3 Questions With… Antoine Dodé
I stumbled across Antoine’s Instagram and was immediately charmed by his work, which includes the Percy Jackson graphic novel adaptations. Antoine is a French comic book artist. I’m not sure what is in the Seine, but France really does create some wonderful comic artists. I think that some of it is simply that comic art and animation is respected by their general population.
Anyway, I saw that Antoine’s book Emily Kado & The Spiders’ Secret is making its U.S. debut in August. The art is fantastic and it looks to have a wonderfully spooky story. It made me think of Drew Weing’s Margo Maloo series (which I love and recommend). Maybe they could do a Scooby-Doo style cross over.
I’m looking forward to reading Emily Kado when it comes out. To hold us over until it does, I reached out to Antoine, who was kind enough to answer some questions for us. Enjoy!
Why comics? (What compels you to create in this medium?)
I love telling stories, and as far back as I can remember, I’ve always read comics. Nothing feels more natural to me than using this medium to tell a story.
What is your favorite part/step of the process?
To explore the scene in which the main character loses everything, and how he will recover from it. And I think I know why: it’s all because of The Empire Strikes Back ending that shocked me to the core when I was a little kid, and because it took me eight years to get the resolution of the story (when I finally watched Return of the Jedi). During all that time, I kept wondering what would happen to Luke, Leia, and Han Solo.
Emily Kado & The Spiders’ Secret 1
Emily Kado & The Spiders’ Secret 2
Emily Kado & The Spiders’ Secret 3
Emily Kado & The Spiders’ Secret 4
Emily Kado & The Spiders’ Secret 5
What was the book/comic that you fell in love with when you were a kid/teen?
As a kid (though I still love them, haha!), my favorite books and comics were Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, The Three Robbers and The Giant of Zeralda by Tomi Ungerer, Gnomes by Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet, The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, the Asterix comics by Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny, the Gaston comics by André Franquin, the X-Men comics by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, and John Byrne, and the books of Roald Dahl, especially Boy: Tales of Childhood.
As a teenager, my favorites included Hyperion by Dan Simmons, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, the Corto Maltese comics by Hugo Pratt, Hellboy by Mike Mignola, The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, and Domu: A Child’s Dream and Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo.
