Get a Life

By Philippe Dupuy & Charles Berberian. Published by Drawn & Quarterly. 

Hardcover, 144 pages, Colour, 2006. 

A celebration of the sophistication, wit and charm found only in the singular collaboration of French cartooning team

For twenty years, French cartoonists Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian have collaborated on every aspect—sharing both the writing and drawing—of their highly acclaimed Mr. Jean short stories, creating one of the most endearing, clever, and readable series in contemporary French comics. Their award-winning, critically acclaimed series has sold more than 120,000 copies in France and has won one of comics' most coveted awards, the prestigious Angoulême Alph-Art

Award for the Best Book of the Year.

Get a Life is a collection of the early Mr. Jean stories where the reader is introduced to the life of the titular character, a laconic, single Parisian male struggling through the usual calamities of life: bachelorhood in his twenties and early thirties and the impending responsibilities of marriage, kids, and deadlines for his publisher. Mr. Jean is a typical everyman—a scholar who fancies himself a man of letters, a nostalgist whose memories carry a weight few can understand, a lover whose heart knows the greatest of burdens. Melancholic yet joyful reflections on past loves, favorite authors, marriage, and fatherhood are laid out in a breezy, comic style.