By Teresa Radice & Stefano Turconi, translated by Terrence Chamberlain (EuroComics/IDW) ISBN: 978-1-68405-188-5 (HB Album) eISBN: 978-1-68406-411-3
Globetrotting Viola volume 1: Treasure Everywhere!
By Teresa Radice & Stefano Turconi, translated by Terrence Chamberlain (Europe Comics – Digital Only) No ISBN
There’s never been a more fruitful time for comics and graphic novels than today but the digital revolution has thrown up a few confusing moments for dithery old guard reviewers like me. Here’s a perfect case in point.
Europe comics is a collective syndicate of continental publishers from numerous countries collaboratively releasing the best of European material in translated digital formats. They also act as agents, so many of their digital releases eventually end up as physical books for English-language publishers like NBM, IDW and Cinebook.
Quite rightly, these publishers also have their own digital editions, and naturally these feature small variations and deviations in the final product. All in all, however, it’s no big deal. There is no “correct†edition and the art and story reman fundamentally the same. You pays yer money and takes yer choice…
In this instance I bought and reviewed both, so could you, if you so pleased…
Scripted by Teresa Radice and painted by Stefano Turconi – a prolific Italian husband-&- wife team who have co-created many books for varying ages of kids, such as Mickey and the Great Sea of Sand, The Forbidden Harbour and the Orlando Curioso series – this award-winning historical romp from 2013 follows the life of a young circus girl in very memorable times…
Alternatively dubbed Violette or Viola Vermeer, our young star Рdaughter of a cannonball woman and an insect trainer Рis a fourth-generation performer of the Cirque de la Lune, currently chafing under the strictures of having to attend a draconian school for ladies in fin de si̬cle Paris.
She would far rather be travelling the land with her friends and family, and her scholastic inattention – and love of animals – keeps landing her in hot water with the stuffy schoolmarms of the posh institution she’s trapped in…
Her life takes an interesting and life-changing turn after meeting an itinerant painter named Henri. She ends up trailing him all over the metropolis, trying to return a lost sketchbook to the absent-minded dauber. The quest takes her all over the City of Lights and into places I am not going far more educational than her usual classroom: even to the resplendently scandalous Moulin Rouge, resulting in her downtrodden attitude being replaced by a new zest for living and a brand-new sense of adventure and purpose…
A breezy, light-hearted coming of age tale about diversity and acceptance set in a glamourous historical wonderland, this superb yarn also includes loads of captivating extra art by Turconi and a potted biography of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to aide amusement and elucidation…
Globetrotting Viola: Treasure Everywhere! © 2016 TUNUÉ (Tunué s.r.l.) – Teresa Radice & Stefano Turconi
Violette around the world: My Head in the Clouds text and illustrations © 2013 Teresa Radice & Stefano Turconi – Tunué. All rights reserved.