With both adventure and introspection Philippe Girard has turned a trip to a comic festival in Russia with his friend and publisher Jimmy Beaulieu into an inner journey. Throughout the book, Girard is haunted by the spectre of his deceased friend, Guillaume, who tries to remind him that he should really get those varicose veins fixed - and that it's about time to let go and move on. The genial Girard plays the tourist and the professional equally well as the reader is taken on a nine-day journey through the sites, sounds, and culture of St. Petersburg, with glimpses into the architecture, bars, and real people of the city (not to mention a first-hand account of what it's like to lose your passport in Russia). As Girard and Beaulieu are led around by their generous Russian hosts, they are innocently asked, "Why do you speak French? Aren't you guys supposed to be Canadians?" Comparable to Guy Delisle's travel journey graphic novels (such as Pyongyang and Burma Chronicles).

Born in Quebec City in 1971, Philippe Girard published his first comic in a kid's magazine at the age of eight. In addition to various collaborations with magazines and daily newspapers, he has published nine books of comics as well as a series of novels for children. His strip Béatrice was serialized for one year in the newspaper La Presse (Montreal), and later in the weekly magazine Spirou. In addition to many nominations in Quebec and Canada, he received a Bédéis Causa award in 2001 for Jim le Malingre: avatars ataviques, as well as the Bédélys Quebec award and the Joe Shuster Award in 2008 as writer for the book Danger public. In 2008, he took part in two projects of comics underlining the 400th birthday of his hometown, Quebec City.

Philippe Girard's profile page