Welcome to Double Take, a column dedicated to highlighting different comics and each’s merits through a discussion between two veterans of the comic site space. One is yours truly, the person behind the Eisner Award-losing SKTCHD, David Harper. The other is friend of the site and the Eisner Award-winning comics critic Oliver Sava. This time, we’re turning our attention to a newly translated release from France.

One of the fun things about this column is how anything can be our subject within its confines. That’s not to say that isn’t the case for any comics review, but because both Oliver and I are very open to trying new things and expanding our horizons, and because SKTCHD as a site is not reliant on “traffic” in a traditional website since, our pool for Double Take is any comic you can think of. If we go ultra mainstream, it’s because we’re feeling it. If we go the opposite route, it’s because that’s how we’re feeling that month.

And with Oliver coming off his maiden voyage to beautiful Paris and my love of European comics exploding of late, we turned our attention to France in this edition, as this edition finds us discussing Léo Schilling and Motteux’s recent Magnetic Press release, Hana and Taru: The Forest Giants. It’s about Taru, a misfit of a tribe of warriors, and Hana, her best friend and the prisoner of her people, going an adventure as Taru’s home is threatened by rampaging animals known as The Forest Giants. It’s the debut work of this duo, and it finds them telling a tale of friendship, family, generational trauma, and big, lush landscapes that are tailor made for Motteux to draw.

But is it a quality read? Does it deliver on the promises made by its cover, one that hooked me as soon as I saw it? There’s only one way to find out, so Oliver and I dove right in as we discussed this book and a little bit about his recent adventure in Paris.