The Left Bank Gang


By Jason, coloured by Hubert, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-742-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Jason is secretly John Arne Saeterrøy: born in Molde, Norway in 1965 and an overnight international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won that year’s Sproing Award (Norway’s biggest comics prize).

He won another Sproing in 2001 for the series Mjau Mjau and in 2002 turned almost exclusively to producing graphic novels. Now a global star among the cognoscenti he has won seven major awards from such disparate regions as France, Slovakia and the USA.

Now his latest novella is released, rife with his signature surreality: populated with cinematic, darkly comic anthropomorphs and featuring more bewitching ruminations on his favourite themes of relationships and loneliness, viewed as ever through a charmingly macabre cast of bestial movie archetypes and lost modern chumps.

In this full-colour tract – originally released in France as Hemingway – Jason sets his quirkily-informed imagination into literary overdrive: postulating what might have been at a moment of intense intellectual cross-pollination.

It’s Paris in the 1920s: émigrés F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway are all struggling to make their marks on the world – and most especially on the other artistic Men and Women of Destiny congregated in the enclave of creative excellence that has grown up around the Latin Quarter. Wannabe cartoonists, their own meagre efforts seem paltry and trivial in comparison to the masterful comic books produced by Faulkner or Dostoyevsky, whilst true artists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Man Ray all seem to have no trouble with their medium or message…

Worst of all, Scott thinks something is bothering Zelda: she might even be cheating on him…

The disaffected Young Turks are uniformly plagued by nightmares of the past and frustrated dreams of mediocre futures with everyday life relentlessly coming at them demanding vile money just to stay alive and keep on fruitlessly toiling.

… And then Hemingway says it: why not just rob a bank?

Blending literary pretention and modern creative mythology with the iconography and ironic bombast of Reservoir Dogs is a stroke of genius no one else could pull off. As always, this visual/verbal bon mot unfolds via Jason’s beguiling, sparse-dialogued, pantomimic progressions with enchantingly formal page layouts rendered in the familiar, minimalist evolution of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style; solid blacks, thick lines and settings of seductive simplicity augmented here by a stunning palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours.

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

This wry mis-history lesson is strongly suggested for adults but makes us all to look at the world through wide-open childish eyes. Jason is instantly addictive and a creator every serious fan of the art form should move to the top of the Must-Have list.
All characters, stories and artwork © 2007 Editions de Tournon-Carabas/Jason. All rights reserved.

Moomin volume 7 – The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip


By Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-062-1 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-554-1

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 and ink, manipulating slim economical lines and patterns to realise sublime realms of fascination, whilst her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols and, as this collection shows, so was her brother…

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual, basically bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Father 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/cartoonist and 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, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris), Tove became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the Second World War.

Brilliantly creative across many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945. Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or 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…

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930 to 1953 Tove worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for Swedish satirical magazine Garm: achieving some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch lampooning the Appeasement policies of European leaders by depicting Hitler in nappies. She was also highly in-demand for many magazines and children’s books, and had started selling comic strips as early as 1929.

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

The lumpy, big-eyed, gently adventurous romantic goof began life as a spindly sigil next to her name in her political works. She called him “Snork” and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument with her brother about Immanuel Kant.

The term “Moomin” came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited, warning her that a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks. Snork/Moomin filled out, became timidly nicer – if a little clingy and insecure – acting as a placid therapy-tool to counteract the grimness of the post-war world.

Initially The Moomins and the Great Flood made little impact, but Jansson persisted – as much for her own edification as any other reason – and in 1946 Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators regard the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can…

When it and third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or occasionally The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952, their instant success prompted British publishing giant Associated Press to commission a newspaper strip about her seductively sweet and sensibly surreal creations.

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices regarding strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Mumintrollet och jordens undergäng Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature, so she readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world. In 1953, The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip serials to captivate readers of all ages.

Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that towards the end she recruited brother Lars to help. He then took over, continuing the strip until 1975. His tenure as sole creator continues here…

Liberated from the strip’s pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other creative pursuits: making 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.

Tove Jansson died on June 27th 2001. Her awards are too numerous to mention, but just consider: how many modern artists get their faces on the national currency?

Lars Fredrik Jansson (October 8th 1926 – July 31st 2000) was just as amazing as his sister. Born into that astounding clan twelve years after Tove, at 16 he started writing – and selling – 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, he began co-scripting the Moomin newspaper strip at his sister’s request: injecting his own brand of witty whimsicality to ‘Moomin Goes Wild West’. He had been Tove’s translator from the start, seamlessly converting her Swedish text into English. When her contract with The London Evening News expired in 1959, Lars Jansson officially took over the feature, having spent the interim period learning to draw and perfectly mimic his sister’s cartooning style. He had done so in secret, with the assistance and tutelage of their mother Signe. From 1961 to the strip’s end in 1974, he was sole steersman of the newspaper iteration of trollish tails.

Lasse was a man of many parts: other careers including writer, translator, aerial photographer and professional gold miner. He was the basis and model for the cast’s cool kid Snufkin

Lars’ Moomins was subtly sharper than his sister’s version and he was far more in tune with the quirky British sense of humour, but his whimsy and wry sense of wonder was every bit as compelling. In 1990, long after the original series, he began a new career, working with Dennis Livson (designer of Finland’s acclaimed theme park Moomin World) as producers of Japanese anime series The Moomins and – in 1993 with daughter Sophia – on new Moomin strips…

Moomintrolls are easy-going free spirits: natural bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores and most societal pressures. Moominmama is warm, kindly tolerant and capable but perhaps overly concerned with propriety and appearances, whilst devoted spouse Moominpappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic exploits.

Their son Moomin is a meek, dreamy boy with confusing ambitions. He adores their permanent houseguest the Snorkmaiden – although that impressionable, flighty gamin much prefers to play things slowly whilst hoping for somebody potentially better to come along…

The seventh oversized (310 x 221 mm) monochrome hardback compilation gathers serial strip sagas #26-29, and opens with Lars firmly in charge and puckishly re-exploring human frailties and foibles via a sophisticate poke at the shifting political climate…

Craftily casting cats among pigeons, 26th escapade ‘Moomin the Colonist’ finds armchair adventurer Moominpappa resenting the advent of the annual hibernation and rashly listening to his bookish boy, who has been reading about colonisation…

Soon he has packed up the family and a few close friends and set out to conquer fresh fields and pastures new. With Mymble and Little My, Mrs Fillyjonk, her daughters and a cow in tow, the eager expansionists head off across the frozen land and don’t stop until they reach a tropical desert island where they start setting up a new civilisation combining the best of the old world with lots of fresh ideas on how society should be run…

Sadly, their neighbours from back home have sneakily copied the Moomin movement and before long the new continent is embroiled in a passive-aggressive, slyly competitive struggle for control, with scurrilous reprobate Stinky and his pals playing the bad guys behind the Palm Tree Curtain…

Following the mutual collapse of colonialism, outrageous satire gives way to wicked sarcasm as ‘Moomin and the Scouts’ recounts how energetic Mr Brisk’s passion for the outdoor life, badges and bossing children envelopes the instinctively sedentary Moomins and unleashes all kinds of disruptive chaos. With scouts running wild amongst the trees it just seems easier to join them rather than seek to beat them and let nature disrupt the movement from within…especially after Moomin starts hanging around with Miss Brisk’s Girl Guides and the generally dismissive Snorkmaiden feels oddly conflicted…

The perils of property and stain of status upsets the orderly life of the clan when Moominpappa unexpectedly comes into a major inheritance in ‘Moomin and the Farm’. Grievously afflicted by a terrible case of noblesse oblige, the family uproot themselves and retire to stately Gobble Manor to perpetuate the line of landed gentry on a modern working arable and pastoral estate.

Adapting to wealth and property is one thing and even accommodating the legion of ancestral ghosts is but another strand of Duty, but the effort of taking on and even perpetuating centuries of unearned privilege proves far too weighty a burden for all concerned… before the increasingly untenable situation typically corrects itself…

Back in their beloved house and rearranging furniture, a dropped chest disgorges an ancient map and triggers another wild dreamers’ quest in ‘Moomin and the Gold-fields’…

Unable to refuse adventure when it’s dangled in front of their exuberant noses, father and son are soon trekking the wilds and digging random holes thanks to the supremely unclear chart, and before long the entire valley is afflicted with gold rush fever.

With law, common decency and even good manners abandoned to greed as the sedate dell becomes a boisterous and sordid boom town, all Moominmama can do is maintain her dignity and wait for the madness to pass…

This deceptively barbed and edgy compilation closes with ‘Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work’ by family biographer Juhani Tolvanen, extolling his many worthy attributes and more besides…

These are truly magical 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 volumes – both Tove and Lars’ – comprise 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.
© 2012 Solo/Bulls except “Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work” © 2011, 2012 Juhani Tolvanen. All rights reserved.

Hãsib & the Queen of Serpents – A Thousand and One Nights Tale


By David B (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-162-8 (HB/Digital edition)

David B. is a founder member of the groundbreaking strip artists conclave L’Association and has won numerous awards including the Alph’Art for comics excellence and European Cartoonist of the Year.

Born Pierre- Françoise “David” Beauchard on February 9th 1959, he began his comics career in 1985 after studying advertising at Paris’ Duperré School of Applied Arts. His seamless blending of Primitivism, visual metaphor, high and low cultural icons – as seen in such landmarks as Babel, Epileptic and Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations utterly reinvigorated and rejuvenated the visual aspect of European sequential art.

This offering from NBM – available as an oversized (312 x 235 mm) full-colour hardback and digitally – takes us into primal storytelling country to examine the very nature of the process by referencing one of the most potent and primal story sources in human history.

One Thousand and One Nights (or more commonly The Arabian Nights) is an anonymous aggregation of folk stories from many cultures of the Middle Eastern Fertile Crescent. Its root material traces back to Arabic, Greek, Jewish, Persian, Turkish, South Asian, and West, Central and North African folklore. It was/they were first translated into English in 1706 as The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment, and has fired western and European imaginations ever since. The one constant throughout every iteration is the framing sequence wherein wily bride and imminent murder victim Scheherazade tells her new husband and supreme ruler Shahryar a story to postpone her own execution.

In this stunning graphic tour de force, rendered in vivid colours and sublimely reminiscent of oriental shadow-theatre puppet shows, that tenuous relationship sets the scene. If you’re old enough to remember – or wise enough to have discovered since – Oliver Postgate & Peter Firmin’s Noggin the Nog, think of that in full HD (with the imagination turned up to 11!).

Here and now – on the 422nd night – the captivating captive Scheherazade begins the tale of a sage named Daniel: a man who had not yet sired a son…

He roamed the world and lost almost everything before his wife finally fell pregnant. Due to the will of God, Daniel died before the birth but not before delivering a potent prophecy. His boy would be called Hasib Karim al-Din. Educated and adventurous, he would eventually inherit all that Daniel cherished: long pent away in a mysterious chest…

Hasib grew up to be an apprentice but – lazy and lacking ambition – fell in with a band of unscrupulous woodcutters. One day, after finding a golden hoard of honey in a deep cavern, the lumberjacks abandoned their comrade, leaving him to the tender mercies of a scorpion who lured him into the clutches of the fabulous and terrifying Serpent Queen.

Deep under the earth, Hasib feared for his life and soul but, in exchange for his own sorry life-story, the Queen began telling him a tale of a king of far-off Banu Isra’il

That saga leads into another and another and yet another (teeming with battles and journeys and princes and wanderers and monsters and wonderful creatures) and we are carried along on a sea of fable and incidence: an interwoven series of nested stories each concealing the next, like layers on an onion and every one peeled back to expose a new hero or fool.

This seemingly endless progression has a point and purpose, however, and just when the whimsical tension can be stretched no tighter, the tale-telling tide turns and each episode miraculously resolves! Thus we move small steps closer to Hasib and his long-deferred inheritance…

Or so says Scheherazade as she weaves her own spellbinding yarn…

Bold, vivid and graphically mesmerising, this enthralling progression of history, myth and imagination is a wry and loving examination of the act of telling stories.
© 2015-2016 Gallimard Jeunesse. © 2018 NBM for the English translation.

The Mercenary – The Definitive Editions volume 1 & 2



By Vicente Segrelles, translated by Mary McKee (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-124-6 (HB/Digital edition vol 1) ISBN: 978-1-68112-124-6 (HB/Digital edition vol 2)

Born in Barcelona in 1940, Vicente Segrelles Sacristán is a renowned illustrator of magazines and book covers on three continents and the creator of one of the world’s most popular graphic novel series. His first comics album El Mercenario (The Mercenary) was released in 1982: introducing an itinerant knight-for-hire fighting his way through a fantastic world of science and sorcery, usually on the back of a flying dragon.

Rendered initially in lush oil-paints (before graduating to creating art digitally from 1998 onwards), these epic tales blend visual realism and accuracy with fable, myth, historical weaponry, contemporary technology and classical science fiction themes. These fantastic scenes are screened through the visual lens of a trained architect and engineer. Fourteen albums were released between 1982-2003, most of them seen by English-language readers through the auspices of publisher NBM.

Hugely in demand for his painted covers since the 1970s, Segrelles has created book covers for the works of H. Rider Haggard, Poul Anderson, Roger Zelazny, Alistair McLean, G. F. Unger, Desmond Bagley, Andre Norton, Joel Rosenberg, Charles DeLint, C.H. Guenter, Jason Dark, Terry Pratchett and a host of others. European prose readers may also know him as the cover artist of Italian science fiction magazine Urania.

Volume 1 – The Cult of the Sacred Fire

Segrelles came to comics relatively late in his career and the reasons for that can be learned in a prodigious “behind-the-scenes” section at the back of this stunning remastered reissue.

Originally serialised in Spanish magazine Cimoc in 1980, El Mercenario was one of the earliest European series NBM published in English and to celebrate 40 years in business the company rereleased the series in fabulous oversized (314 x 236 mm) remastered hardcover albums to once more set the world alight. If you prefer, you could instead pick up a thoroughly modern digital edition.

What’s it about?: in the mediaeval world, a region of Central Asia lies all but undiscovered. The Land of Eternal Clouds is an isolate region where life has taken a different turn at the highest mountain levels. Here bat-like reptilian fliers – “dragons” – abound and humans have made them beasts of burden. This setting is the backdrop to introduce a nameless action hero and problem-solver who is engaged in this premier tome by the puissant potentate of one super-cumulus city-state to rescue his queen from vile abductors…

Riding a gigantic bat-winged lizard, the nameless Mercenary plucks the unfortunate lady from peril and defeats the dragon-riding guards who give chase… but only at great personal and financial cost.

Happily, the wary warrior has made contingency plans and – even after they go awry following a clash with a predatory beast – is smart enough to build a mechanical flyer to replace the ones he has lost to this ill-fated mission…

This initial yarn is actually a triptych of three interrelated vignettes, and the second begins once the hero-for-hire returns the comely bride to her rich but old and flabby husband. Safely re-ensconced in the lap of luxury, she repays her dutiful saviour for spurning her amorous attentions by accusing him of assaulting her…

Despite escaping to his hastily-constructed contraption, it is not enough to keep him airborne and slowly the sell-sword plunges into the swirling cloud mass from which no man has ever returned…

Crashing to earth, he finds a wholly undiscovered world, where an old sage with a handy potion soothes his wounds and allows him to breathe better in air that cloys and clogs his lungs like soup. The Mercenary soon returns the favour after the oldster shares his woes, revealing that the family have also suffered a recent kidnapping. This time a young woman has been taken by a mystery group demanding a strange  ransom: all the alcohol the village contains…

Soon, the tireless adventurer has broached the cage in which the latest abductee hangs above certain death, only to find himself also a captive. This time it’s inside a colossal and all-but-invisible floating city ruled by mysterious cloaked figures claiming to be the Cult of the Sacred Fire…

Before long the doughty champion has discerned the incredible – but rational – secret behind all the seemingly supernatural phenomena and set the city on a course of appalling destruction and personal vengeance using all the strength, training and raw ingenuity he’s blessed with…

Fascinating background and behind-the-scenes delights abound in ‘Meet Vicente Segrelles’, relating his life and career and breaking down his working methodology. That includes how this volume and The Mercenary series came into being, liberally augmented with a wealth of illustrations from the artist’s early days, discarded paintings and drawings and a wealth of detail-shots taken from the story that precedes it.

Volume 2: The Formula

The second volume of The Mercenary’s majestic exploits begins to build an internal continuity with the introduction of a recurring villain. Requiring an aerial escort to The Great Plain, Claust the alchemist hires our soldier of fortune as bodyguard. The savant is petty and obnoxious and utter discretion is expected and enforced…

The reason becomes clear after the perilous journey leads to a hidden monastery where the Great Master shames the celebrated sage in front of his hireling. Apparently, all Claust’s great scientific discoveries were actually purchased from the hidden citadel and his glittering reputation is an unearned sham. Moreover, the cult leader now knows what kind of tyrant the alchemist is and cuts him off from any new wonders…

Shamed and enraged, Claust attacks the Great Master, steals the sage society’s most prized formula and flees for his life…

Clearly an honourable man and complete patsy, The Mercenary is then hired by the aggrieved wise men and despatched to retrieve the formula, accompanied by the enclave’s top lawkeeper: mysterious metal-shod knight Nan-Tay

Instantly and instinctively over-competitive, the pursuers slowly bond as they stalk the fugitive carrying the most dangerous and deadly weapon in the world. Edging ever closer, they learn with horror why no one has ever exposed Claust before, and what fate the manic mage intended for his latest bodyguard…

Ambushed and overwhelmed, the hunters are eventually imprisoned in Claust’s keep whilst he rashly and too-rapidly combines the elements of the weapon he has stolen. He is unaware that Nan-Tay’s all-encompassing armour encloses an incredible secret and is utterly unprepared when the hunters break free. It’s only by sheerest chance that the alchemist escapes the cataclysm his theft and their liberation triggers…

Epic and enthralling, the adventure is augmented by a hefty, fact-&-picture-packed ‘Making of…’ feature, which opens with ‘Meet Vicente Segrelles’ before ‘Beginning the Hard Work’ shares character profiles and sumptuous preparatory paintings and story studies.

The creator’s thinking in devising distanced weaponry to be used by dragon-riders and its connections to WWI ordnance also features, as do sections on crossbow and armour designs, ancient artillery and the the role of gunpowder in The Mercenary’s world.

Although sometimes considered a little static, Segrelles’ vibrant, classical realism set a benchmark for illustrative narrative that has inspired generations of artists and millions of readers. This landmark series is a long overdue and welcome returnee to our bookshelves and seems certain to garner a whole new legion of fans and admirers.
© 2015 Vicente Segrelles. English Translation © 2017 NBM for the English Translation.

For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

Trent volume 6: The Sunless Country


By Rodolphe & Léo, coloured by Marie-Paule Alluard, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-396-3 (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 led to regular illustration work for Bayard Presse and, in 1988, Léo began an association with scripter/scenarist Rodolphe D. Jacquette – AKA Rodolphe. The prolific, celebrated 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”…

Le Pays sans soleil was the 6th saga, debuting in 1998, offering an arduous, chillingly bleak examination of family and duty with the Mountie going slowly mad amidst the extremes of human existence. Posted to the arctic circle where night lasts for weeks, he’s been left behind by fellow officers Charlie and Vaughan, as they conduct an inspection of the region.

Manning the outpost – a simple log cabin and ever-expanding graveyard – Trent whiles away the relentless, timeless, unending gloom of interminable hours by keeping his journal and wondering when his own sanity will sunder. If he hadn’t been blessed with canine company (he’s called “Dog”) the peacekeeper would be completely crazy by now…

Darkness and unyielding environment call to him like a siren, and as he continually returns to the latest grave – occupied by RCMP officer Sergeant James McBruce – Trent again wonders if he can hold out until daylight or his colleagues come back…

Whenever he feels most embattled Trent recalls the last visit with Agnes when – after years of second-guessing, procrastination and prevarication – he finally declared his love for the widow… and she accepted his proposal of marriage.

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. Eventually, Philip made a his decision and travelled across the country with marriage in mind, only to learn she had stopped waiting and wed someone else.

More time elapsed and they met again when her husband was killed 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…

His dreamlike reverie is suddenly shattered when Dog hears an intruder. In the icy darkness outside Trent finds a dying native whose last words reveal someone else is lost in the wastes, slowly expiring in an igloo…

Fired by duty and threat to life, Mountie and mutt brave the ebony vastness and eventually find the frozen bolthole. At first glance, they’re too late: only the body of a native woman is there. Dog, however keeps worrying the corpse, and Trent finds it is wrapped around a still living baby. A white baby…

Wracked by mystery and with no proper food for the infant, Trent improvises from his cobbled-together stores before setting out to walk back to civilisation with the orphan but his trek due south towards the sun and warmth soon becomes complicated. Dogging his tracks is an enigmatic stranger, maintaining a steady pace yet never stopping. At the moment Trent first sees a sunrise, the stalker strikes, using that moment of joyous release to swoop in and steal the child.

The kidnapper correctly assessed that the weary officer could not catch him, but completely misjudged how Dog would react to a threat to his “family”…

One mystery is solved and an even greater one – fraught with misapprehension and mistake – then unfolds as the baby snatcher – white journalist James Dunwood – explains that the child is his daughter Mary Little Moon and the woman in the igloo must have been his wife Four Rivers

As they trek south, Dunwood explains how both had been abducted from the camp of Cree chief Old Storm. After a reporting assignment turned personal, James had relinquished his career for love. He joined the First Nations tribe, but his romantic idyl was shattered when white trader Duncan started selling booze to the Indians and fomented war when Old Storm intervened.

In retaliation, Duncan and his renegades abducted Four Rivers and her newborn, heading north with Dunwood in pursuit. He never quite caught up as they pushed ever deeper into polar regions… and now his beloved was gone.

James couldn’t be more wrong, and as his tragic tale closes, Trent is left holding the baby. He is determined to make things right for Mary Little Moon – and this time, there’s a modicum of happy news to ameliorate the horrors and injustice the Mountie usually wades through in pursuit of justice…

Moreover, as he unravels the morass of confusion and solves the crimes, Philip bonds with the child. Worst of all, upon returning her to the proper guardians, he meets someone who makes him briefly forget all about Agnes…

Another beguilingly introspective voyage of internal discovery, where environment and locale are as much lead characters as hero and villain, The Sunless Country delivers action, endeavour, suspense and poignant drama in a compelling epic to delight all fans of widescreen cinematic entertainment.
Original edition © Dargaud Editeur Paris 1998 by Rodolphe & Leo. All rights reserved. English translation © 2017 Cinebook Ltd.

Beauty


By Hubert & Kerascoët, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-315-8 (Album TPB) eISBN 978-1-56163-897-0 (Kindle), 978-1-56163-896-3 (Epub), 978-1-56163-895-6 (PDF)

French comics creator Hubert Boulard died suddenly on February 12th 2020. He is criminally unknown in the English-speaking world despite an astounding canon of wonderful work. Thanks to NBM, two more gems from his supremely enticing canon can now be added to your physical or digital bookshelf…

Technically this first fantastic, cunningly subversive fable is a re-release, having first crossed the linguistic divide way back in 2008, but its message has only increased in poignancy and potency since then…

Prior to establishing himself as mononymously revered “Hubert”, Boulard was born on January 21st 1971, in Brittany’s Saint-Renan. In 1994, on graduating from the École régionale des beaux-arts d’Angers, he began his comics career as an artist for such seasoned pros as Éric Ormond, Yoann, Éric Corberyan, Paul Gillon and more. Also highly regarded as a colourist, he morphed into a triple threat in 2002, and wrote strips for others.

He began with Legs de l’alchimiste – limned by Herve Tanquerelle – following with Yeaux Verts for long-term collaborator Zanzim and Miss Pas Touche (20th July 1922) illustrated with irrepressible panache by Kerascoët (married artistic collaborators Marie Pommepuy & Sébastien Cosset) and many others. Awards started piling up as he steered 14 separate series; many of them internationally renowned and celebrated, including Les Ogres-Dieux and Monsieur désire? An activist by nature, in 2013 he helmed and contributed to groundbreaking collective graphic tract Les Gens normaux, paroles lesbiennes gay bi trans: released to coincide with France’s national debate on legalizing same sex marriage and assuredly a factor in the measure becoming law…

His final book was with artist Zanzim: posthumously published in June 2020, and as yet unavailable in English. Peau d’homme is a comedy exploring gender and sexuality at the height of medieval European religious intolerance and social stratification, and I’m sure we’ll get that here in the fullness of time.

That era of “blood and iron” – and its fantasy potential – was frequently used by Hubert as a backdrop for his stories and here is utilised in a trenchant adult fairy tale revealing the cost of attraction and the dangers of wishing. Originally published in France between 2011 and 2014 in three volumes (Reine) Beauté is a deceptively witty and barbed parable following the many tribulations – and so few joys – of a homely peasant girl whose greatest wish is granted… and how it all lays low the mighty and destroys many kingdoms.

‘Wishes Granted’ introduces slow, unhappy Coddie: skivvy and household drudge in a rural mansion: teased by children and shunned by most adults. Her tedious, onerous duties include preparing all the fish the wealthy autocrats eat, so there’s also always something of an “atmosphere” around her. Despite being kind and gentle, it’s fair to say that she’s the kind of girl only her mother loves… although first son of the house Peter always pays attention every time he sneaks down to the kitchens for a stolen snack…

The scullion’s despondent misery seemingly ends when after years of leaving presents for the fairies, she accidentally frees one from a curse. Queen Mab is adamant about paying the debt incurred and casts a spell. Henceforth, although Coddie has not changed physically, all will see her as “the very idea of beauty in woman incarnate”…

The girl is too naive to realise that Mab has an agenda of her own or even to question exactly why the sprite was imprisoned in the first place, and trouble starts as soon as she reaches home. The women are astonished and envious and men who have ignored the drudge all her life now beg and plead and throw themselves at her: even attempting to kill each other to possess her. Even sweet pudgy Peter is enthralled…

When the male villagers form a mob to take her and the women try – and fail – to mar her loveliness, Coddie flees into the woods and is rescued/slash abducted by the Lord of the region. Young Otto locks her in his castle and makes her concubine. Coddie, unsurprisingly, doesn’t mind at all, even when he arbitrarily renames her “Beauty”…

Moreover, she can’t wait to make the villagers pay for how they treated her, both before and after her wish came true, and Mab reappears with a few suggestions…

Having driven Otto away with her demands for better and more opulent gifts and presents, Beauty pushes the manse itself into ruin and when a travelling artist tragically captures what he sees, the paintings and sketches catapulted her onto a global stage. As her image enflames the passions of lords and princes across the continent, knights start killing each other and regal overlord King Maxence of the Southern Kingdom and his top advisor/sister Princess Claudine intervene. Claudine immediately sees a strategic use for Beauty, but her scheme is thwarted when her brother falls uncontrollably under the commoner’s spell.

Second chapter ‘The Indecisive Queen’ details – with chilling echoes of Marie-Antoinette – how the kitchen girl inadvertently brings down two kingdoms as Max makes her his wife and mother of a child he cannot accept as his. Queen Beauty’s interference in state matters bankrupts the kingdom, decimates the nation’s cream of chivalry and drives the king into jealousy-fuelled madness and murder.

Moreover, the moment his great rival, archenemy and brother-in-law The Boar King of the Northern Kingdom claps eyes on Beauty, he too is seized by a mania to possess her and the resultant war destroys both nations…

Escaping with her un-ensorcelled and rather plain daughter Marine, Beauty resolves to have Mab revoke her wish in ‘Ordinary Mortals’ but the price the fairy demands is far too costly. Bonded to her child, Beauty is betrayed and sold to the Boar King: notional victor in the recent war. Allowing his wife Dagmar to know of his enslaved prizes seemed like a good idea, but soon the frenzy of possessing the fairy-touched treasure grips him and enrages his queen. Again death and death and destruction are the result – especially as Princess Claudine and Otto (now an unbeatable berserker knight) constantly harass and plague the victor’s occupying forces in advance of a full revolt and liberation…

Also a prisoner, Marine sets the final fall into motion by a simple demonstration of how to discern Coddie’s appearance under Beauty’s glamour, and the Boar King’s self-destructive behaviour escalates into overwhelming madness and inevitable catastrophe.

The child was born smart and when she learned to read, soon discovered the true history of Mab, albeit not soon enough to stop The Boar King again abducting mother and daughter (from his own citadel) and locking them way where only he could see them whilst letting the kingdoms doom and damn themselves…

Ultimately, Coddie and Marine break free and turn their attentions to stopping the true threat: fairies…

The blood-soaked saga ceases with a puckish ‘Epilogue’ set decades later, as some of those troublesome artworks of Beauty finally reach another almighty potentate in a distant land. He cannot believe or forget what he sees…

Smart, charmingly cynical and hugely engaging, the epic cautionary tale is sublimely realised by visual creators probably best known in the English-speaking world for Miss Don’t Touch Me and Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim’s Dungeon series. However, French phenomenon Kerascoët (joint pen name of married illustrators, comics & animation artists Marie Pommepuy & Sébastien Cosset) have generated a wealth of books for all ages including Malala’s Magic Pencil, I Walk with Vanessa, Beautiful Darkness, The Court Charade, I Forgive Alex, Paper Doll Artbook and more) to further delight the wide variety of grown-up readers everywhere.
Beauté © Dupuis, 2011-2013 by Hubert, Kerascoët. All rights reserved. © 2014 NBM For the English translation.

Beauty will be published on June 14th 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

For more information and other great reads please go to http://www.nbmpub.com/

Lucky Luke volume 31 – Lucky Luke versus the Pinkertons


By Achdé, Daniel Pennac & Tonino Benacquista, in the style of Morris: coloured by Anne-Marie Ducasse, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-098-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Doughty, dashing and dependable cowboy “good guy” Lucky Luke is a rangy, implacably even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around the mythic Old West, enjoying light-hearted adventures on his petulant and rather sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper.

Over nine decades, his exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world, generating upwards of 85 individual albums and many spin-off series, with sales thus far totalling in excess of 300 million in 30 languages. That renown has led to a mountain of merchandise, aforementioned tie-in series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan, plus toys, computer games, animated cartoons, a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but you never know…

Originally the brainchild of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first officially seen in Le Journal de Spirous seasonal Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947, Luke actually sprang to laconic life in mid-1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American émigré Rene Goscinny. With Rene as his regular wordsmith, Luke attained dizzying, legendary, heights starting with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) which began serialisation on August 25th 1955. In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, joining Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote in La Diligence (The Stagecoach).

Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, whereupon Morris soldiered on both singly and with other collaborators. He died in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar sagebrush sagas crafted with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more, all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante …as in this tale from 2010 which so neatly fits the week’s theme of “detective fiction”…

Lucky Luke has a long history in Britain, having first pseudonymously amused and enthralled young readers during the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun. He later rode back into comics-town in 1967 for comedy paper Giggle, using nom de plume Buck Bingo. And that’s not counting the many attempts to establish him as a book star beginning in 1972 with Brockhampton Press, and continuing with Knight Books, Hodder Dargaud UK, Ravette Books and Glo’Worm, until Cinebook finally and thankfully found the way in 2006.

The taciturn trailblazer regularly interacts with historical and legendary figures as well as even odder fictional folk in tales drawn from key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European notions, and interpretations. That’s used to sublime effect in Lucky Luke contre Pinkerton released as Cinebook’s 31st album in 2011, but only latterly added to the official continental cannon.

In France, it had graced Le Journal de Spirou #3779-3784 before being compiled and released as the 4th edition of sub-strand Les Aventures de Lucky Luke d’après Morris.

Since the Europeans take their comics seriously – especially the funny ones – they aren’t afraid to be bold or brave and this riotous romp cheekily plays with established chronology and even employs creative anachronism to carry an edged – if not actually barbed – pop at government oversight, the rise of a surveillance state and arguments pro and con concerning necessary evils and zealous protections versus plain old liberty and equality…

In America, Abraham Lincoln has just been elected President . The world is changing and modernity looms, but the nefarious Daltons think nothing of it until a train robbery goes hideously awry.

Instead of their usual duel with Lucky Luke they are ambushed and arrested by an army of detectives employed by iconoclastic, ambitious lawman Allan Pinkerton. The detective then begins a publicity campaign trumpeting that the day of the gifted amateur is done and that Lucky is passe and over the hill…

Untroubled by all the modern foolishness, Luke busies himself hunting a counterfeiting gang but thinks again when Pinkerton pips him to the post and abrasively tells him that from now on, there will be no room for amateurs…

Egotistically sharing his cutting edge crimefighting scheme, Pinkerton unveils modern incarceration, rapid communications, intelligence-led pre-emptive investigation, forensic methodology and ruthless methods of “interrogation” – and operates on the principle that everyone is guilty of something…

He’s compiling incriminating dossiers on everyone, with his legion of detectives building an (analogue) database holding all those dark secrets in one secure office.

Pinkerton’s authority comes from Lincoln, who has made the innovator his chief of security, unaware of the detective’s own vaulting ambition – which includes acting as an agent provocateur and manufacturing threats against PotUS. Lucky sticks to his guns and the old moral ways and battlelines are drawn…

Initially, everything seems to go the way of the moderniser, but his success proves his undoing when a sudden influx of arrests fills all the prisons and the Daltons are given early release to make room. With turmoil gripping the nation and Lincoln’s popularity plunging, Pinkerton seems unassailable until unrepentant recidivist Joe Dalton cherry picks modern ordnance and applies old fashioned predatory behaviour to beat Pinkerton at his own game.

The little monster is particularly impressed by that huge store of files and calculates how much most decent people will pay to keep their secrets unexposed…

Happily Lucky Luke also cherishes the old ways and is ready to set things right his way…

A wickedly wry exploration of the other side of the investigation game, Lucky Luke versus the Pinkertons blends fun and adventure with some salient views of where we’ve been and where we’re going in our ever more urgent quest for safety and security. Nevertheless, the yarn also revels in classic set-piece slapstick and witty wordplay: poking fun at the fundamental components of the genre and successfully embracing tradition with action in another wildly entertaining all-ages confection.
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

Babar the King


By Jean de Brunhoff (Egmont/Albatross)
ISBN: 978-702375-705-0 (HB) 978-1-4052-3819-9 (2008 Album PB) 978-1-94696-311-6 (2018 facsimile edition)

Since 1931 Babar the Elephant has charmed (and on occasion outraged and incensed) generations of readers. Jean de Brunhoff’s L’Histoire de Babar was first published in France and was an instant hit. The English language version was released in 1933, complete with introduction by A. A. Milne, bringing the forthright and capable elephantine hero across the channel and thence onwards across the Oceans to America and the Colonies.

Apparently, the tale was a bedtime story the author’s wife Cecile created for their own children. De Brunhoff co-opted, scripted and painted seven adventures before his death in 1937, two of them published posthumously. After World War II his son Laurent continued the franchise producing ten more adventures between 1946 and 1966. To date that’s at least another 37 books supplementing the original magnificent seven…

The tales in those tomes have in their time been controversial. Many critics have seen them as being pro-colonialism, and as products of a more robust time, they could never be regarded as anodyne or saccharine, but they are sweet, alluring and irresistibly captivating.

When baby Babar was growing up in the jungle, his mother was killed by white hunters. Terrified and sad the baby fled in panic, eventually coming to a very un-African provincial city. There he met a kind old lady who supported him as he adapted to city life. Babar moved into her very large house and was educated in modern, civilised ways. But still, occasionally, he felt homesick and missed his jungle home…

After a few years he encountered cousins Celeste and young Arthur and the Old Lady adopted and supported them too. Soon, though, their mothers come to fetch them and Babar returns with them to show the other elephants all the wonderful things he has learned and experienced. Buying a motor-car and filling it with clothes and presents he returns just in time, because the King of all the Elephants has eaten a bad mushroom and is dying…

Babar The King is the third volume, published in 1933 as Le Roi Babar. Here – after a long time travelling, voyaging and getting the perfect wife – a youthful vigorous forward-looking monarch and his bride Celeste start civilising and modernising the Kingdom of the Elephants. With them is that wonderfully helpful and dedicated Old Lady…

In a wave of rapid modernisation, the inspirational city of Celesteville is completed. It has broad streets, magnificent civic buildings, parks, gardens, theatres, ports and every amenity to delight and edify the populace. There is even a brand-new school, but that is not so popular with every citizen! Now every elephant has a job and vocation, but even such a paradise is capable of misfortune. They must all pull together when a great fire ravages the house of King Babar’s great friend and advisor Cornelius

Charming and seductive, this venerable yarn – and the others – can still set pulses racing. In a crowded market it’s grand to see books that are both fresh and yet comfortingly pedigreed. Political assumptions of adults are one thing, but the most valid truth is that these are magical books for the young, illustrated in a style that is fluid, humorously detailed and splendidly memorable. Even after 90 years they retain the power to enthral and captivate with a charm leavened by underlying realism that is still worthy of note.

In 2018, a facsimile edition was released (170 x 250 mm), but the Egmont edition is also readily available. As far as I know the stories are still not found digitally.
2008 Edition. All Rights Reserved.

XIII volumes 1 & 2: The Day of the Black Sun & Where the Indian Walks


By William Vance & Jean Van Hamme, coloured by Petra (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-039-9 (Album PB/Digital Black Sun) 978-1-84918-040-5 (Album PB/Digital Indian Walks Sun)

One of the most consistently entertaining and popular adventure serials in Europe, XIII was created by writer Jean Van Hamme (Wayne Shelton, Blake and Mortimer, Lady S.) and artist William Vance when working on numerous strips such as Bruce J. Hawker, Marshal Blueberry, Ramiro, Bob Morane and more.

Van Hamme – born in Brussels in 1939 – is one of the most prolific writers in comics. After academically pursuing business studies he moved into journalism and marketing before selling his first graphic tale in 1968.

Immediately clicking with the public, by 1976 he had also branched out into novels and screenwriting. His big break was the monumentally successful fantasy series Thorgal for Le Journal de Tintin magazine. He then cemented his reputation with mass-market bestsellers Largo Winch and XIII as well as more cerebral fare such as Chninkel and Les maîtres de l’orge. Van Hamme has been listed as the second-best selling comics author in France, ranked beside the seemingly unassailable Hergé and Uderzo.

Born in Anderlecht, William Vance was the comics nom de plume of William van Cutsem, (September 8 1935 – May 14th 2018). After military service in 1955-1956 he studied art at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts and promptly became an illustrator of biographic features for Le Journal de Tintin in 1962. His art is a classical blend of meticulous realism, scrupulous detail and spectacular yet understated action. In 1964 he began maritime serial Howard Flynn (written by Yves Duval) before graduating to more popular genre work with western Ray Ringo and espionage thriller Bruno Brazil (scripted by Greg). Further success followed when he replaced Gérald Forton on science fiction classic Bob Morane in Femmes d’Aujourd’hui, (and later Pilote and Tintin).

Constantly working on both serials and stand-alone stories, Vance’s most acclaimed work was his collaboration with fellow Belgian Van Hamme on a contemporary thriller based on Robert Ludlum’s novel The Bourne Identity

XIII debuted in 1984, originally running – to great acclaim – in prestigious comics anthology Le Journal de Spirou. A triad of albums were rushed out – simultaneously printed in French and Dutch language editions – before the first year of serialisation ended.

The series was a monumental hit in Europe – although publishing house Dargaud were initially a little slow to catch on – but has fared less well in its many attempts to make the translation jump to English, with Catalan Communications, Alias Comics and even Marvel all failing to maximise the potential of the gritty mystery thriller. That all changed when Cinebook took over. To date all the original series and most of the spin-offs have seen print…

XIII: The Day of the Black Sun

The epic conspiracy thriller was first seen in Le Journal de Spirou #2408- 2411, triggering an epic journey of unrelenting action, mood, mystery and mayhem. Quickly packaged as debut album collection Le jour du soleil noir, it begins here in translated form on a windswept, rocky shore where retired Abe’s quiet day of fishing is ruined after he reels in a body…

Shockingly, his catch is still alive – despite being shot in the head – and as Abe’s wife Sally examines the near-corpse she finds a key sewn into his clothes and Roman numerals for “thirteen” tattooed on his neck. The area is desolate and remote and the fisherman has already gone for the only medical assistance he can think of: an alcoholic surgeon struck off for operating whilst inebriated…

After a tense, makeshift and rushed procedure ends in miraculous success, the three conspirators agree they can never tell anyone. Old Martha has performed a miracle in saving the presumably shipwrecked stranger, but if the authorities ever find out, she faces jail for practicing without a license.

There’s a further complication. The gunshot victim – a splendid physical specimen clearly no stranger to action or violence – has suffered massive and probably irreversible brain trauma. Although now sound in body, he has completely lost his mind. Language skills, social and reflexive conditioning and muscle memories remain intact, but every detail of his life-history have been utterly erased…

Some while later, as Martha explains all this to the swiftly recuperating stranger – whom Abe and Sally have named Alan after their own dead son – his lost past life explosively intrudes when contract killers invade the remote beach house with guns blazing. Terrifying skills he has no conception of instantly surface asaAlan lethally counters the attack, but too late to save anybody but himself and Martha…

In the aftermath, Alan finds a photo of himself and a young woman on one of the hitmen and, with Martha’s help, traces the image to nearby metropolis Eastown. Desperate for answers, and certain more killers must be coming, the human question mark heads out to confront unimaginable danger and hopefully find the answers he so urgently needs…

Eager to find the mystery woman he was clearly intimate with, he tracks the photo to the offices of the local newspaper, bringing him to the attention of a shady cop who recognises the amnesiac and makes sinister plans…

The woman in the photo is Kim Rowland, a local widow officially listed a “missing person”. When Alan goes to her house he finds the key he was carrying fits the front door. Inside is a scene of devastation, but a thorough search utilising gifts he was unaware he possessed turns up another key and a note warning someone named Jake that “The Mongoose” has found her and she must disappear…

As the search unfolds, Alan/Jake is ambushed by the dirty cop and newspaper editor Wayne. Gloating, Lieutenant Hemmings calls him “Shelton” and demands the return of a large amount of money the baffled amnesiac has no notion of. Alan/Jake/Shelton guesses the new key he found is for a safe-deposit box and bluffs the thugs into taking him to the biggest bank in town…

The bank manager there also knows him as Mr. Shelton and happily escorts him to his private room, but when Hemmings and Wayne examine the briefcase left in Shelton’s deposit box, a booby trap detonates. Taking advantage of the confusion, their prisoner snatches up the case and expertly escapes from the bank, despite the institution rapidly initiating lockdown procedures.

Later in a shabby hotel room, the agonised angry amnesiac considers the huge amount of cash in the case and – not for the first time – wonders what kind of man he used to be…

Preferring motion to inactivity, Alan prepares to leave, but stumbles into a mob of armed killers breaking into his room. In a blur of lethal activity, he escapes to the roof with the thugs in hot pursuit and crashes into another group led by a man called Colonel Amos

The chilling executive calls his captive “Thirteen”, claiming to have previously dealt with his predecessors XI and XII over something called the “Black Sun case”…

The Colonel also very much wants to know who Alan is, and has some shocking facts already at his disposal. The most sensational is a film of the recent assassination of the American President, clearly showing the lone gunman to be the now-appalled Thirteen…

Despite Alan’s heartfelt conviction that he is not an assassin, Amos continues to accuse his memory-wiped captive of being an employee of a criminal mastermind. The Security Supremo wants the man in charge, but fails to take Alan’s submerged but instinctive abilities into account. He is taken completely by surprise when the prisoner rashly leaps out of a fourth floor window…

Somehow surviving the plunge and subsequent pursuit, the frantic fugitive heads for the only refuge he knows, but by the time he reaches Martha’s beachside house trouble has beaten him there…

Another band of killers is waiting; led by a mild-seeming man Alan inexplicably calls The Mongoose. This smug monster expresses surprise and admiration: he thought he’d ended Thirteen months ago…

Tragedy follows an explosion of deadly violence, as Alan goes into action. Henchmen are mercilessly despatched – albeit too late to save Martha – but The Mongoose escapes, swearing dire revenge…

With nothing but doubt, confusion and corpses behind him, the mystery man regretfully hops a freight train west and heads toward an uncertain future…

And so began one of the most compelling and convoluted mystery adventures ever conceived, with subsequent instalments constantly taking the questor deeper and deeper into danger, misery, frustration and – always – more death…

 

XIII volume 2: Where the Indian Walks

The epic conspiracy saga of unrelenting mood, mystery and mayhem began when a kind old man came upon a body on a windswept, rocky shore. The human flotsam was alive despite being shot in the head, and had a key sewn into his clothes and the Roman numerals for thirteen tattooed on his neck. He was treated by an alcoholic, struck-off surgeon and as he recuperated a complication emerged irreversible brain trauma. Language skills, muscle memories, even social and reflexive conditioning all remained, but every detail of his life-history was gone…

The bewildering journey resumes in Where the Indian Walks (originally collected in Europe as in Là où va l’Indien in late 1985, after earlier serialisation in Spirou #2462-2465, spanning 28th June to 9th July 1985).

Here and now, the human enigma’s search for Kim Rowland brings him to a military base where her dead husband was once stationed. His enquiries provoke an unexpected response and it takes a whole platoon to subdue him after Alan instinctively resists arrest with horrific force. Soon he is being interrogated by General Ben Carrington and his sexily capable aide Lieutenant Jones.

They claim to be from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, know an awful lot about black ops units and – eventually – offer incontrovertible proof that their memory-challenged prisoner is in fact officially deceased Captain Steve Rowland – and one of their select number…

Soon after, Carrington has Jones test the returned prodigal’s ingrained combat abilities. When Steve beats her, he’s made a strange offer…

The military spooks drop him off in Rowland’s home town of Southberg: clandestinely returned to his rat’s nest of a family just in time for the vultures to begin circling the dying body of paralysed patriarch Matt Rowland.

Steve’s wheelchair-bound pa still exerts an uncanny and malign grip over the town, local farmers and his own grasping, ambitious relatives. The surprise reappearance of another potential heir really sets the cat among the pigeons…

The sheer hostility of the avaricious relatives isn’t his problem, however: before Steve left town for the army, he pretty much made enemies of everyone in it. Even the sheriff has happily harboured a grudge foe years…

One who hasn’t is storekeeper Old Joe who shows the amnesiac home movies that give the obsessed Thirteen the most solid clue yet to his quarry. So stunned by the possibilities is Alan/Steve that he’s completely unprepared for the brutal murder attempt that follows. Luckily, the sheriff is on hand to stop it, but when the bruised and battered truth-seeker arrives back at the family mansion, Colonel Amos is waiting, applying further pressure to find the mastermind behind the President’s assassination. This time however it’s Kim he wants to question… as soon as Steve finds her…

The Forgetting Man ignores every distraction; using the scant, amassed film and photo evidence to narrow down the location of a cabin by a lake “where the Indian walks”. It has to be where Kim is hiding…

That single-mindedness almost proves the seeker’s undoing when the patriarch is murdered and his recently returned son perfectly framed for the killing…

With Thirteen again subject of a furious manhunt, Carrington and Jones reappear to help him reach the cabin, but when he finally confronts Kim, the anguished amnesic receives the shock of his life… just before the posse bursts in…

To Be Continued…

XIII is one most compelling and convoluted mystery adventures ever conceived, with subsequent instalments constantly taking the questing hero two steps forward, one step back (…and one step to the side too) as he encountered a world of pain and peril whilst unravelling a web of past lives he is told he led by people he can never trust…

Fast-paced, clever and immensely inventive, XIII is a series no devotee of mystery and murder will want to miss.
Original editions © Dargaud Benelux (Dargaud-Lombard SA), 1984 by Van Hamme, Vance & Petra. All rights reserved. These editions published 2010 by Cinebook Ltd.

Gomer Goof volume 6: Gomer: Gofer, Loafer


By Franquin, with Michel, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-535-6 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Like so much in Franco-Belgian comics, it all started with Le Journal de Spirou, which debuted on April 2nd 1938, with its iconic lead strip created by François Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel. In 1943, publisher Dupuis purchased all rights to the comic and its titular star, and comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm for the redheaded kid’s further exploits as the magazine gradually became a cornerstone of European culture.

In 1946, Jijé’s assistant André Franquin was handed creative control. Slowly moving from gag vignettes to extended adventure serials, Franquin introduced a broad and engaging supporting cast of regulars as well as phenomenally popular wonder beast The Marsupilami. Debuting in 1952 (in Spirou et les héritiers) that critter eventually became a spin-off star of screen, plush toys, console games and albums in his own right.

Franquin crafted increasingly fantastic and absorbing Spirou sagas until a final resignation in 1969. Over two decades he had enlarged the feature’s scope and horizons, until it became purely his own. In almost every episode, fans met startling and memorable new characters like comrade/rival Fantasio, crackpot inventor Count of Champignac and even supervillains. Spirou & Fantasio evolved into globetrotting journalists visiting exotic places, exposing crimes, exploring the incredible and clashing with bizarre and exotic arch-enemies.

Throughout it all, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit fictional – Le Journal de Spirou reporter who had to pop into the office between cases. Sadly, lurking there was an accident-prone, big-headed junior in charge of minor jobs and dogs-bodying. He was Gaston Lagaffe – Franquin’s other immortal creation…

There’s a long tradition of comics personalising fictitiously mysterious creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s the Marvel Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy – it’s a truly international practise.

Occasional asides on text pages featured well-meaning foul-up/office gofer “Gaston” (who debuted in #985, February 28th 1957). He grew to be one of the most popular and perennial components of the comic, whether as a guest in Spirou’s cases or his own short illustrated strips and faux editorial reports on the editorial pages.

In terms of actual schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and timeless elements of well-intentioned self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill and Jacques Tati and recognise recurring situations from Some Mothers Do Have ’Em or Mr Bean. It’s slapstick, paralysing puns, infernal ingenuity and invention, pomposity lampooned and no good deed going noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer draws a regular pay check (let’s not dignify or mis-categorise what he does as “work”) from Spirou’s editorial offices: reporting to journalist Fantasio, or complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other, more diligent staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring those minor jobs he’s paid to handle. These include page paste-up, posting (initially fragile) packages and editing readers’ letters… and that’s the official reason why fans’ requests and suggestions are never answered…

Gomer is lazy, peckish, opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry, with his most manic moments all stemming from cutting work corners and stashing or illicitly consuming contraband food in the office…

This leads to constant clashes with police officer Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, yet our office oaf remains eternally easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions are really important here: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what can gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne possible see in the self-opinionated idiot and will angry capitalist/ever-outraged financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

From a reformatted edition of earlier strips that were remastered in 1987, Gaston – Le repos du Gaffeur becomes Cinebook’s sixth translated compilation: again focussing on non-stop all-Franquin comics gags in single-page bursts.

Here our well-meaning, overly helpful know-it-all/office hindrance invents more stuff that makes life unnecessarily dangerous (such as super-sticky plastic floor wax, “handchairs”, hyper-elastic paddleball bats, an anti-burglary system or his own Marsupilami onesie) and proves that even when he actually does his job – like tidying the office or bringing papers – the gods and his own ill-fortune ensure the result is chaos and calamity…

There are further catastrophic developments in the evolution of his Instrument of Musical Destruction – the truly terrifying Brontosaurophone/Goofophone. In celebration of the magazine’s 600th issue it is electrified and “improved” by modern amplifiers and features ponderously in the boy’s new band – with shocking consequences. Other G-phone inclusions vex the military and pauperise anyone with windows, watches or glasses…

We experience first-hand the appalling fallout of Gomer’s new hobby, as enraged and often wounded beachgoers are caught in the blast radius of his kite-flying, leading to the return of opposite number Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street.

This office junior is a like-minded soul and born accomplice, always eager to slope off for a chat: a confirmed devotee of Gomer’s methods of passing the time whilst at work. He even collaborates on any retaliations Gomer inflicts on officer Longsnoot, but here regrets becoming a guinea pig for his inventive pal’s anti-moth deterrent. Moreover, at least one bug spray delivery system finds greater purpose as a means of aerial transportation…

As summer progresses towards Christmas, there are many holiday moments, but Gomer spends most of them tinkering with his infernal congestion-powered pride-&-joy. Many strips feature his doomed love affair with and manic efforts to modify and mollify the accursed motorised atrocity he calls his car. Sadly, the decrepit, dilapidated Fiat 509 is more in need of a merciful execution than his many desperately well-meant engineering interventions to counter its lethal road pollution and failure to function…

The remainder of the volume’s picture strip pandemonium encapsulates the imbecile’s numerous clashes with a bowling ball that clearly despises him; office culinary near-misses (dubbed by lucky survivor Lebrac as “horror-cuisine”) ranging from arson-in-the-raw to political assassination attempts, as well as dabbling with radio-controlled model planes, attempts at getting rid of minor illnesses, ailments and new office innovations.

The lad does try a few moonlighting jobs, but security guard in a China shop, musical backing vocalist and personal plumber are never going to work out, whilst attempts to save and replace the Christmas turkey with crepes are equally ambitious-but-doomed…

In the recurrent saga of office and interpersonal politics, the Goof finds himself the target of increasingly arcane and ingenious pranks, and naturally retaliates in good spirit. Of course, it all gets out of hand when Lebrac introduces termites to the Goofophone and they reject it in favour of tastier fare …like bricks and mortar.

Benighted industrialist De Mesmaeker learns a hard lesson when he foolishly invests in a goof gadget and Gomer increasingly shows his softer side by adopting new pets to keep his goldfish company. Of course, wild mice, a surly blacked-headed gull and the feral cat from behind the building wouldn’t be most people’s first choices, but as they settle in the office staff quickly learn to steer clear of them…

Far better enjoyed than précised or described, these strips allowed Franquin and occasional co-scenarists Michel, Yvan Delporte & Jidéhem (AKA Jean De Mesmaeker – just one of many in-joke analogues who populate the strip) to flex their whimsical muscles and even subversively sneak in some satirical support for their beliefs in pacifism, environmentalism and animal rights. These gags remain supreme examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading.

Why haven’t you Goofed off yet?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.