Graphic Novel Review: Always Never by Jordi Lafebre

Posted on June 8, 2023 at 6:26 am by Gene Ambaum

Always Never by Jordi Lafebre. English translation by Montana Kane. Dark Horse Books, 2022. 9781506731377. 152pp.

The story of a decades-long romance is told backward from its end (or is it a new beginning?) to its sudden start. He’s been gone for most of that time, at sea, where he also finished his doctorate in physics. (He recently returned home to run a bookstore.) She is the responsible one, a happily married family woman who became mayor of the city where she lives, who never forgot the man she fell for decades earlier. It’s not as much of a complication as it might be, but it is an excuse for an exchange of letters over the years, and of semi-broken hearts that might be fixed at the end (the beginning of the book).

Always Never is worth reading for its reverse-chronological structure alone, and Lafebre’s illustrations are also world-class and full of joy.

This is Lafebre’s first book to be published on paper in English, though other graphic albums by him are available in English digitally from Europe Comics at https://www.europecomics.com/author/jordi-lafebre/