According to some retrogrades, the family is Dad, Mom and the children. Oh, really? Anthony Bertrand shows in Fils & Pères that reality is fortunately much more plural. Find out in this column.
Fils & Pères, a story of life and resilience
Each career path is different and, in Fils & Pères, the scriptwriter, cartoonist and colorist Anthony Bertrand proves it with tenderness. For his first book, he returns to his origins. Adopted at the age of 4, Tom becomes Thomas. The only son of a line of only sons, he is adored by his parents. The sweetness of this early childhood is shattered when he learns that his origins are different from what he thought. In addition, he suffers school bullying when he arrives at the boarding school of his new high school. To get better, he blends into the bourgeois norm. This invisibilization is also a way to please the parents who have chosen it.
At the same time, he discovers an attraction for boys. Despite this initial situation, Sons & Fathers is a luminous account of a man's affirmation. Over time, Thomas manages to find his place and accepts his identity as an adopted child and homosexual. He quickly finds love with Pierre, a career soldier. He creates a balance by coming to Paris between his work, cultural outings and life as a couple. He could have everything to be happy but he feels a double lack. He wants to be part of time by looking for his past and projecting himself into the future.
Fils & Pères goes very fast at the beginning to then focus on the desire to become a father and the author makes surprising choices. The information is transmitted by a recitative with a very different place depending on the boxes. Some parts could have benefited from development in future publications – his difficulties in high school, his failure in a competition – because they are poorly integrated into the narrative. Conversely, he does not talk about his coming out but uses interviews with his relatives like his mother to show how she accepted her difference.
Fils & Pères, diversity at work 
Beyond his individual journey, Anthony Bertrand shows another image of the family. The unique family model is a myth both by his adopted past and his present as a homosexual father. This story goes through a paradoxically very soft drawing. Some boxes of Sons & Fathers seem to reproduce childhood photos. However, the style is clean and symbolic more than photorealistic. Coming from graphic design, Anthony Bertrand thinks a lot about colorization. The colors are not aimed at realism but express a feeling or a message. Thomas' multiple hair colors can be noted depending on the change in his place in the world.
Fils & Pères also brings out the changes in the perception and law on children's lives before their adoption. We move from the denial of this past to integration. The reader also understands that the search for one's roots is not an individual act but a collective one. All loved ones are touched by this painful quest. Through Thomas, the reader discovers how this search is necessary for the present and upsets it. The book becomes even more collective with a parenting project. Pierre, Thomas' companion, speaks to explain his vision and their choices. The process is long and exhausting. Together, they meet an association. During a meal, they exchange with friends who want to adopt. Whatever the options, the reader discovers the legal complexity. Anthony chooses sweetness but the reader would have liked a more committed work on the LGBT and homoparental cause to show that this recognition is also a social cause.
Published by La Boîte à Bulles, Fils & Pères is the personal testimony of a man building a family tree from his roots to his young buds. Anthony Bertrand also shows the diversity of families in action in a luminous story.
Still at La Boîte à Bulles, you can find other testimonials in comics with A revolutionary feminist at the workshop and Rien ne sert de m'aimer.
