Guy Delisle

Guy Delisle, author of graphic fiction and non-fiction and animator (born 19 January 1966 in Québec City, Québec). His largely autobiographical graphic non-fiction works are inspired by his travels abroad and his family life and combine humour with thoughtful social criticism. He has also published a series of graphic novels, entitled Inspecteur Moroni, the first of which appeared in 2001. In 2012, he received the Golden Wildcat (the Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Best Album) for Chroniques de Jérusalem (2011; tr. Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, 2012). His works have been translated into many languages, including English, German, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish and Czech.

Education and Career

Delisle studied animation at Sheridan College, in Oakville, Ontario. He then went on to work at numerous animation studios throughout Europe (notably in Germany and in Valencia, Spain) and in Asia as an animator, animation supervisor and teacher.

Graphic Travel Non-Fiction

Delisle’s graphic non-fiction works Shenzhen (2000; tr. Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China, 2006), Pyongyang (2004; tr. Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, 2005), Chroniques de Jérusalem and Chroniques birmanes (2007; tr. Burma Chronicles, 2008) combine anecdotes and insights that Delisle has gathered during his travels abroad, sometimes alone, sometimes with his family — his wife, Nadège, works for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Through these works, the artist scrutinizes the customs, social and political conflicts and ordinary life of the various places and cultures that he visits, with a witty take on the misunderstandings and awkwardness that arise as he travels abroad.

While working for three months in Shenzhen, China, Delisle experienced extreme loneliness because of the huge cultural divide, the language barrier and his work setting, which combined to cut him off from almost all human contact. This experience is reflected in the aesthetic of Shenzhen, with its essentially monochromatic grey and sepia palette and the stark, compartmentalized depiction of people and scenes. Large spaces are left empty — surely a reference to the author’s monotonous, solitary daily life. Some of the dialogue balloons are in Cantonese, so that Western readers can experience the same lack of understanding that the author did.

The graphic non-fiction work Pyongyang recounts Delisle’s experience in the capital of North Korea, where he lived for two months while working on a television series for an animation studio. According to the studio, his contract contained a confidentiality clause forbidding him from publishing anything about his stay. But Delisle and his Paris-based publisher, L’Association, could find no trace of that clause, so they went ahead and published Pyongyang anyway, in 2003. In 2012, Delisle sold the film rights to Pyongyang to the New Regency production company, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox. The film was supposed to have starred Steve Carell, but was cancelled in December 2014 while still in pre-production, when Fox withdrew from the deal, apparently because of threats of reprisals from North Korea in response to the controversial film The Interview.

In 2011, Delisle, his wife and their two young children moved to Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where they lived for a year while his wife was on assignment with MSF. Chroniques de Jérusalem is the graphic work that resulted from this year of discoveries, encounters, adjustments and culture shock. Through his own explorations and numerous conversations with journalists, soldiers, members of MSF, UN representatives, priests, merchants and other people living in the region, the author attempts to understand the complex issues underlying the social, political, religious and geographic conflicts that are tearing it apart. At the same time, he shows the challenges and the droll situations that his young family faces as they try to adapt to a totally different cultural context. In the order that they actually happened, Delisle relates some anecdotes from his day-to-day life, such as his initial struggles to understand the public transit system and the different hours that grocery stores stay open depending on their owner’s religion. Interspersed with these anecdotes are complex conversations about the conflicts and the dangers encountered by the members of his family and their acquaintances.

Family Albums

Le Guide du Mauvais Père, volumes 1, 2 and 3 (2013, 2014, 2015; tr. A User's Guide to Neglectful Parenting, 2013; Even More Bad Parenting Advice, 2014; The Owner's Manual to Terrible Parenting, 2015) are comic books depicting short, funny, touching and sometimes rather reprehensible episodes from the author’s family life. Delisle lays disarmingly bare his own inadequacies as a father, his surprise at the absurd, naïve and sometimes cunning questions that his children ask, and the ties of tenderness that unite his little family. The emphasis is more on the characters’ interactions and dialogue than on their physical appearance or their environment. Every page consists of two spare, monochromatic drawings, unframed.

Louis au ski (2006) and Louis à la plage (2008) are comic books about episodes in the life of Delisle’s young son Louis (one on the ski slopes, the other at the beach). Each page is divided into several panels, deconstructing every moment of these episodes to immerse readers in the thoughts and actions of this little boy, who appears at the centre of almost every panel. Other panels, however, show things from the young protagonist’s point of view, so that small worries, challenges, successes and disappointments all take on larger proportions. Unlike Delisle’s other autobiographical works, these books are not monochromatic, though their colour palette is somewhat sombre. They present Louis’ life with humour, empathy and tenderness.

Graphic Novels

Inspecteur Moroni is the title of the only fiction that Delisle has written: a series of three graphic novels that that puts readers inside the head of Inspector Moroni, an anxious, somewhat neurotic police detective who wants to impress his boss and likes to confide in his talking dog. Volume 1 (2001) and Volume 2 (2002) appeared in black and white, but Volume 3 (2004) is in colour.