Cover Image: The Bugle Boy

The Bugle Boy

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An old soldier wishes to find the bugle he lost in WWII. He heads north with his granddaughter where he buried it only to find a whole other thing going on with it. This was a strange story. Straight up goofy at times and not very interesting for a WWII story.

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'The Bugle Boy' with story and art by Alexandre Clerisse is a graphic novel about a WWII vet who just wants to find his old bugle.

Marcel lives alone and buys eclectic items like an electric corkscrew or a 12 person raclette set. When he sees an old bugle, it stirs old memories. When his granddaughter shows up, he sees a chance to visit the battlefield, he takes it, but the past is not always as glorious as others like to think it is.

I liked this story of an 85 year old man and his antics. There is heart and humor here and the art is pretty great as well.

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This was an interesting graphic novel. I enjoyed reading all about Marcel and his time in the military being a bugle boy. I knew that bugle boys existed but I've never given them much thought so it was nice to read about one of them. The art style was nice as well as the colors. Overall, I think that this is a great graphic novel.

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Firstly, the palette of used colors is incredibly awesome! I really love the whole artwork, but the colors gave it a different way of being beautiful. The story is about.. well, you can read from the description mostly, all I can say it was very sweet and nice and I would recommend this to kids/younger readers. The only problem was the character of the main, he was sometimes unbearably .. mean, I would say, and it made it bitter to read. Otherwise, a very nice book and I quite enjoyed it.

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Told partly in flashbacks, this story of a now 85 year old man who was once a bugle boy for the French Army during WWII shows that in war there are actually 3 sides to every story: what they say happened, what you say happened and what ACTUALLY happened.
It's an interesting war story because the author makes absolutely no attempt to make Marcel, the main character, at all likable or endearing. He's a mean crotchety old man who really only likes his grand-daughter but still spends a lot of time complaining about how she lives. When she buys a taxi-bus he talks her into taking him back to where he "lost" his bugle during the war, and slowly we start to the see that the REAL story of the war is completely different from what Marcel has told his family, or what the official government report says happened.

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A story about reminiscing about the past and connecting with it again. The focus is a bugle the the main character had used in the War. He wants to recover it from where he hid it and find that it had already been found. The story is well told with both art and words. The determination of the Grandfather truly shows. Recommending to my Children's Department to buy, if they have not already done so.

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The Bugle Boy by Alexandre Clerisse tells the story of Marcel, a veteran of the Second World War, as he seeks the bugle he played and buried on the battlefield before being captured. Plit between now and then, this graphic novel is both cute and dark, and it makes for an interesting look into the war.

I think the art was one f my favourite aspects of this book. It manages to work for scenarios that were both light and dark, and the cute and pretty style suited the story throughout.

The story itself was interesting. It had enough twists and turns (especially for its short length) to keep me intrigued and guessing. I did find it pretty difficult to care about the characters at times, which honestly pulled me out of the story a bit. It was also a bit difficult at times for me to connect with the overwhelming Frenchness of it, but I am sure those aspects would be a plus to many. I actually did enjoy the climax and ending a lot.

Overall, this won't be a new favourite for me, but I did enjoy the ride. I would recommend it to fans of graphic novels with an interest in war stories or French stories.

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A knockabout story with some heart. I have a rule that comic books from foreign languages show their worth by how quickly they're translated, but in this instance my rule fails, as this should have been picked up a long time ago for the English market. An elderly, dribbling and partly (at least) senile chap has a whim to find the very bugle he used in WW2, thus beginning a time-bending adventure, as his granddaughter (and her collection of minibus passengers) is led a merry dance to keep him safe and well. The thing is, just how unsafe and unwell was he back behind the Maginot Line? A good colour scheme – not exactly realistic, but definitely artistic – and some nice design and direction show this story off very well, which will assuredly bring a smile in amongst its obvious messages. Only the fact that the old boy shows more vim than his story at times keeps this from a really high mark.

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This was not a good pick for me. I really liked the art style, but the story bored me to no end and I found the text difficult to read.

2 stars for the art in this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for providing me with a DRC of this book.

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The Bugle Boy
By Alexandre Clérisse
Europe Comics

Inspired by his grandfather Marcel, who was a French soldier and prisoner of war in World War II, but also who, most importantly, lost his bugle, French cartoonist Alexandre Clérisse’s seriocomic The Bugle Boy takes the real-life elements and uses them for an insightful examination of how we tend to look at the past but skew its reality with stories and circumstances that we need to hear.

A chance encounter with an old bugle at a flea market gets 85-year-old Marcel thinking about the bugle he lost before a battle as the Germans invaded France. His tangent continues following a visit from his granddaughter, and he catches a lift to Gleux-les-Lure, where the incident with his bugle took place. When Marcel gets there, he’s faced with other people’s perception of his own experience, and people’s penchant for shaping facts into convenient legends at the expense of the personal lives that are involved.

Clérisse approaches The Bugle Boy more as a humorous romp than a grim, heart-breaking drama, with Marcel bickering his way through the modern world, and clashing with his granddaughter, whose attitudes are far removed from his own. Things only dip towards seriousness when Marcel gets to Gleux-les-Lure and Clérisse drives his wider point home but doesn’t forget where these ideas are placed, making for a lively and humorous finale.

Clérisse’s art serves the tone of the presentation well. With a charming Golden Books flatness, it evokes both nostalgia and whimsy that place the flashbacks to Marcel’s World War II experience in a lighter emotional range. That’s fine for the point being made, since this is all about memory, and the art serves Marcel’s fondness for the time as well as the readers’ vision of 1940s France, even as the Nazis move in on it. As the representation of Marcel’s recollections, it’s also a visual reminder of the luminous emotion he gives to his experience.

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I received an uncorrected proof copy of this ebook from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

85 Year Old Marcel discovers an old bugle on a market stall and his memories of the war are awakened. He sets out on a mission: to find the bugle he carried, then buried, during the Second World War before he dies.

This was a moving graphic novel seamlessly weaving together memories of the past with events of the present through pictures and speech.

There were moments of humour, frustration, fear and education, as the main character travels through France on the hunt for the missing bugle, and learns that what really happened has been misunderstood and changed to make him a patriot and hero who he doesn't believe he is.

There were a couple of moments where the translation did not feel to flow correctly, however as this was an uncorrected proof this may have been picked up in editing.

This was an easy read with clear pictures telling the story, with no need for extra script other than speech between the characters. I will certainly look out for more by this author.

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This graphic novel narrates the adventures of a French veteran.
I loved the illustrations and the palette of colors used .The main character was nice in the beginning but as he grew older, he became a little less kind and relatable.The plot is however very interesting and poignant.;the ending teaches a lesson and make this book worth to be read.

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I really enjoyed the artwork and this story which is about an elderly man who was a bugler in the French army in the second world war.

Now all these years later he wants to find his bugle which he was forced to bury when his battalion was trapped by German soldiers. When he eventually finds the bugle he also finds a opportunity to tell the real story of what happened to him in the war.

This is an endearing tale with well developed characters, and great artwork.

Copy provided by Europe Comics via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

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An interesting graphic novel revolving around memories and a bugle. I"ll be recommending this one to our patrons.

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I appreciate having had an opportunity to read this book in ARC form. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer to simply advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.

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