The British Invasion

The British Invasion!, by French author and illustrator Hervé Bourhis, offers a fun visual  year-by-year chronicle of British pop culture from 1962 onwards, covering music, fashion, television, and other cultural milestones from across the pond.

This graphic novel shows the significant impact of British pop culture, beginning with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones in the 1960s, the punk movement of the 1970s with bands like The Clash and Sex Pistols, and the Britpop era of the 1990s like Oasis. This structure allows hobby readers to follow the progression of British pop culture over the decades, noting how various elements influenced and connected with other musicians.

The British Invasion!  also notes iconic television series like Doctor Who and a certain boy wizard.

Artist and author Hervé Bourhis developed an early passion for superheroes and began his career as a web graphic artist in 1999. His debut comic book, Thomas, ou le Retour du Tabou, was published in 2002 and earned him the René Goscinny Prize for best young comics writer. Bourhis is known for works that blend cultural history with graphic storytelling, such as The Little Book of Rock and The Beatles Graphic.

Bourhis’s artistic style here shows clean lines, bold colors, and a bright aesthetic. In The British Invasion!, he uses a scrapbook format, with icons and caricatures that recall trends and album covers. This style gives readers an engaging visual narrative, and invites readers point out specific events or trends, and ask if you remember…

The British Invasion! has been well-received for fun and comprehensive coverage of British pop culture. Comics reviewer Win Wiacek described it as “a fabulously eclectic year-by-year catalogue of events, achievements, style-&-fashion forays, music-&-movie moments, and less definable landmarks.” Good Comics for Kids also discusses The British Invasion!, highlighting its non-fiction coverage of British pop culture. Down the Tubes also notes that Bourhis “only works on subjects that have obsessed him since his teen years” and that fandom love is evident in the fun detail in The British Invasion.