Category: European Classics

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Lucky Luke volume 9: The Wagon Train


By Morris& Goscinny translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-90546-040-3 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

One could quite convincingly argue that the USA’s greatest cultural export has been the Western. Everybody everywhere thinks they know what Cowboys and Indians are and do, but the genre has long migrated and informed every aspect or art and literature all over the planet. Comics particularly have benefited from the form, with Europe continuing to produce magnificent works even in these latter years when sagebrush sagas are barely visible in American entertainment and instead play out on the streets and in the courts…

This side of the pond, cowboys were a key component in all nooks & crannies of popular fiction from the earliest days. Newspapers were packed with astoundingly high-quality strips ranging from straight dramas such as Gun Law and Matt Marriott to uniquely British takes like Bud Neill’s outrageous spoof Lobey Dosser, whilst weekly kids comics anthologically abounded with episodic exploits of Texas Jack, Desperate Dan, Colorado Kid, Davy Crockett, Kid Dynamite, Buffalo Jack and more.

As previously mentioned, Europe especially embraced the medium and expanded the boundaries of the genre. In Italy Tex (Willer) remains as vital as ever, far outdistancing later revered and much-exported series such as Captain Miki, Il Grande Blek, Zagor, Larry Yuma, Ken Parker, Magico Vento and Djustine. The Franco-Belgian wing also has a long tradition of variety with true immortals amongst its ponderosa Pantheon: from all ages-comedic treats such as Yakari, OumPah-Pah, Chick Bill or The Bluecoats to monolithic and monumental mature-reader sagas like Jerry Spring, Comanche, Sergeant Kirk, La Grande Saga Indienne, Buddy Longway or the legendary Blueberry…

Topping them all in terms of sales and fame, however, is a certain laconic lone rider…

A precocious, westerns-addicted, art-mad kid, well off and educated by Jesuits, Maurice de Bevere was born on December 1st 1923 in Kortrijk, Belgium. A far from illustrious or noteworthy scholar – except in all the ways teachers despise – Maurice later sought artistic expression in his early working life via forays into film animation before settling into his true vocation. While working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) animation studio, “Morris” met future comics superstars Franquin & Peyo, and worked for weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist. Morris quickly became one of la Bande des quatre – The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and old comrade Franquin: leading proponents of a loose, free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Le journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style favoured by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin.

In 1948, said Gang (all but Will) visited America, befriending many US comics creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow traveller René Goscinny, scoring some work from newly-formed EC sensation Mad and making copious notes and countless sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West. That research would resonate on every page of his life’s work.

Working solo, albeit with occasional script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush parody and comedic cinematic homage before formally uniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with Des rails sur la Prairie which began in weekly LJd S from August 25th 1955. The collected album was first released for Christmas in 1957, the ninth in the series, and was followed by Morris’ final solo tale Alerte aux Pieds Bleus/The Bluefeet are Coming! in 1958.

Doughty, rangy, and dashingly dependable Lucky Luke is the likable, imperturbable, implacably even-tempered cowboy do-gooder who can “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around a mythic, cinematically informed Old West, having light-hearted adventures on his petulant, stingingly sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. Over nearly nine decades, his exploits in LJdS (and from 1967, in rival periodical Pilote) made the sharp shooter a legend of stories across all media and monument of merchandising.

His exploits have made him one of the bestselling comic characters in Europe (83 collected albums plus around a dozen spin-offs and specials – totalling over 300 million books in at least 33 languages), with all the spin-off toys, computer games, puzzles, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies that come with that kind of popularity.

The rapid pace and seeming simplicity of these spoof tales means older stories can generally sit quite comfortably alongside newer material crafted for a more modern readership.

In 1962 Morris & Goscinny’s 15th collaboration was serialised in LJdS #1281 – 1302 before arriving as 24th European album collection Lucky Luke et La Caravane; The Wagon Train to us…

It’s one of their most traditional tales; playing joyously with tropes and memes of the genre and clearly having as much fun as future readers were going to, and begins in dusty Nothing Gulch as a bedraggled procession of “Prairie Schooners” limp into town. Expedition head Andrew Boston is arguing with unscrupulous guide Frank Malone who’s demanding even more money before completing his commission to bring the hopeful settlers to California. When heated words are replaced with gunplay, a dusty observer ends the fracas before blood is shed…

Boston has heard a lot about Lucky Luke and promptly starts a multi-pronged charm offensive to have the Sagebrush Stalwart take over guiding the party to the fabled Golden State. Our hero is flattered but not interested… until Boston wheels out his big guns and has the kids ask in their own unique ways. Despite being prepared to use children to emotionally twist the cowboy’s arm, the twenty or so wagon-loads of pioneers are an affable if odd bunch from all over the world, and soon Luke is leading them across prairies and through deserts and mountains.

However, as days pass an extraordinarily large number of accidents and mishaps occur, and before long it cannot be denied that somebody is clearly attempting to sabotage the expedition…

With close calls and near-death escapes mounting, Lucky splits his attention between blazing a trail and playing detective but the suspect pool is just too large. Anybody from the undertaker in his hearse to the inventor in his constantly evolving horseless converter-car (there’s more than a passing similarity to TV’s Whacky Races here!); the suspiciously French Barber/Surgeon, creatively foul-mouthed mule driver or even the no-nonsense School Marm could be the culprit. But then again, there are so many others who act out of the ordinary…

Nevertheless, the voyage proceeds and as the would-be homesteaders survive the temptations of bad towns and other dens of vice and iniquity, bad food, and inclement weather a sense of community builds. Sadly, that’s soon tested to the limit when word comes that Sioux Chief Rabid Dog is on the warpath…

Despite all these traditional trials and tribulations Luke persists, and before long the Promised Land is reached and a vile villain finally exposed.

Cleverly barbed, wickedly ironic and joyously packed with classic cowboy set-pieces, this splendidly slapstick spoof of a crucial strand of the genre is another grand old hoot superbly executed by master storytellers for any kids who might have missed the romantic allure of an all-pervasive Wild West that never was…

And in case you’re worried, even though the interior art still has our hero chawin’ on that ol’ nicotine stick, trust me, there’s very little chance of anyone craving a quick snout, but quite a strong probability that they’ll be addicted to Lucky Luke Albums…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2007 Cinebook.

Today in 1930: French comics pioneer Jean-Claude Forest – creator of Barbarella – was born.

Today in 1954 the premier issue of Tiger went on sale. After 1555 issues and seven decades, its top star remains Roy of the Rovers (see The Bumper Book of Roy of the Rovers ).

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Approximate Continuum Comics


By Lewis Trondheim, edited & translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-410-8 (TPB)

With well over 100 books sporting his name (which isn’t actually Lewis Trondheim but Laurent Chabosy), the writer/artist/editor and educator is one of Europe’s most prolific comics creators: illustrating his own work and working with the industry’s top artists; overseeing animated cartoons of print successes like La Mouche (The Fly) and Kaput and Zösky and even editing younger readers book series Shampooing for Dargaud. His most famous works are the global hits Les Formidables Aventures de Lapinot (translated as The Spiffy Adventures of McConey) and, with Joann Sfar, the Donjon (Dungeon) series of nested fantasy epics (see the translated Dungeon: Parade, Dungeon: Monstres and Dungeon: the Early Years).

Tireless and prolific, he has written for everything from satirical magazine Psikopat to Le Journal de Spirou and Walt Disney. His scripts for the continent’s most popular artists include Le Roi Catastrophe and Vénézia with Fabrice Parme, Les Cosmonautes du futur (Manu Larcenet), Allez Raconte and Papa Raconte (José Parrondo), Politique étrangère (with Jochen Gerner and which Trondheim adapted into an opera in 2009) and Petit Pére Noël (Thierry Robin).

He is a cartoonist of uncanny wit, piercing, gentle perspicacity, comforting affability and self-deprecating empathy who prefers to control scrupulously what is known and said about him…

I first became aware of Lewis Trondheim’s subtly engaging comics mannerism in Fantagraphics’ Mome anthologies which reprinted excerpts of his utterly entrancing comics blog Little Nothings, wherein Trondheim’s friends and acquaintances, rendered and simultaneously masked as anthropomorphised animals (with him a dowdy, parrot-beaked central figure) revisit episodes of his life, flavoured with philosophy, personal introspection, whimsical inquiry and foible-filled observations.

These mini-treats were gathered into four terrific tomes of drawn diaries for constant re-reading (Little Nothings: Curse of the Umbrella, The Prisoner Syndrome, Uneasy Happiness and My Shadow in the Distance). You might still find the first three available as collected gift set Bigger Nothings…

However, before all that, in 1993 Trondheim first explored the idea as a 4-issue American-styled comic book project and those prototypical slices of wry and winning reportage are finally available in a translated black and white softcover collection. Some of the very first autobiographical works on the French bande dessinée scene, these little gems were a genuine game-changer for cartoonists and storytellers, prompting a rise in personal stories that has generated many works to rival the best of Harvey Pekar himself and created a new (sub)genre of graphic narrative…

In this collected Approximate Continuum Comics the signature blend of visualised introspection and self-condemnatory flagellation finds the younger Trondheim questioning his own professional integrity; violently and graphically wish-fulfilling his way through rush-hour crowds (haven’t we all?); planning – for which read risk-assessing – his forthcoming marriage and dealing with his unfathomable Japanese publisher during the early days of creating his multi-media hit La Mouche.

He regularly gets lost in his own free-associating daydreams and rightly fears being castigated by his own conscience for swimming in megalomania, indecisiveness, forthrightness and deference. Trondheim’s many inner voices don’t like him very much: there are myriad incidences of self-abuse where his alternate egos beat the crap out of him; counterbalanced with gloriously loaded “real-world” episodes where he lampoons and embarrasses his fellow studio-mates of publishing collective L’Association. (To be fair these are fabulously balanced by a marvellous section at the book’s end where such maligned and injured creative colleagues as David B., Emile Bravo, Didier Tronchet, Jean-Christophe Menu, Killofer & Philippe Dupuy among others, as well as civilian friends, his wife Brigitte and even his mother all get a trenchant and routinely hilarious right-to-reply.)

The first inklings of the artist’s perennial problems with technology in general and computer games in particular appear here, as do many childhood memoirs and sundry diatribes against people and places either experienced or sometimes only imagined. One of the best sequences concerns the trip-of-a-lifetime to America (first of many, but he didn’t know that then…) and his apparent inability to think of one single strip idea about it, only surpassed by his behaviour at a raucous party held in his beloved studio.

During the course of these cartoon capers, Trondheim married his fiancée, sired his first child and moved into a new home, but although these major events are thoroughly and compellingly covered they still pale into insignificance against the spectacular battles against his inevitably spreading paunch, obsessively mean-spirited self-criticism and the thunderbolt-like occasional phone call from his mum. …And whenever that’s no longer painful enough there’s always the violent physical assaults and punishment-beatings from his inner selves…

Personal favourites of mine include Les petits riens, Tiny Tyrant, Ralph Azham, Mr. O, Archives of Lost Issues, Mister I, Infinity 8 and A.L.I.E.E.E.N. but if you fancy other kinds of fare, Trondheim’s probably covered whatever you fancy and done it with wit and aplomb…

Superbly skilled at switching imperceptibly from broad self-parody to cripplingly honest and  painful personal revelation; wild surrealism to powerful reportage and from clever humorous observation to howling existentialist inquisition, Trondheim’s cartoon interior catalogue is always a supremely rewarding and enjoyable experience and, as these ancient texts prove, always has been…
© 2001 Lewis Trondheim and Cornélius. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books. All Rights Reserved.

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Sshhhh!


By Jason (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-497-0 (TBB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced for dramatic and comedic effect.

Born this day in 1965 in Molde, Norway, John Arne Sæterøy is known globally by his enigmatic, utilitarian nom de plume. The shy & retiring draughts-scribe started on the path to international cartoon superstardom in 1995, once first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won Norway’s biggest comics prize: the Sproing Award. Prior to that, he had contributed to alternate/indie magazine KonK whilst, from 1987, studying graphic design and illustration at Oslo’s Art Academy, before going on to Norway’s National School of Arts. After graduating in 1994, three years later he founded his own comic book Mjau Mjau, citing Lewis Trondheim, Jim Woodring and Tex Avery as his primary influences and constantly refining his style into a potent form of meaning-laden anthropomorphic minimalism.

Moving to Copenhagen Jason worked at Studio Gimle alongside Ole Comoll Christensen (Excreta, Mar Mysteriet Surn/Mayday Mysteries, Den Anden Praesident, Det Tredje Ojet) and Peter Snejbjerg (Den skjulte protocol/The Hidden Protocol, World War X, Tarzan, Books of Magic, Starman, Batman: Detective 27). His efforts were internationally noticed, making waves in France, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Germany and other Scandinavian countries as well as the Americas. He won another Sproing in 2001 – for self-published series Mjau Mjau – and from 2002 turned nigh-exclusively to producing graphic novels, winning even more major awards.

Jason’s breadth of interest is wide and deep: comics, movies, animated cartoons, music, high literature and pulp fiction all feature equally with no sense of rank or hierarchy. This puckish and egalitarian mixing and matching of inspirational sources always and inevitably produces picture-treatises well worth a reader’s time.

Over a succession of tales Jason built and constantly employed a repertory company of stock characters to explore deceptively simplistic milieux based on classic archetypes of movies, childhood entertainments, historical and literary favourites. These all role play in deliciously absurd and surreal sagas centred on his preferred themes of relationships and loneliness. In latter years, Jason returned to such “found” players as he built his own highly esoteric universe, and even has a whole bizarre bunch of them “team-up” or clash…

As always, visual/verbal bon mots unfold in beguiling, sparse-dialogued, or even as here silently pantomimic progressions, with compellingly formal page layouts rendered in a pared back stripped-down interpretation of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style: solid blacks, and thick outlines dominating settings of seductive monochrome simplicity augmented by a beguiling palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours.

The majority of his tales brim with bleak isolation, swamped by a signature surreality: largely populated with cinematically-inspired, darkly comic, charmingly macabre animal people ruminating on those inescapable concerns whilst re-enacting bizarrely cast, bestial movie tributes.

A perfect example of his oeuvre is ‘Sshhhh!’: a deliciously evocative, extended romantic melodrama created without words; the bittersweet tale of boy-bird meeting girl-bird in a world overly populated with spooks and ghouls and skeletons. The archetypes and cartoon critters are similarly afflicted by far more harsh demons: loneliness and regret.

Of course, it’s not just that. It’s also boy-bird loses girl-bird to death, other men, his own inadequacies and the vagaries of parenthood. It’s about how money fixes nothing and how Death is ever at your elbow and can be – quite frankly – a bit of a nuisance. It’s sex and death and discontentment and bloody ungrateful kids; aliens; being invisible; miserable vacations; disappointing locations: guys who are sexier than you and The Devil…

… And birds-nests…

Jason’s work always jumps directly into the reader’s brain and heart, always probing the nature of “human-ness” by visually invoking the beastly and unnatural to ask persistent and pertinent questions. Although clever sight-gags are less prominent here, his repertory company still uncannily display the subtlest emotions with devastating effect, proving again just how good a cartoonist he is.

This comic tale is best suited for adults but makes us all look at the world through wide-open childish eyes. Jason is instantly addictive and a creator every serious fan of the medium should move to the top of the “Must-Have” list. Don’t even wait for a physical copy, buy a digital edition ASAP, just so you can see immediately what all the fuss is about…
All characters, stories and artwork © 1998, 1999, 2008 Jason. All rights reserved.

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Moomin volume 9 – The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip


By Lasse Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-157-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-556-5-

Today 25-years ago in Helsinki Lars Fredrik Jansson died. His work and that of his sister lives on.

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20th century: equally adept at shaping words and images to create worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components like pen & ink, manipulating economical lines and patterns into sublime realms of fascination, whilst her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols. So was her brother…

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and rather bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Patriarch Viktor was a sculptor and mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars AKA “Lasse” and Per Olov became – respectively – an author and cartoonist, and an art photographer. The family and its close intellectual, eccentric circle of friends seems to have been cast rather than born, with a witty play or challenging sitcom as the piece they were all destined to inhabit.

After extensive and intensive study (from 1930-1938 at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris), she became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled years of WWII.

Brilliantly creative across many fields, she published her first Moomins fable in 1945. Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood – latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood) was a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian misfit trolls and their strange friends…

The term “Moomin” came from maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who tried to stop Tove pilfering food when she visited by warning that a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks… you can check out our other reviews such as Christmas Comes to Moominvalley for how the critter became a mega franchise and proto-mythology. Here and now, let’s discuss how Lars got involved…

More popular with each successive book, global fame loomed. And in 1952 Finn Family Moomintroll/The Happy Moomins was translated into English to great acclaim, prompting British publishing giant Associated Press to commission a daily newspaper strip starring the seductively sweet & sensibly surreal creations. Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices about strip cartoons as she had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Mumintrollet och jordens undergäng/Moomintrolls and the End of the World was hugely popular and she welcomed the chance to extend her eclectic family’s range. In 1953, The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip sagas which captivated readers of all ages. Tove Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and the punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that she had already recruited brother Lars to help. He quietly took over, continuing the feature until its close in 1975. His tenure as sole creator officially began with the sixth collection in this series and reaches its penultimate volume here…

Liberated from cartooning pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other pursuits: generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and 9 more Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups. She died on June 27th 2001, with awards too numerous to mention, and her face on the national currency…

Lars Fredrik Jansson (October 8th 1926 – July 31st 2000) was almost as amazing as his sister. Born into that astounding overachieving clan 12 years after Tove, at 16 he started writing – and selling – his own novels (nine in total). He also taught himself English because there weren’t enough Swedish-language translations of books available for his voracious reading appetite. In 1956 at his sister’s request he began co-scripting the Moomin strip: injecting his own witty whimsicality to ‘Moomin Goes Wild West’. He had been Tove’s English language translator and sense-reader from the start, seamlessly converting her Swedish into text and balloons even the British could grasp.

In 1959, when her contract with The London Evening News expired, Lars officially took over, having spent the interim period learning to draw and perfectly mimic his sister’s art style. He had done so in secret, assisted and tutored by their mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson. From 1961 to strip’s end in 1974, Lars was sole steersman of trollish tabloid tails (I fear that could be much misconstrued these days…).

“Lasse” was a man of many parts. Other careers included aerial photographer, professional gold miner, writer and translator. He was basis and model for ultimate cool kid Snufkin and his Moomins exploits were subtly sharper than his sister’s version: far more in tune with the quirky British sense of humour. Nevertheless, his whimsically wry sense of wonder was every bit as compelling. In 1990, long after the original series, Lasse began a new career, working with Dennis Livson (designer of Finland’s acclaimed Moomin World theme park) as producers of anime series The Moomins and, with daughter Sophia Jansson in 1993, on new Moomin strips…

Moomintrolls are easy-going free spirits: polite modern bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores but under Lars, increasingly diverted and distracted by societal pressures. Moominmama is warm, kindly tolerant and capable, if perhaps overly concerned with propriety and appearances, whilst her devoted spouse Moominpappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys. Their darling son Moomintroll is a meek, dreamy boy with confusing ambitions who adores – and moons over – permanent houseguest the Snorkmaiden – although that impressionable, flighty gamin prefers to play things slowly whilst awaiting somebody potentially better…

A particularly acerbic affair, this 9th monochrome compilation revisits serial strip sagas #34-37, and opens with Lars in full charge as confusion blooms with the arrival of cinematic thespians and sundry other playactors all concerned with immortalising a ‘Damsel in Distress’.

Sadly our happy family and most of Moominvalley are utter neophytes regarding the miracles of the moving image and understandable initial confusion soon grows into envy, dangerous jealousy, unleashed ambition and when Moominpappa leaps to a wrong conclusion, frustrated heroism and vigilantism once the old stalwart spots ladies tied to railway tracks and caped mustachio-twirling figures lurking about…

No soon does that furore die down than domestic strife manifests as ‘Fuddler and Married Life’ finds the androgynous collector and equally ambiguous new spouse Jumble exploit everyone’s goodwill and happy wishes to unwisely expand their personal button collection into a rapacious runaway commercial enterprise that soon leaves them homeless and straining the good will of all around them. Luckily, Moominmamma is on hand to take over babysitting chores whilst the drama sorts itself out…

Rampant unchecked capitalism gone mad is also the order (to go) of the day in ‘Sniff’s Sports Shop’ as the exceptionally shy and nervous critter inherits a thriving activities emporium from an uncle whose sole previous contact was a monthly stipend for staying the full length of the valley away from him…

Moomin is there to support Sniff’s crash course in commercial enterprise and unwise quest for a game or endeavour he can take up as his very own, but the escalating chaos inevitably ends in tizzies, higgledy-piggledy behaviours, embarrassment and injury, before the sporting mogul wisely calls it a day…

Concluding proceedings is the sorry salutary saga of ‘Mymble’s Diamond’ wherein the impulsive, impressionable, incurable romantic shows everyone the flashy ring she’s been given by latest flame Rinaldo, and certain tongues begin wagging once again…

Soon the valley is afire with stridently expressed opinions and mounting certainty that “something should be done”, but what and to whom and – for pity’s sake – why?

A cautionary tale exploring the power of gossip and apparently irresistible need for some to judge others, here is a perfect example of cartoons’ power for cultural commentary and social satire, and a splendid place to pause and think quietly for a moment…

This compilation again closes with a closer look at the creator in ‘Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work’ courtesy of family biographer Juhani Tolvanen, extolling his many worthy attributes…

These are utterly, adorably barbed tales for the young, laced with the devastating observation and razor-sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kids’ stories into classics of literature. These tomes – both Tove & Lars’ – are an international treasure trove no fan of the medium – or carbon-based lifeform with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without.
© 2013 Solo/Bulls. “Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work” © 2011/2013 Juhani Tolvanen. All rights reserved.

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Yoko Tsuno volume 19: The Astrologist of Bruges


By Roger Leloup, coloured by Beatrice of Studio Leonardo & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-130-9 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

On September 24th 1970, “electronics engineer” Yoko Tsuno began her troubleshooting career as an indomitable intellectual adventurer. Her debut in Le Journal de Spirou was realised in “Marcinelle style” cartoonish 8 page short ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’ but although she is still delighting readers and making new fans to this day, her action-packed, astonishing, astoundingly accessible exploits quickly evolved into a highpoint of pseudo-realistic fantasies numbering amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created. Her globe-girdling mystery cases and space-&-time-spanning epics are the brainchild of Belgian maestro Roger Leloup who launched his own solo career in 1953 after working as studio assistant/technical artist on Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin.

Compellingly told, sublimely imaginative and – no matter how implausible the premise of an individual yarn – always firmly grounded in hyper-authentic settings underpinned by solidly-constructed, unshakably believable technology and unswerving scientific principles, Leloup’s illustrated escapades were at the vanguard of a wave of strips revolutionising European comics. Very early in the process, he switched from loose illustration to a mesmerising nigh-photo realistic style that is a series signature. That long-overdue sea-change in gender roles and stereotyping heralded a torrent of clever, competent, brave and formidable women protagonists taking their rightful places as heroic ideals and not romantic lures, consequently elevating Continental comics in the process. Such endeavours are as engaging and empowering now as they ever were, none more so than the travails of Miss Tsuno.

Her first outings (the aforementioned, STILL unavailable Hold-up en hi-fi, and co-sequels La belle et la bête and Cap 351) were mere introductory vignettes prior to epic authenticity taking a firm grip in 1971 when the unflappable problem solver met valiant but lesser (male) pals Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen. Instantly hitting her stride in premier full-length saga Le trio de l’étrange (in LJdS’s May 13th edition), from then on, Yoko’s efforts encompassed explosive exploits in exotic corners of our world, sinister deep-space sagas and even time-travelling jaunts. There are 31 European bande dessinée albums to date, with 19 translated into English thus far, albeit – and ironically – none of them available in digital formats…

Initially serialised in LJdS #2923 to 2943 and spanning April 20th to September 7th 1994, L’astrologue de Bruges became the 20th collected Yoko Tsuno album that same year. Following chronologically on from The Rhine Gold, it weaves a tale of Earth-bound archaic mystery as our tireless troubleshooter visits a living historical treasure trove for answers to a contemporary conundrum…

Walking the scenic canals of Bruges – “the Venice of the North” – Yoko strikes up a fortuitous conversation with a painter who is actually a very open-minded archaeologist and imaginative historian. Tsuno is there to meet another artist; one who has painted her portrait in local period dress. She thinks it’s from magazine photos of her, but Mr. Jos knows much of the confounding Jan Van Laet who has contacted Yoko, and none of what he knows is good…

Jos shows her the quiet passages and waterways of a renaissance city barely altered since the 16th century and offers to stay close during her interview with Van Laet: a man he seriously considers to be in league with the Devil…

Soon after her interview with the extremely off-kilter portraitist begins, Tsuno begins to agree with that assessment as Van Laet seeks to convince her that he captured her image from life, not photos, and that she had posed for him in 1545 Anno Domini. Her doubts take a hard knock when he also reveals ancient pictures and sketches of her with her friend Monya and foster daughter Morning Dew.

That’s when Van Laet’s patron and master the Marquis of Torcello joins the interview, claiming Yoko has lived since those Renaissance days afflicted by amnesia. Incensed and threatening, he also accuses her of holding his property: a vial containing an elixir of youth and another carrying the secret of a deadly biological super-weapon bottled by legendary, infamous natural philosopher, astrologer and alchemist Zacharius..

Escaping by hurling herself out of a window to be plucked from a canal by Mr. Jos, Yoko is pretty sure she knows the How if not Why of this situation. After all, Monya is a cherished comrade who was born in the far future and possesses a working time machine…

Resolved to learn everything and foil Torcello & Van Laet’s scheme to reintroduce the Black Death to the modern world, Yoko recruits steadfast comrades Pol & Vic to join her, Monya and Dew in an era of pestilence, intrigue, Inquisitions and ongoing Wars of Religion. She has no choice over the child… the painting already incontrovertibly proves Dew was present and in just as much danger as everyone else…

Mr Jos is vital in the planning and reconnaissance stages of the proposed mission. He now owns the fantastic house occupied by the undying villain in 16th century and allows Yoko access to all its many levels of subterranean cellars and workshops, and provides access to clothing of the era. Monya delivers everything else needed and during a terrific storm the party nervously head back to a time of terror and travail…

Befriending poverty-stricken flower seller Mieke on arrival, the time travellers are soon embroiled in an ongoing and escalating calamity involving Zacharius’ deranged-but-brilliant apprentice Balthazar, a scheme stripping churches of gold and portraitist Van Laet’s insidious human trafficking business selling his poor but honest models to the rich men who purchase his paintings. The true threat though is always Torcello who wants to spread doom and destruction in every era and gets his big chance after capturing Monya and stealing her Time Shifter…

The monster’s fate is someone else’s boon, however, as the doomed brief encounter of flirtatious Pol and meek Mieke suddenly grows into something much greater and happier ever after…

As ever, the most assured assets of these edgy endeavours are astonishingly authentic settings, benefitting from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail. A magnificently complex twisty thriller with doomsday overtones, displaying our valiant troubleshooter and her team triumphant in a taut, tense thriller of time bending terror, The Astrologist of Bruges is tense, moody, slow-burning, deviously twisted and potently plausible: a fable confirming how smarts and combat savvy are pointless without compassion, integrity and a sense of moral responsibility.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1994 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2024 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Rails on the Prairie – Lucky Luke Adventure vol. 32 & The Bluefeet are Coming! – Lucky Luke Adventure vol. 43


Lucky Luke volume 25: Rails on the Prairie
By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-104-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Lucky Luke volume 43 – The Bluefeet are Coming!
By Morris, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-173-0 (Album PB/Digital editions)

These books include Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Today in 2001 we said “adios!” to one of the true masters of our industry and art form. Happily, his legend lives on in the form of his most significant creation.

A precocious, westerns-addicted, art-mad kid, well off and educated by Jesuits, Maurice de Bevere was born on December 1st 1923 in Kortrijk, Belgium. A far from illustrious or noteworthy scholar – except in all the ways teachers despise – Maurice later sought artistic expression in his early working life via forays into film animation before settling into his true vocation. While working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) animation studio, “Morris” met future comics superstars Franquin & Peyo, and worked for weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist. Morris quickly became one of la Bande des quatre – The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and old comrade Franquin: leading proponents of a loose, free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Le journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style favoured by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin.

In 1948, said Gang (all but Will) visited America, befriending many US comics creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow traveller René Goscinny, scoring some work from newly-formed EC sensation Mad and making copious notes and countless sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West. That research would resonate on every page of his life’s work.

Working solo, albeit with occaisonal script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush parody and comedic cinematic homage before formally uniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with Des rails sur la Prairie which began in weekly  LJd S on August 25th 1955. The collected album was first released for Christmas in 1957, the ninth in the series, and was follewed by Morris’ final solo tale Alerte aux Pieds Bleus/The Bluefeet are Coming! in 1958.

Lucky Luke Rails on the Prairie

Doughty, rangy, and dashingly dependable Lucky Luke is a likable, imperturbable, implacably even-tempered cowboy do-gooder who can “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around a mythic, cinematically informed Old West, having light-hearted adventures on his petulant, stingingly sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. Over nearly nine decades, his exploits in Le Journal de Spirou (and from 1967, in rival periodical Pilote) have made the sharp shooter a legend of stories across all media and monument of merchandising.

His exploits have made him one of the bestselling comic characters in Europe (83 collected albums plus around a dozen spin-offs and specials – totalling over 300 million books in at least 33 languages), with all the spin-off toys, computer games, puzzles, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies that come with that kind of popularity.

The rapid pace and seeming simplicity of these spoof tales means older stories can generally sit quite comfortably alongside newer material crafted for a more modern readership. Here, material from Le Journal de Spirou #906-929 – originally spanning 25th August 1955 to 2nd February 1956 – was collected in November 1957 as ninth album Des rails sur la Prairie: the first epic result of a grand partnership.

Although initially uncredited, it was cowritten by Morris and fellow euro-expat/US tourist Goscinny: auguring an astounding creative partnership to come. Goscinny produced 45 albums with Morris before his death in 1977, from whence Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators. Before all that, though, this wild & woolly transitional delight offers a far more boisterous and raw hero than we’re used to, highlighting the sunnier side of a mythic western scenario. Moreover, it ends with the first incidence of Lucky riding into the sunset singing “I’m a poor, lonesome cowboy”…

When track-laying for the Transcontinental Railroad stalls, outraged train moguls demand action. Dead Ox Gulch, Nebraska becomes a crunch point of construction confrontation. Constant hold-ups are actually caused by a traitor at home back East. Although a board-member in good standing, Black Wilson is secretly sabotaging the project to protect his other business: a stage coach company…

He contracts the nefarious Wilson Boys to keep up their bad work, even as a laconic stranger rides into town. Before long, the newcomer is assuredly spearheading the march of progress and civilisation simply by foiling every dirty trick the gang can conceive…

Once renewed efforts have moved beyond town and onto the prairie and the rails inch ever closer to California, a train carries Lucky, passengers and the navvies further westward, negotiating and stymying hostile natives, greedy townships and the still-active Wilson boys’ shady tactics and stratagems.

Ultimately, Black Wilson takes personal charge and boards a stagecoach westward to destiny. Despite his every trick, though, the showdown between spoiler and visionary is a foregone conclusion…

Fast funny, episodic and enthralling, these early exploits are a big old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again or Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly set up and laid out by a master storyteller, and make a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was.

The Bluefeet are Coming! Lucky Luke volume 43

Au Continent, the populace has a mature relationship with comics, according them academic and scholarly standing as well as nostalgic value and the validation of acceptance as an art form. That even applies to challenging material such as seen in Alerte aux Pieds Bleus: Morris’s final solo effort until Goscinny passing in 1977. A tribute to all the purest western tropes and leitmotifs, it too offers a rowdier, boldly raw hero in transition, just hitting his stride and strutting his stuff, but also relies heavily on the cliches and narrative shortcuts of that earlier era, particularly in the depiction of other cultures and races appearances and customs for comedic intent. I can only apologise for my ancestors and ask that you read with an open mind: after all, Morris was simply exploiting longstanding filmic and comics influences. If I was really desperate, I might also say that his utilsation of comedy in these stereotypes may have helped challenge the status quo…

Lucky Luke debuted in autumn 1946: catapulted sans name or title into rolling gag vignettes in the French edition of multinational publication Le Journal de Spirou, before appearing (with a name) in Christmas Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947. Then his comic serial ‘Arizona 1880’ opened in the December 7th 1946 comic; and no one has ever looked back…

He first appeared in Britain syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun and again in 1967 in Giggle where he was renamed Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums – Luke hung a trademark cigarette insouciantly from his lip, before in 1983 Morris, no doubt amidst pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad” (oooh! That’s what “woke” must mean!!) substituted a strand of straw for the dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization…

Morris died in 2001, having drawn 70 Lucky adventures, plus spin-off tales of Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), with a posse of talented creators taking over the franchise.

The most successful attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook (who rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages if not the covers), but sensibly took their own sweet time bringing the oldest, most potentially controversial tales to market. As serialised in LJdS #938 – #957, Alerte aux Pieds Bleus is certainly one of those…

A procession of linked gags sees Morris pile on and kick hard familiar themes and scenarios as the town of Rattlesnake Valley welcomes wanderer Lucky. The lone rider is just in time to save super-superstitious sheriff Jerry Grindstone from sneaky gambler and professional cheat Pedro Cucaracha whose plans to fleece the old codger result in his painful and shameful eviction from civilisation. Of course, the scoundrel had tried to rob and blow up the bank on his way out…

Chased into the desert, the scurvy Mexican then gulls the alcoholic Great Chief of the local Bluefeet Indians into laying siege to the town, tempting the old warrior with promises of unlimited booze…

Old Parched Bear is happy to oblige, and soon the town is forming a militia, telegraphing for the cavalry and setting up barricades. As food and water grow scarce profiteering proliferates, with Lucky and Jerry battening down the hatches and bolstering morale for a long and dangerous defence of their lives and loved ones…

Against that framework of classic movie moments there are rich slapstick pickings as spies, crossdressers, raids & counter-raids and devious secret weapons all build to a bombastic finale, with Pedro and Parched Bear attempting all manner of nefarious invention to get respectively vengeance and more “firewater”…

… And then, when it’s almost too late, the Cavalry arrive… just after the deployment of late arriving support from the Greenfeet and Yellowfeet branches of the family of First Nations. It can only end in catastrophe unless Lucky can contrive a solution…

Daft and Spectacular in equal amounts, this is perhaps a tale for older kids who have gained a bit of historical perspective and social understanding, although the action and slapstick situations are no more contentious than any old movie…
© Dargaud Edituer Paris 1971 by Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translations © 2011, 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Sky Over the Louvre


By Bernar Yslaire & Jean-Claude Carrière, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM Comics Lit/Louvre: Musée du Louvre Éditions)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-602-0 (HB)

Joyeux 14 juillet! – or if you’re being a leetle pickee – Happy Bastille Day, mes braves!

Well over a decade ago the prestigious Louvre gallery in Paris began an intriguing, extremely rewarding collaboration with the world of comics, resulting in wealth of modern art treasures – translated bande dessinée made available to English readers courtesy of those fine folks at NBM.

The second release was 2012’s Le Ciel Au-Dessus du Louvre which we know as The Sky Over the Louvre – a lush and beautiful, oversized hardback graphic novel exploring the origins and philosophical underpinnings of France’s national art collection, whilst simultaneously peeling back the motivations and ambitions of the twisted visionaries who steered – or maybe simply rode – the human wave of Chaos deemed “the Terror” of the French Revolution: the catalyst for the gallery’s very existence.

These tales were produced in close collaboration with the forward-looking authorities of the Musée du Louvre, but this is no gosh-wow, “Night-at-the-Museum”, or thinly-concealed catalogue of contents from a stuffy edifice of public culture. Rather, here is an intense, informative, insightful and gripping glimpse into the price and power of art as engine of change and agent of obsession.

Jean-Claude Carrière was born on September 17th 1931, studied at the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud and wrote a novel before becoming an actor and one of France’s greatest screen writers. He assisted Jacques Tati and wrote the novelisations of his films, before going on to work with Luis Buñuel (for 19 years), scripting such classics as Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire and many more. Other notable credits include work with directors such as Milos Forman, Louis Malle, Andrzej Wajda, Nagisa Oshima and others on iconic films like The Tin Drum, Danton, The Return of Martin Guerre, Max, Mon Amour and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, although three generations of British television viewers will probably revere him most for his adaptation of the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (starring Robert Hoffmann and featuring that iconic theme-tune) which ran on BBC 1 at tea time from 1965 to about 20 minutes ago.

His approximately 80 screenplays, plus essays, fiction, translations and interviews led to countless awards and accolades including two Oscars – in 1963 for Heureux Anniversaire and an Honorary lifetime achievement Academy Award in 2014. Carrière died on February 8th 2021. In his spare time he had also written comics, particularly with legendary clown/gag writer Pierre Étaix and Bernard Yslaire…

Belgian born Bernard Yslaire (AKA Bernard Hislaire, Sylaire) began his career in 1978, drawing kiddie’s strip ‘Bidouille et Violette’ for Le Journal de Spirou before creating historical epic Sambre in 1986. He was one of the first creators to fully embrace the potential of the internet with his online strip Mémoires du XXe ciel / XXe ciel.com (Memories of the XXth Sky). In 2006 he produced the moving doomed romance Sky over Brussels, and since Le Ciel Au-Dessus du Louvre has largely left comics to concentrate on digital projects.

The Sky Over the Louvre compellingly dramatizes history, focussing on revolutionary artist Jacques-Louis David and close associate Maximilien de Robespierre (who dubbed himself “The Incorruptible”) as they plan how to replace religion, monarchy and the Old Art with something unique and truly worthy of their revolution. David and his School (Drouais, Greueze, Girodet and students Serangeli and Gérard) have taken residence in the old Louvre Palace, where past kings left their grandiose aggregation of treasures when they vacated Paris for Versailles. Here the Revolutionary council aspires to create a new aesthetic and new thought for their New Society…

Jules Stern is a 13-year-old wanderer from the Black Sea, roaming Paris’ dangerous streets in search of his mother, and claiming to have an appointment with David. On the 15th Fructidor, Year 1 (8th August 1793 for those of us not wedded to the Republic’s new calendar) the angelic lad confronts the artist just as he is inaugurating the Louvre as the first Museum of the Nation: dedicated to public ownership of art and the notion of beauty as a revolutionary ideal. Later, they meet again and Robespierre forms a hostile opinion of the child, although David is clearly fascinated by the headstrong, beautiful boy…

As high-minded idealism of the Revolution’s early days dissolves into factional in-fighting, Robespierre and David become increasingly concerned with the spiritual and aesthetic, determined to excise and replace every vestige of the old regime and society. They seek images and concepts to embody their cause and plan a festival to the concept of Reason, but all across France backsliding and foreign invasion threaten their progress. In September 1793 the Convention (ruling body and parliament of the Republic) decrees “Terror to be the order of the day”…

Blood, betrayal and horror rule the streets as David, from his apartments in the Louvre, begins work on a brace of pivotal works: The Supreme Being and The Death of Joseph Bara. It is difficult to assess which causes him the most grief and triggers his ultimate downfall…

The Incorruptible is becoming increasingly more arrogant and ruthless, desperate for revolutionary images that will fire and inspire the masses. He presses David to produce the ultimate physical representation of the conceptual spirit of the New France – a vision of its Supreme Being – but as time goes by and no image emerges, one too many people whisper that what Robespierre actually requires is a portrait of himself…

Far less troublesome should be The Death of Joseph Bara: a boy who became First Martyr of the Revolution, and one scheduled to become the nation’s uniting icon. However, David’s obsession with Jules Stern brings more trouble, when Robespierre objects to the boy being selected as the model for Bara the Myth…

Nobody baulks The Incorruptible for long, but the obsessive nature of the creative impulse is insurmountable. Eventually Robespierre can only achieve his ends by sending Jules to the guillotine. Incredibly, not even death separates the artist from his model…

Set solidly in the very heart of a moment of epochal historical importance, this is a stunning, utterly compelling tale of humanity at its wildest extremes, when grand ideals wedded themselves to the basest on bestial impulses, yet from that Yslaire & Carrière have crafted a magnificently realised tale laced with staggering detail and addictive emotion.

With extra features including biographies and a listing of the actual artworks woven seamlessly into the narrative, this is a truly magical book no aficionado of the medium, lover of history or student of human nature should miss…
© 2009 Futuropolis/Musée du Louvre Éditions. © 2011 NBM for the English translation by Joe Johnson. All rights reserved.

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Lucky Luke volume 24: The Judge


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-045-0 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Doughty, rangy, and dashingly dependable cowboy Lucky Luke is an imperturbable, implacably even-tempered do-gooder who can “draw faster than his own shadow”. He roams the mythic, cinematically fuelled Old West in light-hearted adventures astride his petulant, stingingly sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. Over nine decades, his exploits in Le Journal de Spirou (and from 1967, in rival periodical Pilote) have made the sharpshooter a legend across all media… and a monument of merchandising.

Working solo with occasional script assistance from his brother Louis, Morris – AKA Maurice de Bévère – produced 10 albums worth of affectionate and thrilling sagebrush parody before formally uniting with René Goscinny, who became regular wordslinger with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) commencing in Le Journal de Spirou on August 25th 1955. Morris & Goscinny literarily rode together on another 44 albums as Luke scaled the dizzying heights of superstardom. The partnership continued after the six-gun straightshooter switched teams in 1968, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with classic comedy thriller La Diligence (The Stagecoach).

Our laconic volunteer lawman’s trailblazing travails often draw on actual western history as much as movie mythology and he regularly interacts with noteworthy figures, as well as even odder fictional folk as his authors incessantly explore and refine key themes of classic cowboy films – plus some uniquely European notions and interpretations. The happy wanderer is not averse to being a figure of political change and Weapon of Mass Satire… as in this primal, heavily history-affronting affair…

First published continentally in December 1959, Le Juge was the 13th European album and Morris & Goscinny’s fourth official outing together, opening – after a terse background note on the real Judge Roy Bean – with Lucky as a literal cowboy ferrying a herd of prime steers from Austin, Texas to Silver City, New Mexico. The relatively uneventful cattle conveyance sadly stalls when, ignoring the advice that “there ain’t no law west of the Pecos”, Lucky stops at Langtry: a growing town on that legendary river that is ruled by saloon keeper/self-appointed Judge Roy Bean, who with his trained bear Joe rides roughshod over the citizenry whilst making himself incomprehensibly rich by exploiting an old law book he possesses. Through a system of carefully mis-applied court fines, bribes, indentured servitude and judicious hangings, the charismatic rogue is a virtual king who finally bites off more than he can chaw after impounding Lucky’s herd and subjecting him to a bogus trial (for rustling his own cattle) that ends with the hero sentenced to hang…

Escaping at gunpoint, Luke suddenly hatches a plan after travelling gambler Bad Ticket hits town and decides to set up in opposition to Bean with his own saloon, bad booze, sham trials and crooked scams…

Craftily striving to balance the scales of injustice, Lucky at first aids newcomer Bad Ticket in the war of law and lore. However, as Bad Ticket swiftly proves to be even less honourable and more devious than Bean, Luke switches sides – albeit almost too late – as the new judge turns on him and also sentences the citizens to string him up…

Opting for the devil he knows, Lucky recruits exiled loser Roy Bean – and Joe – to help him reclaim the town for decency and, with the rascally reprobate actually trying to make amends and (in his own way) atone for past sins and misdemeanours, sets Langtry back on the path to peace and progress. Of course that means much fighting, running, shenanigans & hijinks, insane alliances and a unique day in court for all concerned, in a case utterly unique to the annals of jurisprudence…

These youthful forays of an indomitable hero offer grand joys in the wry tradition of Destry Rides Again, Support Your Local Sheriff, or, dare I say it, John Milius & John Huston’s misunderstood 1972 demi-classic The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Superbly executed by master storytellers, this is a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2010 Cinebook Ltd.

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A Spirou and Fantasio Adventure: In the Clutches of the Viper (volume 22)


By Yoann & Fabien Vehlmann, designed by Fred Blanchard & coloured by Hubert: translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-162-0 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes Discriminatory Content included for comedic and literary effect.

Boyish hero Spirou (which translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language) was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel. This was before World War II for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis, in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman. Soon-to-be legendary weekly comic Le Journal de Spirou launched on April 21st 1938 with a rival red-headed lad as lead feature in an anthology which bears his name to this day. The eponymous hero was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed in the Moustique Hotel – in reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique. The bellboy’s improbable adventures with pet squirrel Spip gradually evolved into far-reaching, surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his chums helmed the magazine for most of its life, with a cohort of truly impressive creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was assisted by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm. In 1946, his assistant André Franquin assumed the creative reins: gradually ditching the well-seasoned short gag format in favour of epic adventure serials. He also expanded the cast, introducing a broad band of engaging regulars such as reporter Fantasio, phenomenally popular magic animal Marsupilami, master of mushroom Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac (the Count of Champignac) and one of the first strong female characters in European comics. Renamed Cellophine for Cinebook’s English translations, rival journalist Seccotine – of the tabloid The Moustic – became a regular foil and plays a key role in this very modern thriller…

Franquin was followed by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over nine stirring sagas tapping into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times: tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes. By the 1980s, however, the series seemed outdated and lacking direction, so three separate creative teams alternated on it. Eventually overhauled and revitalised by Philippe Vandevelde (writing as Tome) and artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry. Adapting, referencing and in many ways returned to the beloved Franquin era and ethos, the strip found its second wind.

Their sterling efforts revived the floundering feature’s fortunes, generating 14 wonderful albums between 1984 and 1998. When the strip diversified into parallel strands (Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and Guest-Creator Specials A Spirou Story By…), the team on the core feature were succeeded by Jean-David Morvan & José-Luis Munuera. Then Yoann & Vehlmann took over the never-ending procession of amazing adventures…

Multi-award-winning French comics author Fabien Vehlman was born in 1972, began his comics career in 1996 and has been favourably likened to René Goscinny. He’s probably still best known for Green Manor (illustrated by Denis Bodart), Seven Psychopaths with Sean Phillips, Seuls (drawn by Bruno Gazzotti and available in English as Alone), Wondertown with Benoit Feroumont and Isle of 1,000,000 Graves with Jason.

Yoann Chivard was born in October 1971 and drawing non-stop by age five. With qualifications in Plastic Arts and a degree in Communication from the Academy of Fine Arts in Angers, he became a poster/advertising artist whilst just dabbling in comics. His creations include Phil Kaos and Dark Boris for British Indie publications Deadline and Inkling, Toto l’Ornithorynque, Nini Rezergoude, La Voleuse de Pere-Fauteuil, Ether Glister and Bob Marone and he has contributed to Trondheim & Sfar’s Donjon. In 2006, Yoann was the first artist to produce a Spirou et Fantasio one shot Special. It was scripted by Vehlmann…

As globe-trotting journalists, Spirou and Fantasio regularly voyage to dangerously exotic places, uncover crimes, explore the fantastic and clash with exotic archenemies like Fantasio’s deranged and wicked cousin Zantafio and maddest of Mad Scientists, Zorglub. In 2011 one adventure (vol. 20 The Dark Side of the Z) saw Zorglub abduct them to the Moon where Spirou became a werewolf in a resort playground for the ultra-super-rich. It’s also – as we see here – where they first met their most insidious, pitiless and realistic supervillain…

As Spirou & Fantasio – dans les griffes de la vipère this cautionary tale from 2013 was the 53rd collected album in a series collectively approaching a landmark 100 volumes…

As Spirou chills out at a collectors market he meets excitable fan Annie: an adventure-hungry child determined to a roving reporter one day. The shy hero’s ego boost soon takes a hard knock however, as news comes that their magazine is being sued for inciting violence in children. The day in court is a disaster as seductive, bellicose lawyer Miss Jones, hired by affronted parents, makes the troubleshooters look like monsters, runs rings around Fantasio’s counsel and wins a million Euros in compensation from the deflated defendants. With ruin staring them in the face, the shocked wanderers wonder what they can do next. Miraculously, Spirou gets a visitation from his greatest hero…

Based on LJdS co-star Jean Valhardi, “Detective-Explorer” Gil Braveheart was downcast Spirou’s inspiration when he was growing up, and has again come to the rescue, offering to find a new investor to save the magazine…

He soon puts S&F in touch with an investment fund that will pay the parents off and fund continued publication, but as the heroes foolishly breeze past all the pages of a vast contract, Spirou sees old frenemy Cellophine being threatened by two very burly men-in-suits. All her efforts though cannot stop the lads signing on with the Viper Corporation…

Now paid incomprehensible amounts of money every month, Spirou and Fantasio initially flounder before simply giving it away to charities and good causes, but soon become bored as exploits and adventures apparently dry up. Soon after, Braveheart invites Spirou to visit Viper’s higher ups in their paradisical Marmalade Islands super resort and at last the canny crusader wises up. He’s blindly strolled into the most devious trap ever devised…

Again confronting one of the idle, petty super-rich magnates he’d met and disrespected on the Moon, Spirou realises all the power of money has been utilised to neutralise his friends and allies, obtrusively surveille his entire life and manipulate him into contractually and legally surrendering all aspects of his own life. He’s a brand of the corporation now and will do what he’s told when he’s told to, just like all the other heroes the top plutocrat has spitefully obtained in his constant search for meaning and validation and to counter his overwhelming boredom…

Trapped in a gilded cage and denied nothing except liberty, autonomy, fresh thrills and fun, Spirou refuses to bow to the admittedly heavenly, sybaritic life. Even sad broken Gil Braveheart’s admonishments can’t stop him making a bid for freedom, evading all the bugging tech and brutal heavies money can buy by recruiting brave Annie to act as his long-distance agent…

And then, after much preparation Spirou makes his break and the chase is on all over the Earth, but as the reporter seeks sanctuary, his flight across the globe and the way Viper treats ordinary people begins to inspire long-corrupted heroes and a way is found to reverse the intolerable situation. It’s not legal but it is unassailable and unstoppable…

Rocket-paced, action-packed, compellingly convoluted and with just the right blend of absurdity and helter-skelter excitement, In the Clutches of the Viper is a wry romp that is also genuinely terrifying, capturing the zeitgeist of modern concerns about the power of unchecked wealth and influence – and lawyers! This is pure cartoon gold, truly deserving of reaching the widest audience possible.
© Dupuis 2013, by Vehlmann, Yoann. All rights reserved. English translation © 2025 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke


By Matthieu Bonhomme: and translated by Montana Kane/Jerome Saincantin (Europe Comics/Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-063-0 (Cinebook PB Album/Digital edition)

Lucky Luke was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (AKA “Morris”), first riding out in Le Journal de Spirou that summer sans any title or banner, and only in the French-language edition. His official launch came with Christmas Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947, before beginning his first weekly serial adventure – ‘Arizona 1880’ – in December 7th 1946’s multinational weekly issue.

Doughty, rangy, and dashingly dependable, the cowboy is an implacably even-tempered do-gooder who can “draw faster than his own shadow”, amiably ambling around a mythic, cinematically realised Old West on his petulant, stingingly sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper in light-hearted adventures. Ever since that natal moment, his exploits in LJdS – and, from 1967, in rival periodical Pilote – have made the sharpshooter a legend of stories across all media and monument of merchandising.

Working solo with occasional script assistance from his brother Louis, Morris produced 10 albums worth of affectionate and thrilling sagebrush parody before formally uniting with René Goscinny, who became regular wordslinger with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie), which commenced in LJdS on August 25th 1955. They literarily rode together on another 44 albums whilst Luke attained dizzying heights of superstardom. The partnership continued when the six-gun straight-shooter switched teams, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with La Diligence (The Stagecoach). When Goscinny died, Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators. The dream team’s last ride was 1986’s La Ballade des Dalton et autres histoires/The Ballad Of The Daltons and Other Stories.

Ultimately the grand originator invited an inspiring passel of legacy creators to step in: luminaries like Achdé & Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more, who all took their own shots at the lovable lone rider. Morris died in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus an assortment of sidebar and spin-off sagebrush sagas such as the one we’re scrutinising today. Since 2016 Julien Berjeaut, AKA Jul (Silex and the City) has handled the tall tale telling…

Lucky is one of the top-ranked comic characters in the world, having generated 94 albums (if you count spin-off series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan, and artist’s specials) with sales well north of 300 million in 33 languages. That renown has translated into a mountain of merchandise, toys, games, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but you never know…

Our taciturn trailblazer’s travails draw on western history as much as movie mythology and regularly interact with historical and legendary figures as well as even odder fictional folk as he re-explores and refines key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European notions and interpretations. As previously hinted, the happy wanderer is not averse to being a figure of political change and Weapon of Mass Satire …but not in this primal, purely-classic-western-influenced outing. Here the entire premise is played dead straight…

We Brits first encountered Lucky Luke in the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun, and again in 1967 in Giggle, where he blazed trails as Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as in numerous attempts to capitalise on the English-language success of Tintin and Asterix albums from Brockhampton and Knight Books – Luke had a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip. In 1983 Morris – no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of political correctness gone mad – substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization. The classic snout is notionally back here and plays a large part in how an uncharacteristically grim saga unfolds…

Scion of an artistic family, Matthieu Bonhomme received his degree in Applied Arts in 1992, before learning the comics trade working in the atelier of western and historical comics specialist Christian Rossi. Le Marquis d’Anaon was Bonhomme’s first regular series, running from 2002-2008, after which he began writing as well as illustrating a variety of tales from L’Age de Raison, Le Voyage d’Esteban, and others.

When invited to craft his own take on a comics megastar, in 2016 he delivered L’Homme qui tua Lucky Luke: a wry but strictly serious pastiche of the parody western pioneer that successfully answered the question “what if they dropped all the funny bits and (mostly) played the hero as straight as the classic cinema fare he’s usually spoofing?” The gimmick clearly hit a cord as he was asked back and in 2022 released second shot Wanted: Lucky Luke, which we’ll get to another day…

The result was first translated in 2016 by digital-only comics collective Europe Comics (which I’m referencing here today) but the tale is also available as part of the Cinebook Lucky Luke Library available both on paper and in pixel pictures. The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke is a deliciously enticing drama with notes and references to many US western movies anyone over 40 has seen – usually beside a parent or grandparent – that tips its Stetson to the glory days of shoot-‘em-ups. You can play spot the movie reference on your own time, but yes, it’s notionally based on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, with hints of The Big Country, 1957’s Gunfight at the OK Corral and more…

One cold, wet night, a lone rider ambles into sleazy, dying mining outpost Froggy Town. The dank muddy dump is hardly welcoming, as it still reels from a recent robbery that took away the last of the gold the mines seem to contain, Moreover, the taking of those few nuggets by a mysterious Indian left beloved stagecoach driver Bob dead in the dust…

Tired, hungry and desperate for a smoke, the legendary good-guy gunslinger is inexplicably provoked by incompetent sheriff James Bone and his lethal, brooding brother Anton, and only coughing, slowly expiring veteran shootist Doc Wednesday is able to defuse what might have become another tragedy.

Fed and watered, Luke’s luck seems to be turning, but even the little metropolis can’t supply all his needs. There’s no tobacco to be had at any price since the robbery…

Moreover, the dogged, reputation-obsessed brothers conspire to get Lucky out of the way and Luke, still thwarted in every attempt to get some tobacco, tetchily starts to feel the Bone boys aren’t quite right in the head… and he hasn’t even met big brother Steve yet…

In that diagnosis he’s not wrong, and the assessment is even more true of their miner father. Big shot Pa Bone founded Froggy Town with his first big strike, runs roughshod over the townsfolk, literally rules his sons with a rod of iron and is desperate to save the place from fading away as the precious ore peters out…

Luke’s reputation prompts a citizens committee to appoint him to investigate the robbery/ murder, hoping to catch the enigmatic Indian and recover the gold, but the Bone boys sabotage his every effort, even confiscating his gun and Jolly Jumper and “losing” them… and that’s before old flame Laura Legs shows up, betrothed to Anton…

Distracted, jonesing for a smoke and outwitted at every turn, Luke is even framed for the crime after Pa Bone suddenly saves the town by “finding” more gold, but the tissue of lies is starting to tear. When the old man shoots Luke – in the back – the tragedy sparks a lynch mob and the true finally emerges, but far too late for some…

Not without humour – but not the raucous slapstick Luke’s readers are used to – this is a beguiling tribute to traditional western tales, asking Europe’s most famous cowboy to play against type and the trick works perfectly. If you ever wondered what Lucky would be like as a straight Gallic-framed hero like Blueberry or Red Dust (in Comanche) this is the book for you…
© 2016 – LUCKY COMICS – Bonhomme. All rights reserved. English translation © 2021 Cinebook Ltd.