Winshluss — À propos — Slash Paris

The term “graphic novel” makes him mad. He finds speech bubbles boring. He also says that the things “he loves most” are the ones that he “is best at trashing.” It’s certainly true that Winshluss is a champ at the art of Aunt Sallying forth into just about any field, from comics to films to animation and music.

Nobody comes away unscathed (and certainly not Mickey or Pinocchio), neither the codes and customs of the genre nor the readers or viewers of this work of mass destruction in which genetic mutations, chronic debility and economic meltdowns are deployed to maximum effect. We should note the almost prophetic nature of some of these albums whose characters have long done their business against a backdrop of financial crisis, as if he already knew what was coming.

Working on the edge of the system, his intransigence and his radicalism — some justifiably prefer the word genius — often land him in the spotlight. Witness the critical reception of his work and the prizes it has won (the special Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for Persepolis, as co-director alongside Marjane Satrapi) and the Fauve d’Or at the Festival International de Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême 2009 for Pinocchio, which has already become a cult album. Many comic lovers and connoisseurs consider Winshluss to be the best comic artist of his generation.

David Rosenberg