Jim (book)

Jim is the title of a book with drawings by François Schuiten. Schuiten made these drawings after his dog Jim passed away early 2023. This book will be published in August 2023 by Rue de Sevres.

Since 2021, the Prix Victor Rossel has crowned the best talents in both literature and comics. “Jim” was nominated for this award ¹⁾.

“It was time for my walk and I couldn't see him. He must have been waiting for me somewhere…”. In drawing Jim, his recently deceased dog, François Schuiten has once again found in the art of the comic strip a way of filling the emptiness inside him and honouring what is dear to him.

François Schuiten: “I'm a bit of a laborious drawer. I need to reassure myself, and my drawings are the fruit of a rather long process. But for Jim, it was the opposite: I needed it to come out, I needed to capture this elusive emotion. I didn't really look for it: it just fell into my lap. It's the way I found to go through the disappearance of my dog. The pleasure of rediscovering him through drawing lightened my pain, and it was a form of therapy, helping me to understand what linked me to my dog and to recapture all the emotions that lay beneath the surface.” ²⁾

By compiling these illustrations in a carefully produced book, François Schuiten underlines, with the majesty that characterises all his work, the powerful and invisible links that are forged between people and their pets, and brings a little warmth to those who know or dread the inevitable end of an extraordinary relationship.

A few pages can be found in this preview document. More drawings by François Schuiten of Jim can be found at the page about Jim.

François Schuiten making a drawing of Jim in the book.