The Black Sea

Ana Pessoa & Bernardo P. Carvalho

Summer is coming to an end, but the beach café is still a hive of activity. JP serves the tables and Inês is behind the bar, making coffee, slicing ham, preparing toasties. They’re not exactly the best of friends. He’s jokey and light-hearted, she takes life a little more seriously.
One foggy morning, an unexpected event brings them together. But the more Inês becomes wrapped up in a drama which is not her own, the more she detaches from her own life.
So who is Inês deep down? Who does she want to be? And, more importantly, can you ever be someone you’re not?

“Sometimes I feel like I’m not myself”.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s as if I’m someone else or as if I’m trying to be
someone else”.
“Inês, we’re always someone else”.

After Diversion, Ana Pessoa and Bernardo P. Carvalho return to the subject of identity with another remarkable graphic novel made up of long, meandering dialogues and flawless illustrations in two pantone colors.

Press voices

“(…) above all, what “Mar Negro” gives off is an enormous naturalness, the feeling that what we’re reading isn’t fiction, but rather a record of real events transposed onto paper. In summary, a portrait of lives as they really are.” F. Cleto e Pina, Jornal de Notícias

“There’s nothing forced about the language here, nor any of those unfortunately frequent instances of what we imagine is “youthspeak”; what there is, rather, is a skilled fixing of the narration in an internal experience sensitively and complexly handled, born of a wish to imagine a particular kind of world. If this can’t help change the misguided ideas surrounding graphic novels, it’s hard to imagine what could.” Sara Figueiredo Costa, Parágrafo

Books by Ana Pessoa & Bernardo P. Carvalho