By Rodolphe & Léo, coloured by Marie-Paule Alluard, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-397-0 (Album PB/Digital edition)
Continental audiences adore the mythologised American experience, both in Big Sky Wild Westerns and later eras of crime dramas. They also have a profound historical connection to the northernmost parts of the New World, generating many great graphic extravaganzas…
Born in Rio de Janeiro on December 13th 1944, “Léo” is artist/storyteller Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira Filho. After attaining a degree in mechanical engineering from Puerto Alegre in 1968, he was a government employee for three years until forced to flee the country because of his political views.
Whilst military dictators ran Brazil, he lived in Chile and Argentina before illegally returning to his homeland in 1974. He worked as a designer and graphic artist in Sao Paulo whilst creating his first comics art for O Bicho magazine, and in 1981 migrated to Paris to pursue a career in Bande Dessinée. He found work with Pilote and L’Echo des Savanes as well as more advertising and graphic design jobs, until the big break came and Jean-Claude Forest (Bébé Cyanure, Charlot, Barbarella) invited him to draw stories for Okapi.
This brought regular illustration work for Bayard Presse and, in 1988, Léo began his association with scripter/scenarist Rodolphe D. Jacquette – AKA Rodolphe. Prolific and celebrated, his writing partner had been a giant of comics since the 1970s: a Literature graduate who left teaching and running libraries to create poetry, criticism, novels, biographies, children’s stories and music journalism.
On meeting Jacques Lob in 1975, Jacquette expanded his portfolio: writing for many artists in magazines ranging from Pilote and Circus to à Suivre and Métal Hurlant. Amongst his most successful endeavours are Raffini (with Ferrandez) and L’Autre Monde (with Florence Magnin), but his triumphs in all genres and age ranges are far too numerous to list here.
In 1991 “Rodolph” began working with Léo on a period adventure of the “far north” starring a duty-driven loner. Taciturn, introspective, bleakly philosophical and pitilessly driven, Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant Philip Trent premiered in L’Homme Mort, forging a lonely path through the 19th century Dominion. He starred in eight moving, hard-bitten, love-benighted, beautifully realised albums until 2000, with the creative collaboration sparking later fantasy classics Kenya, Centaurus and Porte de Brazenac…
Cast very much in the pattern perfected by Jack London and John Buchan, Trent is a man of few words, deep thoughts and unyielding principles who gets the job done whilst stifling the emotional turmoil boiling within him: the very embodiment of “still waters running deep”…
Miss was the 7th saga, released in 1999, offering a marked change in fortune for the lovelorn peacekeeper as, after years of second-guessing, procrastination and prevarication, he finally weds the love of his life.
Years previously, he had saved Agnes St. Yves – but not her beloved brother – and was given a clear invitation from her: one he never acted upon. In the interim, Agnes met and married someone else. As before, Trent was unable to save the man in her life when banditry and destruction called during an horrific murder spree. The ball was again in Philip’s court and once more he fumbled it through timidity, indecision and inaction. He retreated into duty, using work to evade commitment and the risk of rejection…
Now everything has changed and Trent and Agnes are joyous newlyweds; however their nuptials are marred by a man in the crowd, someone the Mountie met in the days after he first lost his current bride…
The ghost at the wedding is soon joined by other old acquaintances and disturbing packages and before long, he meets again Miss Helen. Even back then he knew the vivacious American was wrong: a cultured creature flaunting wealth and her sexual favours whilst espousing dangerous anarchist rhetoric. She sought to turn the steadfast lawman to her cause before abruptly disappearing…
Her return coincides with a major exhibition of vast riches, and after flattery, seduction, fond reminiscences and veiled threats fail to secure his cooperation in robbing the event, Helen does what she was always going to do and kidnaps the new Mrs Trent.
Cornered and hopeless, Philip is forced to comply, unaware that other factions have also been observing him, and that bloody plans are afoot. Even after he’s brought up to speed, when the moment comes all he can do move fast and hope that he and his true love can survive the inevitable bloodbath that follows…
Another beguilingly introspective voyage of internal discovery, where human nature is a hostile environment, Miss Helen delivers suspense, drama and riveting action in a compelling epic to delight all fans of widescreen cinematic entertainment.
Original edition © Dargaud Editeur Paris 1999 by Rodolphe & Leo. All rights reserved. English translation © 2017 Cinebook Ltd.