By O.G. Boiscommun & D-P Filippi, translated by Montana Kane (HumanoidsKids)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-654-5 (HB/Digital editions)
This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.
The trauma-tinged, gluttonously anarchic ceremonies of Halloween are celebrated far and wide these days, and although the basic principles are fairly homogenised, different regions can throw up a few enticing variations that are well worth noting. A graphic series that proved a huge European best-seller when released in 2017, the three stories comprising this magnificent hardback compilation are also available digitally in the original 3-album format, albeit translated into English for your delectation and approval.
Snob and eco-supporter that I am, these days, I’m going to say buy or gift the book if you like: I’m reviewing the electronic editions here…
Devised by writer/artist Olivier Boiscommun (Renaissance: Children of the Nile) and full-time screenwriter/scenarist Denis-Pierre Filippi (Gregory and the Gargoyles, Muse, Fondation Z, John Lord), these overlapping adventures focus on a band of kinds in an oddly archaic city of indeterminate vintage. It’s a place of towers and cathedrals, strange moods and winding streets, perfectly captured by Boiscommun’s exaggerated painting style.
The first album – Halloween Tales: Halloween – sees a gaggle of adolescents gathering to celebrate the night with frolics and mischief: elaborately costumed and frightening each other. However, gauntly-garbed Asphodel remains gloomy and aloof, eventually heading off alone. Her thoughts are locked on death, until she is accosted by a strange, clownish figure who seems barely real. He seeks to alter her mood and mind with a strange philosophy…
Second volume Halloween Tales: The Story of Joe is delivered in eerie monochrome tones and hues, returning us to the mountainous outskirts of that dreaming city where little Bea can’t understand why playmate Joe is being so mean. As they idle about on the rooftops, the boy and his new pet cat survive a close encounter with a huge bat that leaves Joe scarred and bleeding. His doting dad is too busy working these days, so it’s Bea who first notices some bizarre changes – physical as well as emotional – increasingly afflicting her friend, before culminating in him dealing with bullies who persecute them with terrifying power. Only when Joe’s awful transformation is nearly complete do Bea, the cat and his father find a way to challenge the tainted child’s descent into nocturnal isolation and monstrosity…
Scripted by D-P Filippi, Halloween Tales: The Book of Jack completes the trilogy with a return to vibrant colour as a pack of children, led by overbearing Stan, dare little runt Jack to break into a spooky haunted mansion. As the moppet mob approaches the dilapidated pile through a statuary-infested overgrown garden – or is it a graveyard? – lanky Sam tries to reason with her little companion. She has plenty of misgivings and a really bad feeling about all this…
Bravado and peer pressure win out, and Jack enters the derelict building, to discover the biggest library in the world in its centre. Suddenly panicked, he snatches up a tatty tome to prove his triumph and dashes for the door. Only when they are all safely back outside the gates does Sam realise there’s something odd about the book. Many pages are blank, but gradually filing with spindly writing every moment – each unfolding line magically recording what Jack is doing as he does it. Mean, jealous Stan sees an opportunity for mischief…
Next morning the book has vanished, and Jack is slowly becoming a gigantic, savagely uncontrollable beast. Sam knows what’s happened and starts searching the city for the miraculous chronicle, determined to get it and literally rewrite her friend’s appalling future…
With All Hallows festive celebrations inexorably installed in so many modern cultures, it’s grand to see an alternative to the almost-suffocating commercialising and movie tropes where heart, sentiment and yes, unease and outright fear can be safely experienced and expunged. These moody escapades are a true treat, in darkness or in light, and that’s no mean trick…
© 2017 Humanoids, Inc. Los Angeles (USA) All rights reserved.