Review - Federico Bertolucci's LOVE animal comics

Last year I wanted to find and read comics that are an adventure, and preferably play in a dense, green and lush jungle. I came across the LOVE comics, written by Frédéric Brrémaud and drawn by Federico Bertolucci, published by Magnetic press between 2011 and 2021. The first issue is called "The Tiger", which actually plays in a jungle.

What's so special about LOVE comics?

The 5 comics (the Tiger, the Fox, the Lion, the Dinosaur, the Mastiff) are all word-less comics, no speech bubbles, no dialogue. They play out as one day in each of the animals' life, albeit a very compressed day with sometimes exceptional and rare incidents. No animal in the wild would realistically meet that many animals in one day, or experiencing a volcano outbreak is nothing you would see every day.

But of course the focus is on story-telling, so showing an animal resting for the most of the day would probably not the best use of 50 pages.

But why are they called LOVE? Choosing a title like that makes them super-hard to find on the internet, but there is a quote about its purpose in the beginning of each book:

In the animal kingdom, animals neither love or hate each other.

Love and hate are parts of a natural whole. A supreme balance many consider to be universal. Or even divine. An elemental love.

A love that mankind could never experience.

Despite not having any dialogue, these comics are utterly entertaining. You could be forgiven for rushing through the pages, but I urge you to take your time and soak in all the panels and their details. Sometimes I was missing a few details of animals in the shadow that would be revealed on the next page just because I was not looking close enough, leaving me a bit puzzled. Of course, all my own fault. 

Sample page from The Lion. See how the cheetah in panel 3 is lightly hinted at before the medium shot in panel 4.

The books are rated for 8-14 year olds, but I don't care and you shouldn't either, I am convinced these beautiful comics are enjoyable by everyone, especially when you are a fan of wildlife and animals.

If you are not sold on the books yet, the publisher created trailers for each issue which nail the atmosphere, it's hard to not get a book after seeing for example this.

Amazing animal drawings and more

Bertolucci's drawings are magnificent. Just outstanding! It is like I could jump into the pages and smell the air of the jungle, or in other occasions the sea or savanna. I wish I could draw like this! His skills are not coincidence as he has been drawing comics for Disney Italia in the past.

Sample page from the Mastiff

I can't believe how long it took me to find these books. His animal depictions are marvellous, he doesn’t shy away from unusual poses, each pose has a satisfying flow of lines. On the baseline his animal drawings are very realistic and keep the animal‘s proportions as realistic as possible. Though in some instances he gives the faces a bit more expression, sometimes with bigger eyes or eye expressions that resemble more a human being. Here his work experience at Disney shines through. Lambiek Comiclopedia has an entry about his life and career.

That mostly makes sense since in a comic we are limited in displaying and perceiving sounds, so a growl would be less noticeable than a pulled back lip to reveal sharp teeth. In the case of "The Tiger“ comic, the tapir, which appears throughout the book to flee from the protagonist, has very human-like moments in its gaze. It even has some white in its eyes to make better expressions.

One remark: something about the tapir felt off. The Malayan tapir has in real life a slight  outward arch in its back, but here it is drawn with a more inward arch. And the white patch of its fur goes all the way down to its bottom. And maybe the feet that are not quite correct, they are appear too slim and look more like hoofs instead of these wide elephant-like feet. Something felt sort of off for me, in case you have the same feeling. 

But see for yourself. Since this is a blog mostly about animals I wanted to point this out.

Left side taken from Magnetic Press https://www.magnetic-press.com/love/.
Right side By Rufus46 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35966715

Despite my little nagging, these books are really top-notch in terms of animal drawings. Each book covers a vast menagerie of animal characters which are being explored next to the main character. Especially in "The Mastiff" we see other subjects going about their lives, snakes, platypuses and koalas searching for food and avoiding to land on a plate themselves.

Even more astounding are the lavish environments these stories take place in.

Federico Bertolucci's drawing process

Luckily enough there is a video on YouTube by himself, showing the step-by-step process of bringing one of these amazing pages to life.

What’s astonishing about his process are the amount of different steps he takes to create these layered pages.

First, he draws the animals traditionally on paper and scans them. On the computer he then creates the layout of the page. Most comic creators start with laying out the whole page with thumbnails first.

Additionally he uses a lot of brushes that act like a stamp for grass, flowers and leaves to help with the vegetation.

It also caught my eye that many panels use a plant element in black as a foreground layer to establish more dimensionality. Very clever and effective. As if we are lurking behind bushes and trees to observe the animal journey.

He also has one phase for adding shadows and another for the lighting. Each panel is given a dedicated phase to establish mood through lighting.

When you look at some panels close enough, you still can see the underlying rough pencil marks, which give the drawings are rougher finish and at the same time more texture and details subconsciously. In contrast, the light reflections are established meticulously as edge light on every panel. It’s these finishes which give each page a polished look and lengthen the production time of each page. More work for the artist, more visual feast for us.

a one-panel splash page from The Fox

If you want to see the publisher's original release pages, go here to Magnetic press for e.g. The Fox. There is also a short interview of the artist, as well as on the pages for the other entries. I love the read artist interviews and learn about their background and workflows.

I've not yet read issue #3 and #4, but will get to it very soon. Do you want to read a short animal comic by me?

Hope that inspired you!

Andi Pasti