A hilarious romantic comedy about kleptomania and booklovers
Pascal is in a bad place. He and his longtime girlfriend have just broken up, he's got writer's block, and when he goes out for a run to ease his frazzled nerves, he falls and injures his back so badly that he's strictly forbidden from running. What's an endorphin-loving cartoonist to do? In a bid to distract himself, Pascal throws himself into his other pleasure: reading. And while at the bookstore one day, he spies a young woman picking up his own book. But then she darts out of the shop without paying. Bemused, he decides to figure out why she did it.
Petty Theft is a comedy of errors, a laugh-out-loud account of a man on a mission, and a testament to the addictiveness of book ownership. Pascal Girard intermingles an all-too-true-to-life snapshot of contemporary relationships with slapstick trials and dryly funny tribulations in this delightfully readable book.
From the award-winning author of Reunion, Petty Theft is a deftly told, finely drawn contemporary romance that will keep booklovers on the edge of their seats from the first page until the denouement.

Most of Pascal Girard's bios state that he's been drawing "since forever". That's a lie. No one has been drawing "since forever". That's impossible and illogical. Pascal Girard isn't able to remember the exact moment when he started drawing. But he knows everything has to start somewhere, and he is most certain that before that single instant where he started drawing he obviously did not draw. That's always how it goes. He is pretty sure, however, that his first book was published in 2006 and that ever since then he has written a few more : Bigfoot, Reunion andPetty Theft, just to name a few. When he isn't working on a specific project, Pascal keeps on drawing. Dessins offers us a peek into his day-to-day work. It's his first book for Pow Pow Press.

Pascal Girard's profile page

Helge Dascher has for 25 years translated texts with a dynamic relationship to images. A background in art history and literature has grounded her translation of over sixty graphic novels, many by artists who have broadened the medium's storytelling range. Her translations included acclaimed titles such as Julie Delporte's This Woman's Work (co-translated with Aleshia Jensen, Drawn and Quarterly, 2019), Sophie Bédard's Lonely Boys (co-translated with Robin Lang, Pow Pow Press, 2020) and Michel Rabagliati's "Paul" books (Drawn and Quarterly, Conundrum). She also translates exhibitions, digital stories, and films, most recently Theodor Ushev's The Physics of Sorrow (with Karen Houle, NFB, 2019). A Montrealer, she works from French and German to English.

Helge Dascher's profile page

[ Petty Theft ] manages to convey both the lightness and loneliness of a recent breakup. . . Drawn with simple, expressive linework, the story's trials and travails are full of humor, but the moments of Pascal alone in a room crowded with books and old possessions bring a sincere levity to the tale." - Bitch Magazine

"If you're in the mood for a sparkling entertainment of a comic to read in the sun on a summer afternoon, you won't find another book as cheerful, or as beautifully told, as Petty Theft ." - The Stranger

"Awkward humour, physical stunts, romance, babies, that white dreadlocked guy in spinning class . . . it's all here." - CBC Books Holiday Gift Guide

"[In] Petty Theft, Pascal Girard offers up a dry, humorous, and neurotic look at his own dating life . . . Much of the humor comes out in Pascal's actions, which range from slapstick to irony, and while he and the woman of his dreams may not be made for each other, they make a good graphic novel team." - AV Club

"A master slapstick artist with a keen sense of comic timing and a knack for pinpointing the exact moment when human interaction takes a turn for the absurd, Girard is especially skillful at extracting humour from precisely rendered body language." - Montreal Review of Books
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A fun romp in black and white!

by laurieb9