By Clarke & Gilson, coloured by Cerise; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-212-6 (album TPB/Digital edition)
This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.
Historically, whenever we used to feel out of sorts we’d consult the wise women to pull our fat out of the fire. Thus as we’re still sick and I’m out of pre-completed reviews here’s a sample of that and me being too clever for my own good.
Let’s see what tomorrow brings…
Witches – especially cute, sassy and/or teenaged ones – have a surprisingly long pedigree in all branches of fiction, and one of the most seductively engaging first appeared in venerable Belgian comic Le Journal de Spirou way back in 1992.
Mélusine is actually a sprightly (119 years old) neophyte sorceress diligently studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ School. To make ends meet she spends her off-duty moments working as au pair/general dogsbody to a shockingly disreputable family of haunts & horrors inhabiting and/or infesting a vast, monster-packed, ghost-afflicted chateau during some chronologically adrift, anachronistically awry time in the Middle-ish Ages…
Episodes of the much-loved feature are presented in every format from one-page gag strips to full-length comedy tales; each and all riffing wickedly on supernatural themes and detailing Melusine’s rather fraught existence. Our magical maid’s life is filled with daily indignities: skivvying, studying, catering to the appalling and outrageous domestic demands of the master and mistress of the castle and – far too occasionally – schmoozing with a large and ever-increasing circle of exceedingly peculiar family and friends.
The strip was devised by writer Françoise Gilson (Rebecca, Cactus Club, Garage Isidore) and cartoon humourist Frédéric Seron – AKA Clarke – whose numerous features for all-ages LJdS and acerbic adult humour Fluide Glacial include Rebecca, Les Cambrioleurs, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continué… and Le Miracle de la Vie. Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters and as “Bluttwurst” Les Enqu?tes de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti, Mister President and P.38 et Bas Nylo.
A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is unremittingly funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical & genre pieces like Cosa Nostra, Les Histoires de France, Luna Almaden and Nocturnes. He was obviously cursed by some sorceress and can no longer enjoy the surcease of sleep…
Collected Mélusine editions began appearing annually or better from 1995 onwards, with the 27th published in 2019. Thus far thanks to Cinebook, five of those have shape-shifted into English translations, but there have been ads for a sixth…
Continentally released in October 2002, Contes de la pleine lune was the 10th groovy grimoire of mystic mirth and is again most welcoming: primarily comprised of single or 2-page gags starring the enticing enchantress and delightfully eschewing continuity for the sake of new readers’ instant approbation. When brittle, moody, over-stressed Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle; ducking cat-eating monster Winston; dodging frisky vampire The Count or avoiding unwelcome and often hostile attentions of horny peasants and over-zealous witch-hunting priests, the wily witchlette can usually be found practising spells or consoling/coaching inept, un-improvable and lethally unskilled classmate Cancrelune.
Unlike Mel, this sorry sorceress-in-training is a real basket case: her transformation spells go appallingly awry; she can’t remember incantations and her broomstick-riding makes her a menace to herself, any unfortunate observers… and even the terrain and buildings around her.
As the translated title suggests, Tales of the Full Moon dwells on demolishing fairy fables and bedevilling bedtime stories but also gives proper introduction to Mel’s best friend Krapella: a rowdy, roistering, mischievous and disruptive classmate who is the very image of what boys want in a “bad” witch…
This tantalising tome is filled with narrative nostrums featuring the traditional melange of slick sight gags and pun-ishing pranks highlighting how our legerdemainic lass finds a little heart’s ease by picturing how one day she’ll have her very own Prince Charming. Sadly, every dream ends – usually because there’s something sticky that needs cleaning up – but Melusine absolutely draws the line when Cancrelune (and even her own sweetness-&-light Fairy cousin Melisande!) start hijacking her daydreams…
This fusillade of fanciful forays concludes with eponymously titled, extended episode Tales of the Full Moon wherein Melusine is ordered to read a bedtime story to the Count’s cousin’s son: obnoxiously rambunctious junior vampire Globule, who insists on twisting her lovely lines about princesses and princes into something warped and Gothic… and even that’s before Cancrelune starts chipping in with her own weird, wild suggestions and interjections…
Wacky, wry, sly, infinitely inventive and uproariously funny, this arty arcana of arcane antics is a terrific taste of Continental comics wonderment: a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art. Read well before bedtime – or you’ll be up laughing all night…
Original edition © Dupuis, 2002 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2014 © Cinebook Ltd.
Speaking of Dark Nights, today in 1915 Bob Kane was born. Whatever happened to him?
Today in 1906 Golden Age comics scripter Joe Samachson was born. He’s all over this blog so just initiate a little search dialogue action to know more.
And in 1938 the inimitable E.C. “Elzie” Segar died. We last worshipped at his salty feet with Popeye: The E.C. Segar Popeye Sundays volume 4: Swea’Pea and Eugene the Jeep (February 1936 – October 1938); so should you as soon as possible.