Baby Boom (French edition) - Yokoyama Yuichi

Baby Boom by Yuichi Yokoyama, a French version published by Éditions Matière / ISBN 9782916383422 / a 184-page paperback, about 6 x 8.25 inches, printed in 6 colors

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Ryan Holmberg: "It was in Baby Boom that I feel, for the first time, melancholy welling up in his work."

Matt Seneca in the Comics Journal: "With his last three books Yokoyama has pulled off a triumph of lit-comics, a triumph of art-comix, and an achingly gorgeous thing that sits somewhere in between. As with all great works, the only answer is probably to let their effect on the form work itself out. Truly special work, after all, only elevates its medium. Yokoyama has given us three pieces of art that are very special indeed, and it seems to me that the only reaction worth actively pursuing is to read them."

Google Translation of the description: "Baby boom is a collection of stories animated by two recurring characters, a "bird" (the black-headed animal under the mask of which the author likes to imagine himself) and a "chick", engaged, in pairs or in groups, in all kinds of activities specific to childhood: hoops, cubes, swimming, folding, drawing, snacks, constructions, sandboxes, jumping in puddles ... Drawing vigorously with two colors of felt-tip pens, Yokoyama has left his drawings with their sketchy freshness. By their (apparent) speed of execution, by their colored contrasts, his boards are in this way the obvious and communicative extension of the frenzied joy of the bird, the chick and their playmates. A new key to access to a work that is sometimes unfairly considered austere, serious and cold, Baby Boom is the book of enthusiasm par excellence. It brings to light for the first time one of the artist's most powerful springs: his childhood part."

Yokoyama is the author of Travel, New Engineering, Color Engineering and Garden (all published by PictureBox). He was the subject of a one-man show at The Kawasaki City Museum in 2010, and has exhibited in galleries and museums in Tokyo, Singapore, Rome and San Francisco. He lives and works in the suburbs of Tokyo.