Sambre is a story about tragic love, a family curse and the French revolution. It is set during the 19th century France. Bernard Sambre falls in love with Julie, a beautiful thief with red eyes, and promises he'll share everything with her, love, life and death. His father, turned prophet in the last years of his life, writes a book "The War of Eyes" stating that people with red eyes will be the end of the Sambre family. Julie after a tragic event escapes to Paris, and Bernard follows her thorn between his family and love of his life.
First volume of Sambre was published in 1986 and immediately got all the high praises. It was done by Yslaire and Balac, but because of disagreements the two stopped working together after that. From the second volume it's all Yslaire. He becomes the sole creative power behind it, writing the scenario and doing the artwork.
This being mainly a love story, the reader doesn't lose perspective that it's set during one of the darkest periods of time in French history. The characters were thrown in the midst of it all, which affect both of our main characters lives imensely. In Sambre you get an array of characters with different backgrounds, from the student idealist to the political opportunist, and see how the revolution affected them. I have to admit that I don't know a lot about French revolution, besides the main basic things, so I enjoyed this aspect of the story very much. It really made me want to read more about it, especially Les Misérables even though I'm kind of terrified by the size of that book.
One more thing that I absolutely loved is the artwork and the color palette that Yslaire uses. Everything is done mostly in red and black, with some shades of gray and brown, and even though it does seem limited, it strikes a punch. It fits with the story perfectly, portrays this turbulent atmosphere and without it, I feel like it wouldn't be complete.
Unlike the artwork, I did have some problems with the writing. It was confusing at times and I had to go back and re-read some parts to try and understand the story. I felt like the story was lacking sometimes and that it could go deeper to get a better perspective of the events.
Unfortunately, Sambre was never officially translated into English, but if you are interested in reading this wonderful piece of art, you can find it.