Couleur de peau: miel #1

The cover of this first volume by Jung says everything with quiet power: a small boy — rendered in warm amber tones against a stark pencil-sketch world of looming adult figures — stands alone holding an identification card reading "Jun Jung-Sik, ××8015, 12-2-65," his cautious smile both vulnerable and resilient. Published by Soleil in 2007, Couleur de peau : miel is an autobiographical graphic novel that draws on deeply personal material, and Jung's art immediately signals that blend of tenderness and raw honesty. The contrast between the child's honey-colored warmth and the grey, fragmented world surrounding him makes for one of the most emotionally arresting opening images in Franco-Belgian comics of that era.