Legend says that a spirit sleeps within each of us…
…and that a childhood trauma can awaken it… such is the rise of the Zelphire…
Young Sylvan Khelmann is one such host, doing his best to hide the strange, tree-like features that start growing on his body. This mysterious condition comes with strange abilities which he doesn’t understand until meeting Professor Wernes, who invites him to join an expedition of discovery. But they find themselves pursued by the evil Dreghans, who possess supernatural abilities of their own, tracking down all known Zelphires to serve their secret nefarious purpose…
The globally popular middle-grade fantasy series by writer/illustrator Karim Friha, this supernatural tale is steeped in Victorian steampunk and is a delightfully dark adventure, like Charles Dickens writing the X-Men for Tim Burton.
Written and illustrated by: Karim Friha
Karim Friha was born in Maisons-Laffitte, France, in 1980. As a child, he took a liking to comics with the Franco-Belgian classics, most notably Asterix and Gaston Lagaffe. After receiving his bachelors degree in science, he studied math but ended up drawing far more than anything else, enjoying the history of art more than trigonometry. While he became passionate about the artistic period of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly the works of Voltaire and Victor Hugo, that didn’t keep him from enjoying The Simpsons, Calvin and Hobbes, the works of Tim Burton, Batman, and a whole host of other superhero stories. Eventually, his art allowed him to work on kids’ magazines and several animated films. Rise of the Zelphire is his first graphic novel series, showcasing his great talent for both storytelling and sequential art. It was an official selection of the 2010 Angoulême International Comics Festival and has been translated into several languages since.
