The Many Lives of Charlie - Kid Toussaint - ★★★★

AUTHOR: Kid Toussaint

ILLUSTRATOR: Aurélie Guarino

TRANSLATOR: Anna Howell

GENRE: Fantasy

RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: A whimsical story that begins with a simple exploration of what happens to a soul after death, but develops into an intricate explanation. Imaginative in plot. Tricky to understand at times, but overall, a good read.

Story Synopsis:

In some dystopian future, happy-go-lucky Charlie works at Eternal Recycling, a company that specialises in recycling the physical remains of loved ones after their passing. As the customer care associate, Charlie has to answer calls and help customers with their recycling plans. But everything changes when he receives a call from a little boy one day, wanting to know what happened to his mother’s soul after her death. Charlie has never thought about souls, so the boy’s query leaves him befuddled. He soon begins his own investigation into the matter, with unforeseen consequences.

This graphic novel was originally published in French as ‘Les Vies de Charlie’ in 2023. This English translation will be published in December 2023.

The highlight of this book has to be its quirky storyline. It starts with a straightforward premise: that of an employee doing his best to bring satisfaction to customers and helping them in their time of grief. However, once the investigation into a soul’s fate begins, the story takes a completely different route. While I enjoyed both sections, I think the transition was too sudden and the tone also was too disparate.

For once, the blurb restricts itself only to the initial section. So the path taken by the second half of the story came as a complete surprise. I did not expect romance to play a dominant role in this section. It is handled well enough; it just caught me unawares and so, was a mild downer for me. (On second thought, I should have expected romance because of that cover art!)

Charlie is a great choice as the central character. I loved his exuberance and his sincerity. He carries the story on his shoulders with aplomb. There are a few other interesting characters, but they don’t get this much page space, so their development is only to the extent necessary. We don’t get to see their motivations or the reason behind certain behavioural traits. Like, why does Luc always avoid Charlie? No idea.

Eternal Recycling can effectively be called the second lead of this story. Their business itself is enough to make them stand out. But even beyond this unusual “service”, their policy towards employees is excellently depicted. From mandatory walking time to laughing time, Eternal Recycling is very concerned about the health of its employees, or so it seems. The business is futuristic but the corporate culture is the same as in our real world.

The storyline is impeccable and imaginative, though it does take a while to make sense of it. The start is smooth, but Charlie’s investigation and its results are quite tricky to understand initially. If you have patience, the picture starts becoming clear soon enough, though not all of the plots gaps are filled up even by the end. Still, the ending is a beautiful one, and left me satisfied.

The artwork is stunning. The illustrator employs varies colour palettes across the story, though the art style remains the same throughout. There are monochrome pages at the start, light pastel pages in between (with the dominant colour constantly changing as per the situation), black & white pages for a flashback and a few panels with the full burst of colour. I love how the art offered hidden clues about the characters, though these become evident only retrospectively. The watercolour-style graphics suit the mood of the book.

All in all, this is a sweet story not to be overanalysed but to be enjoyed as is. It gives a whole new meaning to the idea of life coming a full circle and offers plenty to ponder over. Though it is a story about death and grief, the implementation is more hopeful than depressing.

My thanks to Europe Comics and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Many Lives of Charlie”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Note: There are many pages with nudity, though the graphics are not sexually provocative. However, there are implied sex scenes, including orgies. Official target age: 15+.