By Vittorio Giardino (Catalan Communications/NBM)
ISBN: 978-0-87416-041-3 (Catalan PB Album) 978-1-56163-184-1 (NBM PB Album)
This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Pure Unobtainable Wonder… 9/10
It’s time again for me to whine about how and why some of humanity’s most impressive comics tales continually languish in English-language limbo as my loutish people seemingly refuse to open themselves to the wonders of the world. This time – AGAIN! – it’s a truly wonderful period spy drama you would think was the height of taste and fashion right now…
Born on Christmas Eve 1946, Vittorio Giardino was an electrician who switched careers at age 30. He initially worked for a number of comics magazines before his first collection – Pax Romana – was released in 1978. Giardino toiled, slowly but consistently, on both feature characters such as detective Sam Pezzo, saucy Winsor McKay homage Little Ego and cold-war drama Jonas Fink, as well as general fiction tales, producing 46 albums to date.
In 1982 he began relating the career of a quiet, bearded fellow recalled by the Deuxieme Bureau (the French Secret Service) to investigate the slaughter of almost every agent in the cosmopolitan paradise of Budapest.
The series ran in four parts in the magazine Orient Express before being collected as Rhapsodie Hongroise – Giardino’s thirteenth book… and one in no way unlucky for him. Reluctant spy Max Fridman (transliterated as Max Friedman for the English-speaking world) was dragged back into the “Great Game” in the years of uneasy peace just before the outbreak of WWII: a metaphor for the nations of Europe. Every day and with every fresh headline that becomes more relevant than ever right now…
Over the course of ten years, the masterful Italian graphic novelist crafted two more individual tales and in 1999 added a stunning triptych of albums. The three volumes of No Pasaràn! detailed a key moment during the on-going conflict in what became Republican Spain and the dying days of the Civil War which revealed many clues into the life of the diffident and unassuming hero. Three further volumes have been added to the canon (Max Fridman: Rio de Sangre in 2002, Max Fridman: Sin ilusión in 2008, and just this year Max Fridman: I cugini Meyer) so I’m declaring they are all now long past due to be revived and revisited, and revered…
Back then though, it took three years for Giardino to resume this subtly addictive pre-war drama with follow-up La Porta d’Oriente… Orient Gateway to you and me…
Summer 1938: All espionage agencies in the world know war is coming and nothing can stop it. Frantically jockeying for the most favourable position, all are seeking any infinitesimal advantage for when the balloon goes up. Recently Soviet engineer Mr. Stern has become just such a preferred asset of far too many rival organisations, so he runs, losing himself in the teeming, mysterious city of Istanbul.
Once again diffident, canny operative Max is drawn into the murky miasma of spycraft, but now, beside exotic, bewitching Magda Witnitz, is he the only one to ask why so many dangerous people want to “acquire” Stern?
…And why are they so willing to kill for him?
Subtle, entrancing and magnificently illustrated, this is a mesmerising, slow-boil thriller with all the beguiling nostalgic panache of Casablanca or Topkapi and labyrinthine twists and turns of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or even Slow Horses, which no fan of the genre, let alone comics aficionado, can afford to miss.
Giardino is a smart and confident writer who makes tone and nuance carry a tale and his art – a more representational derivation of Hergé’s Ligne Claire (clean line) – makes the lovingly rendered locations as much a character as any of the stylish operatives in a dark, doomed world on the brink of holocaust.
Although still largely an agent unknown in the English-speaking world, Max Friedman is one of espionage literature’s greatest characters, and Giardino’s work is like honey for the eyes and mind. This is another graphic novel every fan of comics or the Intelligence Game should know.
© 1986 Vittorio Giardino. All rights reserved.
Today in 1921 veteran Golden Age creator Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski (Blue Beetle and so much more) was born, He shares the date with cartoonist Joe Edwards whom we mostly know for Archie Comics series including Jughead, Betty & Veronica, Super Duck, Captain Sprocket and his private brainchild Li’l Jinx.
In 1929, jack of all trades Frank Spinger joined the party. He drew almost everything, but you must read The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist as well as Dazzler, Nick Fury, Friday Foster, Rex Morgan, M.D. or Secret Six…