblanza que una biografía, y no se detiene demasiado en cada momento de la vida de Sartre. Tiene sus positivos y podría funcionar una vez que uno conoce al personaje por sus obras, pero para quien no lo ha leído resultará la lectura de una vida interesante, pero más común de lo que uno espera.
El arte es hermoso y retrata con mucho amor a un personaje con rasgos faciales muy feos. Los personajes se distinguen de manera hermosa y muestran el profundo amor que tiene la autora por todas sus historias, pero este positivo se ve enterrado por una historia mal armada. Simone De Beauvoir ("Beaver") es un personaje central en la biografía y casi se la roba, pero como con el resto de la historia se pierde la significancia de la misma. El cómic interactúa muy superficialmente con los pensamientos de grandes como Camus, Sartre y De Beauvior y no logra mostrar por qué eligió momentos tan mundanos en sus vidas. Casi pareciera que el cómic dice "estos son humanos, tuvieron vidas normales".
Eso podrá ser cierto, pero resulta en una biografía muy poco interesante.
La conclusión es hermosa, eso sí, y casi me hace darle una estrella más.

An insightful glimpse into Sarte's life, this would make an interesting addition to classrooms for students studying the writer.

This graphic biography is focused on the life of Jean Paul Sartre. His trials and tribulations and the relationships within his circle. It's a great place to start dipping into the life of one of the most prominent representatives of the existentialist movement.

For me this was a book that was much clearer and interesting on the basic biographic detail than on the, er, "producers of interiority" and all such claptrap. I liked the clear, classical line of the artwork, beyond making every student look the same near the beginning, and on the whole it's a decent book - just not as reader-on-the-Clapham-omnibus friendly as it could be. In other words, I guess, it's very French...

Maybe this book would be good for someone who already is familiar with Sartre, his life and his philosophies, but I am not. I know who Sartre is, of course. I know that he was an Existentialist. I was hoping to find out more about that philosophy in this book, unfortunately that was not to be. The main thing I got from this book is the lifelong devotion he had with Simone de Beauvoir and she with him.

I am not sure how many of the events in the book connected to each other. It seemed at times a series of events, vignettes, from his life that were chosen to be portrayed. As I said, if I were more familiar with him... Frankly, that is what I was hoping to become on reading this book. I wanted to understand him and Existentialism better. I came away with a few more facts about his life than I had before, but no greater understanding.

This was a real good graphic novel, and even if I'm not a Sartre expert or a philosopher of any type, I enjoyed this reading a lot!

Veramente una bella graphic novel, che si gusta pur senza essere filosofi o esperti di Sartre.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

Sartre is a really crappy biographical comic on the major twentieth century French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre. Writer Mathilde Ramadier does a remarkably substandard job of explaining the philosophy of existentialism, which Sartre was most famous for, as well as failing to highlight what made him notable to the wider public in the first place. We just get a truncated overview of his (seemingly) uneventful life from bookish youth to teacher to - suddenly! - intellectual celebrity.

The love of his life and fellow intellectual, Simone de Beauvoir, figures heavily as expected but the bio spends a bit too much time on her when that time should’ve been spent on the actual subject of the book, Sartre. Like, how about exploring the ideas and themes of his books instead of just mentioning their titles? Near the end he clutches his chest but it’s never explained - what illnesses did he suffer from? And then he suddenly dies and there’s a state funeral - why? What major impact did he make on French society? It’s such an uninformative pseudo-biography.

Albert Camus cameos but all we learn about him was that he was a bit of a horndog and that he didn’t believe he was an Existentialist. If you didn’t already know he was a famous writer and thinker himself, you’d never get it from this book! That surface-level overview fits in with the rest of this crap. Anais Depommier’s art is ok but very plain and unremarkable.

Sartre is a dull, weak and unimpressive look at Jean-Paul’s life. There’s bound to be better bios out there on this chap’s life but, whatever you do, don’t bother with this boring, unenlightening rubbish.

I have only read one thing by Satre, and that was Huis Clos (No Exit), back in high school, but it stuck with me, I still remember that idea that we only see into the living world as long as someone remembers us there, as well as people are hell.

This biography touches very lightly on the man, but it does help to understand a little bit about where his thoughts came from.

This is very much not a children's book, or even YA, unless they are well versed in history.

What is very cool here is that Simone de Beauvoir is represented here, as a whole person, having adventures on her own, going to her own book signings, and even getting annoyed when someone presumes that Satre is her husband, in her very open, non-marriage.

Well written, well researched, with quotes called out in color, so you know when a line is coming directly from Satre, or Beauvoir (also known as The Beaver).

Not easy to read, but very informative.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

I have always been fascinated with the existentialists, and this graphic novel was a concise, yet solid overview of the life of Jean-Paul Sartre. Additionally, Simone de Beauvoir was (naturally) as much a main character as Sartre, to the point where she was a regular narrator. I could easily see the title being "Sartre and Beauvoir." If anything, I could use more time spent on parts of Sartre's life instead of years going by in just a few pages. The choices in art style were not bad, but they were not for me. The drawings were partly between too real and too cartoon-ish for me to really get into them. Overall, I would happily give this graphic novel to someone learning about the existential philosophers and wanting to see more about their lives. I enjoyed my time reading it now, but I could really see myself enjoying 'Sartre' when I was a high school student, obsessively looking for works by or about such authors. I will be recommending it to like-minded students.

Nice enough graphic novel that seemed to only scratch the surface of Sartre's life. Could be a good introduction.

Not my style and I was not able to fully commit to this book at all. I did love the artwork, though.

Sartre by Mathilde Ramadie is a graphic novel biography. Ramadie trained as a Graphic Designer with professional experiences in several agencies and studios, she went on to study philosophy and psychoanalysis at the University Paris 8, obtaining a Masters Degree in Contemporary Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

This graphic novel presents an introduction to one of the most famous postwar existentialists. Although some of the philosophy is discussed or dropped into a discussion, it is more of a person look at the man and his relationships. Simone de Beauvoir, Beaver, plays a key role in this book. She was an existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist leader, and life long partner. Also mentioned is his friendship and break with Albert Camus.

I did enjoy this short, illustrated biography and it covered the high points of Sartre’s life. My only other experience with Sartre comes from the reading of Camus and Sartre’s Nausea. This did fill in a few gaps and was an enjoyable read. Very well done.

There seems to be some confusion over Sartre’s full name. Some sources give it as Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, others as Jean-Paul Charles-Eymard Sartre. I’ve even seen Jean-Paul-Baptiste-Eymard Sartre.

Mathilde Ramadier, the author of the ‘Sartre’ comic book, which is illustrated by Anaïs Depommier, opts for Jean-Paul-Charles-Eymard Sartre, although happily this formulation only occurs in the rather sketchy family tree at the start of the book, which chiefly serves to establish that Sartre was Albert Schweitzer’s first cousin once removed and that his forebears included engineers and eccentrics.

The book is almost as much about ‘Beaver’ - Simone de Beauvoir - as about Sartre and provides an outline of their lives, times and thought. The latter is too compressed and too cryptic to make much, if any, sense (“by creating concepts. I revealed necessities”; “the ‘I’ is nevertheless the producer of interiority, from a layer that you need to solve the problem of self-consciousness”).

The text also combines clumsy exposition (“You yourself forbade them from staging your play in Austrian theaters, because suddenly you found it to be too critical of the party” “Yes, yes and you approved of my decision”) with risibly inauthentic expressions (“My Grandfather had a gift for exalting any situation”; “my pride rears me back as soon as I feel accused”), made worse by the fact that the author’s vocabulary sometimes appears to run ahead of their understanding (“I can make out your wisdom, the wisdom that knows when to remove itself from neligeable [sic] epiphenomena”; “I believe that it is by the intermediary [sic] of others that we know ourselves best!”).

It would be nice to able to say that the text is at least offset by beautiful artwork but one really can’t, added to which Sartre’s exotropic eye condition is not portrayed consistently.

It is a great pity that the wit and the economy on display on the book’s cover are not replicated, pictorially or textually, within. Those approaching Sartre with little or no prior knowledge will pick up a few interesting tidbits of information (such as his producing a screenplay for John Huston’s film on Freud and his rejection of the Nobel Prize for Literature) but I fear that their understanding of existentialism will not have been enhanced.

A cool graphic novel about Sartre's life and his work.