Not the Child I Expected

A review of Fabien Toulmé's graphic novel.
Not the Child I Expected
Cover of "It's Not You I Was Waiting For"

With a simple yet precise and effective style, Fabien Toulmé makes his debut in comics with an intimate and personal story: the arrival of his daughter Julia, a child with Down syndrome.

For various reasons, Julia's parents don't learn of her condition until several days after her birth, when doctors confirm what Fabien had begun to suspect from her distinctive physical features. This delay makes the news harder to absorb. Until that moment, all their medical tests had ruled out Down syndrome entirely.

What makes Fabien's brief account remarkable, though, is his unflinching self-examination. He speaks with raw honesty and without pretense, laying bare the fragility of a parent in ways that strike the reader—sometimes harshly—straight to the heart. It's an unusual subject for the comics medium, yet his testimony stands as a moving and genuine account of fatherhood.

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Matteo Cinti

Matteo Cinti

Born in the late eighties, Matteo graduated as an Advertising Graphic Designer in Rome in 2007 and in the same year discovered Ombre e Luci, beginning to layout the magazine when it was still under…

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In total 349 authors have contributed to Ombre e Luci.

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