Category: European Classics

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The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer: The Affair of the Necklace


By Edgar P. Jacobs, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-037-5

Pre-eminent fantasy raconteur Edgar P. Jacobs devised one of the greatest heroic double acts in fiction: pitting his distinguished scientific adventurers Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake against a broad variety of perils and menaces in a sequence of stellar action thrillers which merged science fiction scope, detective mystery suspense and supernatural thrills. The magic was made perfect through his stunning illustrations rendered in the timeless Ligne claire style which had made intrepid boy-reporter Tintin a global sensation.

The Doughty Duo debuted in the very first issue of Le Journal de Tintin (26th September 1946): an ambitious international anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland. The magazine was edited by Hergé, with his eponymous star ably supplemented by a host of new heroes and features for the rapidly-changing post-war world…

L’affaire du collier – the partnership’s ninth drama-drenched epic escapade – was originally serialised in 1965 and forms the last leg of a trilogy of tales set in France. It was subsequently collected in a single album two years after the conclusion and became Cinebook’s seventh translated treat as The Affair of the Necklace in 2009.

Of more interest perhaps is the fact that it is the only straight crime-caper; shunning the regulation science fictional tropes in favour of a suspenseful mystery and breakneck action thriller…

The story itself draws upon a legendary historical scam which rocked France in the 1780s and has fascinated storytellers ever since: haunting films and television, fascinating authors from Dumas to Maurice Leblanc (Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Thief) to Goethe and even featuring in manga such as The Rose of Versailles.

In 1772 Louis XV asked Parisian jewellers Boehmer and Bassange to create a matchless necklace for his mistress Madame du Barry. The magnificent adornment took so long to complete, the king died and was succeeded by his heir Louis XVI and although the jewellers offered the finished piece – which had not been paid for – to Marie Antoinette numerous times, she refused it – citing the money could be better spent on warships.

Her refusals – probably because she despised Du Barry and didn’t want her cast-offs – laid her open to claims of defrauding the artisans and further tarnished the Queen’s shaky reputation.

When a Bastard-Royal confidence trickster got involved and scammed everybody from the jewellers to the government, the doomed trinket destroyed a Bishop, defanged court magician Cagliostro, scandalised the aristocracy, enraged the public and arguably hastened the fall of the Royal House of Bourbon and sparked the French Revolution.

The necklace itself reputedly ended up in England where it was broken up and its hundreds of individual gems separately sold off…

You don’t need any of that immensely complex background for this jaunt though, which begins with modern France ablaze at the news that the infamous adornment has been found – complete and entire – by British collector Sir Henry Williamson who shockingly plans to give it to the young Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom!

Not-all-that-bothered are Professor Mortimer and Captain Blake, back in Paris to give evidence at the trial of infamous criminal and arch-enemy Colonel Olrik. However, that mission is foiled when the Master of Evil boldly escapes from a sealed prison van en route to court.

Despite quickly deducing the rogue’s methods, the Englishmen are at a loss and cooling their heels when Olrik cheekily challenges them to catch him, but with no clues they instead attend the swank soirée held by Sir Henry where he intends to take possession of the infamous Queen’s Necklace from Frances’ greatest jeweller Duranton-Claret who has been repairing and cleaning the long-lost treasure.

The inveterate thrill-seekers eagerly agree and are lost in the social swirl when the unthinkable happens: a landslip in the notorious catacombs below Paris cause the gem-smith’s high security cellar-vault to collapse into the subterranean maze beneath the City of Lights…

Ever in the thick of action, Mortimer braves the disaster scene and quickly discerns it was explosion not accident which caused the chaos. He even returns with the salvaged jewellery case but the ponderous chain of glittering gems is missing; replaced by a taunting note from Olrik…

After agreeing with top cop Commissioner Pradier to keep the theft quiet, all concerned are astounded to find the morning newspapers full of the crime of the century: Olrik himself has contacted them to boast of it…

Duranton is a nervous wreck: his reputation is destroyed and the phone in his palatial house will not stop ringing with rabid reporters constantly pestering him for a comment. Things take a darker turn when Olrik’s chief heavy Sharkey leads a bold raid to abduct the terrified jeweller. Thankfully Blake and Mortimer are on hand to drive off the attackers and are forced to repeat the feat when the thugs later return with Olrik taking personal charge.

This time the intrepid investigators and Duranton’s valiant butler Vincent are hard-pressed and forced into a last-stand firefight before the police arrive. When those reinforcements counterattack the crooks vanish with disturbing ease and familiarity into the catacombs beneath the house…

As the harassed jeweller’s behaviour becomes more paranoid and erratic, the Englishmen’s suspicions are aroused: if Olrik already has the fabulous treasure, why is he still hounding the Duranton? Thus thanks to a covert wiretap supplied by the ever-efficient Pradier, a sordid story is revealed and an unsuspected connection to Olrik exposed…

Both the jeweller and Olrik know the master criminal only got away with a glass copy of the Queen’s Necklace but as the double-dealing Duranton tries to flee the country, he only avoids the police cordon: wily Olrik and brutal Sharkey are extraordinary criminals, easily snapping up the fugitive and spectacularly beating the cops at their own game – but not before the little gem-smith hides the real necklace in a place only he can access…

The action and suspense spiral as Sharkey is captured. Helpfully leading the authorities into the Byzantine tunnels below Paris he easily gives them the slip, but whilst the police wait for municipal tunnel experts to arrive and take charge of the hunt, Blake and Mortimer strike off on their own. Soon they are hopelessly lost in the terrifying labyrinth…

With their torches failing, the partners in peril at last discover the secret of how the mobsters are able to move so confidently through the uncounted miles of deadly tunnels and track them to their fortress-like lair before reuniting with Pradier’s forces and instigating a blistering showdown…

When the shooting ends our heroes are frustrated to discover that Olrik has escaped and taken the much sought-for necklace with him. Of course, the rogue also has a big surprise in store…

Swift-paced, devilishly devious and gritty, grimly noir-ish, this tale shows the utter versatility of our heroes as they slip seamlessly into a straight cops-&-robbers set-piece, building to an explosive conclusion with a tantalising final flourish, resulting in another superbly stylish blockbuster to delight every adventure addict.

This Cinebook edition also includes excerpts from two other Blake & Mortimer albums plus a short biographical feature and publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.
Original edition © Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) 1967, 1991 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

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Queen Margot volume 1: The Age of Innocence


By Olivier Cadic, François Gheysens & Juliette Derenne, coloured by Sophie Barroux and translated by Luke Spears (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-90546-010-6

Although not so well known in Britain as his other novels, on the Continent Alexandre Dumas père’s historical romance La Reine Margot is an extremely popular and well-regarded fictionalisation of the life of Marguerite de Valois.

This unlucky historical figure was the daughter of Henry VII of France and infamously diabolical arch-plotter Catherine de Medici and spent most of her early life as a bargaining chip in assorted convoluted dynastic power-games.

We don’t see a lot of proper historical romance in English-language comics; which is a shame as the stylish intrigue, earthy humour, elegant violence and brooding suspense (just think Game of Thrones without the excessive sex and violence… or dragons) of this one would certainly attract legions of fans in other sectors of artistic endeavour.

This substantial yet enchanting treatment of the events and uncorroborated legends of the girl who eventually became the wife of Henri IV, Queen Consort of France twice-over and the most powerful, influential and infamous woman in Europe is well worth a look-see, especially as most of what we know about her comes first-hand.

Queen Margot related the events of the times and her life – in exquisite, penetrating detail – through an infamous series of memoirs published posthumously in 1628…

Co-scripted by publisher, politician, computer entrepreneur, historian and statesman Olivier Cadic and François Gheysens, illustrated with intensely evocative passion and potently authentic lyricism by Juliette Derenne (Les Oubliés, Le 22e jour de la Lune) and enlightened through the graceful colours of Sophie Barroux; the first chapter appeared in 2006 as La Reine Margot: Le Duc de Guise and opens here with a spiffy gate-fold cover offering a potted history and run-down of the major players before the intrigue unfolds…

In August 1569, sixteen year old Margot and her Lady-in-waiting/governess Madame Mirandole arrive at castle of Plessis-lez-Tours. In the ongoing wars between Papists and Huguenots, Margot’s ailing brother Charles might be King of Catholic France, but her other brother Henri, Duke of Anjou is the darling of the court: a veritable Adonis and glorious war-hero smiting the Protestant foe. Anjou is also a sibling she adores and worships like a schoolgirl…

What little brotherly love there was stood no chance against a sea of popular feeling and cruel, envious unstable, hypochondriac Charles is determined to see it end and all Henri’s growing power and inherent glamour with it. Naturally, his dynastically-obsessed mother has plans to fix everything, but they never extend to showing her practically worthless daughter the slightest hint of kindness or approval.

Although young, Margot (who prefers the familiar name “Marguerite”) knows well that she’s nothing more than a disposable piece in a grand game, but briefly forgets her inevitable fate as Henri bedazzles the Court with his tales of martial triumph. Later he shares his own ambitions and misgivings with her. He dreads jealous, inept Charles taking the role of military commander for his own, and does not want to be married off to the Arch-Duchess of Austria…

Marguerite has problems of her own: Henri’s most trusted lieutenant; the appalling Lord Du Guast, tries to force himself upon her whilst making the most disgusting suggestions and veiled accusations before she can escape…

Worst of all, her mother – steeped in five generations of Machiavellian Medici manipulation and inspired by the bizarre prognostications of her personal seer Ruggieri – has begun setting her plans for the potentially invaluable, royally connected daughter.

Margot can do nothing against her mother’s wishes but, with the aid of drugged wine, she repays Du Guast’s affront with a public humiliation she will come to regret…

Everything changes when charismatic Henri, Duke of Guise and hero of the Siege of Poitiers arrives. He and Marguerite were childhood friends and now that they are both grown, their mutual attraction is clear to all. Instantly, his family sense a chance to advance themselves through a love match and quick marriage…

The kids themselves are only dimly aware of alliances. They want each other and even an entire gossiping, constantly watching Court is not enough to deter them…

As the war progresses into slow and depressing attrition, Anjou doggedly pursues victory and awaits his inevitable ousting, whilst Du Guast lays his plans to destroy and possess Marguerite.

News of her dalliance with Guise is of great worth to him and even though Catherine has organised a tentative betrothal to the Catholic king of Portugal, the vile seducer has ways and means of spoiling the proposed match. He’s even inadvertently aided by Marguerite herself, who tries many stratagems to disrupt the regal deal…

The constant in-fighting and subterfuge turns Anjou against his sister and when “proof” of her affair with Guise reaches Catherine the old queen moves swiftly.

Marguerite is compelled to capitulate to save Guise from Charles’ insane wrath and grimly faces the prospect of never seeing him again: cushioned in despised luxury and once more the pliable prize and powerless pawn in a game she cannot escape, avoid or win…

To Be Continued…

Colourful, intoxicating and powerfully compelling, The Age of Innocence is a beguiling view of eternal passions and human intrigue to delight the hardest of hearts and the most finicky of comics aficionados.
Original edition © 2006 Cinebook Ltd/Cadic – Gheysens. All rights reserved. English translation 2006 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Yoko Tsuno volume 1: On the Edge of Life


By Roger Leloup (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-32-8

Yoko Tsuno began first began gracing the pages of Spirou in September 1970 and is still going strong. As detailed by Roger Leloup, the astounding, all-action, uncannily edgy, excessively accessible exploits of the slim, slight Japanese scientific-adventurer are amongst the most intoxicating and absorbing comics thrillers ever created.

Leloup’s brainchild is an expansively globe-girdling, space and time spanning multi-award winning series devised by the monumentally talented Belgian maestro after leaving his job as a studio assistant on Herge’s The Adventures of Tintin and striking out on his own.

Compellingly told, superbly imaginative but always solidly grounded in hyper-realistic settings boasting utterly authentic and unshakably believable technology and scientific principles, the illustrated epics were at the vanguard of a wave of strips featuring competent, clever and brave female protagonists which revolutionised Continental comics from the 1970s onwards and they are as timelessly engaging and potently empowering now as they ever were.

The very first stories ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’, ‘La belle et la bête’ and ‘Cap 351’ were brief introductory vignettes before the superbly capable Miss Tsuno and her always awestruck and overwhelmed male comrades Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen truly hit their stride with premier extended saga Le trio de l’étrange which began in the May 13th 1971 Spirou…

In the original European serialisations, adventures alternated between explosive escapades in exotic corners of the world and sinister deep space sagas with the secretive and disaster-plagued alien colonists from Vinea, but for these current English translations, the extraterrestrial endeavours have been more often than not sidelined in favour of realistically intriguing Earthly epics such as this one which began serialised life in 1976 as La frontière de la vie (Spirou #1979-1999) before becoming the seventh collected album a year later.

There have been 27 European albums to date, and Cinebook opted to open their string of English translations with this one; a skilfully suspenseful spooky mystery which opens in the fabulously restored mediaeval German city of Rothenburg.

Yoko is sightseeing as she walks to a meeting with new friend Ingrid Hallberg: one of Germany’s most promising young classical organists and a woman the troubleshooting trio saved from murder in the case of The Devil’s Organ.

The trip takes a dark turn when Yoko learns Ingrid is ill. The musician is suffering from a strange, inexplicable form of anaemia and her cousin Rudy believes the malady is not of natural origin. In fact, despite his qualifications as a biologist, the frantic young man claims Ingrid is the victim of a vampire…

He has constantly examined her since the illness began and discovered a bizarre wound and that a large percentage of Ingrid’s blood has been replaced with a synthetic substitute. The distraught, diligent researcher has also plotted the timing of the attacks and the next one is due that very night…

Plans laid, valiant Yoko patiently waits by the victim’s bedside, but is overcome by an unexplained lethargy and, but for a fluke chance, would have slept through the sight of a caped and gas-masked woman siphoning off Ingrid’s precious fluids and drip-feeding something else into her…

However, a concerned pet upsets the intruder’s invasion and a drowsy but roused Yoko gives frantic chase through the unlit streets of the ancient town. Not at her best, she soon fades and is distracted by peculiar historian and archivist Ernst Schiffers who shows her a strange sight: some hooligans have built a makeshift scientific laboratory in the crypts beneath the city…

But that is not the worst of it: when the town was meticulously rebuilt after the bombing raids of the last war something went wrong. As an astoundingly accurate scale model he constructed now proves, the restored Rothenburg has one house too many…

Before he can say more, however, a car pulls up and a gang of masked men try to grab Yoko…

Soon she is the quarry, doubling back over the torturous route she followed in pursuit of the vampire and is astonished to fund the gas-masked woman waiting. With urgent desperation the enigma begs Yoko to finish the transfusion into Ingrid or the “victim” will die…

Later Rudy confirms the solution is a breakthrough plasma substitute, perfectly attuned to Ingrid’s incredibly rare blood-group. As they cautiously administer it, Vic and Pol drive up in the dawn light. Together the adventurers retrace Yoko’s eventful night and track Schiffers to his house. Although the historian is gone – probably taken by the masked gang – his home conceals a massive model of the town and eagle-eyed Yoko spots a discrepancy which can only be a clue…

Most suspicious of all is the fact that the Hallberg family physician Doctor Schulz is the missing man’s neighbour and his dwelling is ground zero for the “extra” house…

Rudy cannot believe any wrongdoing of the doctor and shares the story of how the tragic GP lost his little girl Magda in one of the last air raids of the war. On being pushed however, Rudy admits that there was some oddity or mystery connected to the event. A little digging and the investigators uncover a strange fact: little Magda had the same rare blood type as Ingrid…

Assumptions formed and conclusions reached, the gang head straight to a local cemetery to check out a certain coffin even as back in town an impossible apparition appears to Rudy’s mother…

Soon the vampire has no choice but to reveal herself and an incredible tale unfolds. A family pact has kept two generations of Schulz’s working at the forefront of biological advancement. Magda has been kept in tenuous suspended animation between life and death since 1945 as her father and extended family sought a cure, but now with the project almost completed, they have been forced to share their secrets and discoveries with other scientists and either haste or greed has left the 30 year old infant in mortal peril…

Based in a lab under the city, they have resorted to stealing Ingrid’s healthy blood to sustain Magda as they carefully remove her from decades of life support but the project is inexplicably failing at the final stage. When the vampire convinces her colleagues to let Rudy and Yoko add their skills to the team-effort, the observant engineer instantly spots that the problem is sabotage from within the select group…

When the indomitable Yoko acts with her usual philanthropic recklessness, she too has a terrifying near-death experience before the generational tragedy reaches a happy conclusion…

As always the most potent asset of these breathtaking dramas is the astonishingly authentic, staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship and the terse, supremely understated storytelling, which superbly benefits from Leloup’s scrupulous research and meticulous attention to detail, honed through years of working on Tintin.

Every bit the fictive equal of James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Tintin or any other genre-busting super-star, Yoko Tsuno is a truly multi-faceted adventurer, equally at home in all manner of dramatic milieus and able to hold her own against all threats and menace on Earth or beyond …

This is another miraculously-paced, meticulously planned, tensely suspenseful escapade to appeal to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy or devilish sinister thriller.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1978, by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2007 © Cinebook Ltd.

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XIII volume 2: Where the Indian Walks


By William Vance & Jean Van Hamme, coloured by Petra (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-040-5

One of the most consistently entertaining and popular adventure serials in Europe, XIII was created by Jean Van Hamme (Wayne Shelton, Blake and Mortimer, Lady S.) and illustrator William Vance (Bruce J. Hawker, Marshal Blueberry, Ramiro).

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

Immediately clicking with the public, by 1976 he had also branched out into prose novels and screenwriting. His big break was the monumentally successful fantasy series Thorgal for Tintin magazine but he 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. In 2010 Van Hamme was listed as the second-best selling comics author in France, ranked right between the seemingly unassailable Hergé and Uderzo.

Born in 1935 in Anderlecht, William Vance is the bande dessinée nom de plume of William van Cutsem. 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 Tintin in 1962. His persuasive illustrative style is a classical blend of meticulous realism, scrupulous detail and spectacular yet understated action.

In 1964 he began the 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 latterly Pilote and Tintin).

Although working constantly – on serials and stand-alone stories – Vance’s most acclaimed work is his lengthy collaboration with fellow Belgian Van Hamme on this contemporary thriller based on Robert Ludlum’s novel The Bourne Identity…

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

The series was a monumental hit in Europe 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.

The epic conspiracy saga of unrelenting mood, mystery and mayhem began in The Day of the Black Sun when an old man came upon a body shot and near death on a windswept, rocky shore. The human flotsam was still alive despite being shot in the head, and when Abe‘s wife Sally examined the near-corpse she found a key sewn into his clothes and the Roman numerals for thirteen tattooed on his neck. Their remote hideaway offered little in the way of emergency services, but alcoholic, struck-off surgeon Martha was able to save the dying stranger…

As he recuperated a complication became apparent. The patient – a splendid physical specimen clearly no stranger to action or violence – had suffered massive, probably irreversible brain trauma, and although increasingly sound in body had completely lost his mind.

Language skills, muscle memories, even social and reflexive conditioning all remained, but every detail of his life-history was gone…

Abe and Sally named him “Alan” after their own dead son – but the intruder’s lost past explosively intruded when hitmen invaded the beach house with guns blazing. Alan reacted with terrifying skill, lethally retaliating, but too late to save anybody but himself and Martha…

In the aftermath he took a photo of himself and a young woman from one of the killers and, with Martha’s help, traced it to nearby Eastown. Desperate for answers and certain more killers were coming, the human question mark headed off to confront unimaginable danger and hopefully find the answers he craved.

The picture led to a local newspaper, and the attention of crooked cop Lieutenant Hemmings who recognised the amnesiac but said nothing…

The woman in the photo was Kim Rowland, a local widow who had recently gone missing. Alan’s key opened the door of her house. The place had been ransacked but a more thorough search utilising his forgotten talents turned up another key and a note warning someone named “Jake” that “The Mongoose” had found her and she was going to disappear…

He was then ambushed by the cop and newspaper editor Wayne. They called him “Shelton” and demanded the return of a large amount of money…

Alan/Jake/Shelton reasoned the new key fitted a safe-deposit box and bluffed the thugs into taking him to the biggest bank in town. The staff there also knew him as Shelton, but when Hemmings and Wayne examined the briefcase in Shelton’s box a booby trap went off. Instantly acting upon the unexpected distraction, the mystery man expertly escaped and eluded capture, holing up in a shabby hotel room, pondering again what kind of man he used to be…

Preferring motion to inactivity, he prepared to leave and stumbled into a mob of armed killers. In a blur of lethal action he escaped and ran into another group led by a man addressed as Colonel Amos. The chilling executive referred to his captive as “Thirteen” and claimed to have dealt with his predecessors XI and XII on something called the “Black Sun” case…

The Colonel very much wanted to know who Alan was, and offered some shocking titbits in return. The most sensational was film of the recent assassination of the American President which clearly showed the lone gunman to be none other than the aghast Thirteen…

Despite the amnesiac’s heartfelt conviction that he was no assassin, Amos accused him of working for a criminal mastermind. The Colonel wanted the boss but failed to take Alan’s forgotten instinctive abilities into account and was astounded when his prisoner leapt out of a fourth floor window…

The frantic fugitive headed for the only refuge he knew, but by the time he reached Martha’s beachside house trouble had beaten him there. More murderers awaited; led by a mild-seeming man Alan inexplicably knew was The Mongoose. The mastermind expressed surprise and admiration: he thought he’d killed Thirteen months ago…

Following an explosion of hyper-fast violence which left the henchmen dead and Mongoose vanished but vengeful, the mystery man regretfully hopped a freight train west towards the next stage in his quest for truth…

The bewildering journey resumes in Where the Indian Walks (originally collected in Europe as Là où va l’indien in 1984) as the 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 Joint Chiefs of Staff, know an awful lot about black ops units and – eventually – offer incontrovertibly proof that the memory-challenged prisoner is in fact the deceased Captain Steve Rowland and one of their select number…

Soon after, Carrington has Jones test the returned prodigal’s trained combat abilities and once Steve beats her is made a strange offer…

The military spooks drop him off in his – Rowland’s? – home town of Southberg and clandestinely return him 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 dad still exerts an uncanny and malign grip over the town, the 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 Rowland left town for the army he pretty much made enemies of everybody in it and even the sheriff has happily harboured a grudge all these years…

One who hasn’t is storekeeper Old Joe who shows the amnesiac some 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 which 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 more 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 all distractions; 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 his undoing as the crippled patriarch is murdered and his recently returned son superbly framed for the killing…

With Thirteen again the subject of a furious manhunt, Carrington and Jones suddenly reappear and 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 Thirteen two steps forward, one step back as he encounters a world of pain and peril whilst tracking down the and cutting through an interminable web of past lives he seemingly led…

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

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Melusine volume 3: The Vampires’ Ball


By Clarke (Frédéric Seron) & Gilson, coloured by Cerise and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-69-4

Witches – especially cute and sassy teenage ones – have a long and distinguished pedigree in fiction and one of the most seductively engaging first appeared in venerable Belgian magazine Spirou in 1992.

Mélusine is actually a sprightly 119 years old and spends her days – and many nights – working as an au pair/general dogsbody to a most ungracious family of haunts and horrors inhabiting a vast monster-packed, ghost-afflicted chateau whilst diligently studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ School…

The long-lived much-loved feature is presented in every format from one-page gag strips to full-length comedy tales, all riffing wickedly on supernatural themes and detailing her rather fraught life, filled with the demands of the appallingly demanding master and mistress of the castle and even her large circle of exceedingly peculiar family and friends.

The strip was devised by writer François Gilson (Rebecca, Cactus Club, Garage Isidore) and cartoon humorist Frédéric Seron, AKA Clarke whose numerous features for all-ages Spirou and acerbic adult humour publication Fluide Glacial include Rebecca, Les Cambrioleurs, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continue… and Le Miracle de la Vie.

Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters and as Bluttwurst Les Enquêtes de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti, Château Montrachet, Mister President and P.38 et Bas Nylo.

A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is unremittingly funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical and genre pieces such as Cosa Nostra, Les Histoires de France, Luna Almaden and Nocturnes and apparently is free from the curse of having to sleep…

Collected editions began appearing annually or better from 1995, with the 24th published in 2015 and another due next year. Thus far five of those have transformed into English translations thanks to the fine folk at Cinebook.

Originally released on the Continent in 1996, Le bal des vampires was the second Mélusine album and sets the scene delightfully for newcomers as the majority of the content is comprised of one or two page gags starring the sassy sorceress who makes excessive play with fairy tale and horror film icons, conventions and themes.

When brittle, moody Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle, ducking cat-eating monster Winston, dodging frisky vampire The Count or avoiding the unwelcome and often hostile attentions of horny peasants and over-zealous witch hunting priests, our saucy sorceress can usually be found practising her spells or consoling and coaching inept, un-improvable and lethally unskilled classmate Cancrelune.

This sorry enchantress-in-training is a sad case: her transformation spells go awfully awry, she can’t remember incantations and her broomstick-riding makes her a menace to herself, any unfortunate observers and even the terrain and buildings around her…

At least Mel’s boyfriend is a werewolf, so he only troubles her a couple of nights each month…

This turbulent tome features the regular procession of slick sight gags and pun-ishing pranks but also features a few longer jocular jaunts such as the fate of rather rude knight in armour, a brush with what probably isn’t a poltergeist in the Library and Mel’s unfortunate experience with daunting dowager Aunt Adrezelle‘s patented Elixir of Youth…

Wrapping up the barrage of ghostly gaffes, ghastly goofs and grisly goblin gaucheries is the sordid saga of the eternal elite at their most drunkenly degenerate as poor Melusine is not only expected to organise and cater ‘The Vampires’ Ball’ but has to stick around and handle the explosive clean-up for those especially intoxicated Nosferatus who tend to forget why the revelry has to die down before dawn…

Wry, sly, fast-paced and uproariously funny, this compendium of arcane antics is a great taste of the magic of European comics and a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art. Read before bedtime and don’t eat any hairy sweets…

Original edition © Dupuis, 2000 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2007 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Showman Killer volume 1: Heartless Hero


By Alejandro Jodorowsky & Nicolas Fructus (Titan Comics)
ISBN 978-1-78276-139-6

Born in Tocopilla, Chile in 1929, Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky is a filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, world traveller, philosopher, spiritual guru and comics writer.

The amazing modern polymath is most widely known for such films as Fando y Lis, El Topo, The Holy Mountain, Sante Sangre, The Rainbow Thief, The Dance of Reality and others, and a vast and influential comics output, including Anibal 5 (created whilst living in Mexico), Le Lama blanc, Aliot, The Meta-Barons, Borgia, Madwoman of the Sacred Heart and so many more, created with some of South America and Europe’s greatest artists.

His decade-long collaboration with Moebius on the Tarot-inspired adventure The Incal (1981-1989) completely redefined and reinvented what comics could aspire to and achieve.

Most widely regarded for his violently surreal avant-garde films, loaded with highly-charged, inspired imagery – blending mysticism and what he terms “religious provocation” – and his spiritually-informed fantasy and science fiction comics tales, Jodorowsky is also fascinated by humanity’s inner realms and has devised his own doctrine of therapeutic healing: Psychomagic, Psychogenealogy and Initiatic massage.

He still remains fully engaged and active in all these creative areas to this day.

He has never stopped creating and most of his lifelong themes and obsessions are seamlessly wedded together in this first volume of a visceral and challenging new sci fi slaughter series which first surfaced in France in 2010 as Showman Killer: Un héros sans coeur.

This slim but sublime translated hardback tome sparkles with the macabre painted mastery of illustrator/animator Nicolas Fructus (Thorinth, Kadath, Arthur and the Minimoys) and opens with a ‘Prologue’ wherein creepy mercenary technologist Doctor Courcolain and his truly disturbing assistant Paleo-Dog Orlanda visit the prison planet Halkatrass in search of fresh sperm samples…

They don’t come fresher than Joe the Gut-Eater‘s; his vital juices callously and corruptly obtained whilst he’s being actively tortured to death. Before long the mad scientist is back in his secret asteroid lab, inseminating long-missing celebrity Lady Anonima. The regal brood surrogate has been in a vegetative state for months and isn’t even aware that the next nine will be her last…

Doctor Courcolain has had enough of serving the puissant, parsimonious Omnimonarch. The prospective and self-made “parent” has a grand scheme to create the universe’s greatest ultra-mercenary and thereafter squeeze vast sums out of the bloodthirsty tyrant when his relentless, totally emotionless killer “son” carries off the lion’s share of regal commissions…

Reared in robotic isolation, the baby is subject to psycho-surgery and biological cyber-augmentation as Courcolain carefully nurtures his perfect killer and, when it comes of age, despatches him to learn/steal all the secrets of the Aldeberan ninja Akka-Kun, a first mission which leaves his sinister scion with the power to shapeshift…

Dubbing his flamboyant creation Showman Killer, the vile physician debuts his creature at the Omnimonarch’s grand gladiatorial games on Planet Gold, where the greatest warriors in the universe convene to fight and die for the sovereign’s pleasure.

The mystery newcomer makes an unimaginable splash and after winning a vast reward for Courcolain affords his creator one last surprise. The so-brilliant doctor has not fully considered what might happen in the mind of perfect assassin reared without hope or affection and programmed to think all life worthless and money the most important thing in creation…

When the dust and bloody mist settles the mature and independent Showman Killer than places himself at the Omnimonarch’s service…

The story proper begins years later as the paragon of murderers awakes from another horrible dream. The royal assassin has grown bored – even of the vast wealth his gifts have earned him – and when an urgent call comes to save the Omnimonarch’s newborn heir and wife from marauding Nihilos he diligently sets off, but cockily allows himself to be distracted by a higher bid from the King of Ornisaurios.

Judging he can save the bird-lizards from invasion and still tackle the Nihilos in time, Showman Killer indulges himself in a welter of gory slaughter, blithely unaware that he has made a grave miscalculation…

At the Noumara Palace Hospital on Planet Arcane the ravaging perpetrators have been exposed as the spearhead of a well-organised insurrection rather than a ragtag band of raiding primitives.

A traitor high within the court has made a ruthless power-play, but the valiant sacrifice of the queen has foiled his Plan A. Now, with the heir missing Showman Killer at last arrives, and experiences the full grief and fury of the Omnimonarch with calm detachment. Despite his failure the assassin is still necessary to the ruler whose soul screams out for vengeance.

The hidden plotter is also content: the real threat to his usurpation is the heir and now the most infallible hunter in the universe will find the child for him…

After a long quest and an ocean of spilled blood, the gulled seeker locates the missing baby and the strange woman who safeguards him. He has seen her many times – in his dreams – and when she leaves the baby in his care and vanishes, the Killer sets out for home with the strangest sensations disturbing his placid attitude. Could it be emotion or perhaps some unguessed connection to the royal infant…?

To Be Continued…

Stark, baroque and chillingly brutal, this is beguiling mystery and rousing space opera at their most uncompromising: blending the familiar locales and trappings of galactic empires with the dark, foredoomed mood and mystique of classical samurai dramas and classic Film Noir.

A visual feast for all lovers of fantastic fiction and ferocious yet tragic antiheroes…
Showman Killer volumes 1, 2, 3, Jodorowsky-Fructus © Éditions Delacourt 2010-2012 Showman Killer volume 1 is available in selected shops now and available to pre-order for a December 29th 2015 internet release.

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Asterix and the Missing Scroll


By Jean-Yves Ferri & Didier Conrad, translated by Anthea Bell (Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4440-

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Classical Way to Celebrate the Season… 9/10

Asterix debuted in 1959 and has since become part of the fabric of French life. His exploits have touched billions of people all around the world for five and a half decades and for almost all of that time his astounding adventures were the sole preserve of originators Rene Goscinny and/or Albert Uderzo.

After nearly 15 years as a weekly comics part-work subsequently collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st saga – Asterix and Caesar’s Gift – became the first to be released as a complete, original album prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new tome was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for legions of devotees, but perhaps none more so than this one, created by Uderzo’s handpicked replacements – scripter Jean-Yves Ferri (Fables Autonomes, La Retour à la terre) and illustrator Didier Conrad (Les Innomables, Le Piège Malais, Tatum) – who landed the somewhat poisoned chalice after he retired in 2009.

After their initial epic Asterix and the Picts proved they could follow ably in their masters’ footsteps, critics started wondering if the new kids could pull it off again…

Whether as an action-packed comedic romp with sneaky, bullying baddies getting their just deserts or as a sly and wicked satire for older, if-no-wiser heads, these new yarns seem to be is just as engrossing as the established canon especially as English-speakers are still happily graced with the brilliantly light touch of translator Anthea Bell who, with former collaborator Derek Hockridge, played no small part in making the indomitable little Gaul so palatable to Anglophilic sensibilities.

As you already know, half of the intoxicating epics are set in various exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, whilst the rest take place in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany where, circa 50 B.C., a little hamlet of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resisted every effort of the mighty Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul.

Although the country is divided by the notional conquerors into provinces Celtica, Aquitania and Armorica, the very tip of the last named stubbornly refuses to be pacified. The otherwise dominant Romans, utterly unable to overrun this last bastion of Gallic insouciance, are reduced to a pointless policy of absolute containment – and yet the Gauls come and go as they please.

Thus a tiny seaside hamlet is permanently hemmed in by heavily fortified garrisons Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium, filled with veteran fighters who would rather be anywhere else on earth than there…

Their “prisoners” couldn’t care less; daily defying and frustrating the world’s greatest military machine by uncaringly going about their everyday affairs, bolstered by magic potion brewed by resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits and strategic aplomb of diminutive dynamo Asterix and his simplistic, supercharged best friend Obelix…

Le Papyrus de César was released on October 22nd 2015, simultaneously hurtling off the shelves of many nations as Asterix and the Missing Scroll (or whatever the local language equivalent of the many nations addicted to these epics might be).

Even though, as with many previous tales, it takes its momentum from satirising current affairs the resemblances to certain unscrupulous publishing magnates and founders of information-leaking internet sites is both remarkable and – I’m sure – utterly coincidental…

This home fixture begins away in glorious Rome where Caesar is anticipating the release of his memoirs Commentaries on the War with the Gauls (or Commentarii de Bello Gallico as your granddad probably knew it). Unimaginative, forthright Caesar has ended the ruminations with a final scroll detailing how he has been unable to completely end the conflict because of repeated incidents with a small village of indomitable Gauls who simply won’t accept that they’ve been conquered.

He is shocked – but not averse – to the suggestion of his advisor and publisher Libellus Blockbustus who recommends that they just leave it out of the published edition…

The expurgated publication is a sensation throughout the empire and far away in that still-unconquered enclave life goes on as usual after publication. In fact when the latest newspaper arrives the villagers are only concerned with the latest horoscopes.

As myopic Wifix reads them out, aged Geriatrix takes his prediction to heart and sees “new conquests” in his future whilst Obelix is mortally crushed by a rather specific prognostication to “avoid conflict, take stock and go easy on the roast boar”…

Asterix, who shares the same birthday as his ponderous pal, doesn’t believe in all that astrology rubbish, but cannot shake the big buffoon out of his debilitating dudgeon. Although that means things grow quiet in Gaul, back in Rome a clandestine crisis has erupted. A mute Numidian Scribe named Bigdatha has taken umbrage with the massaging of the truth and, believing the public has a right to know everything, has turned whistleblower. Swiping Caesar’s 24th scroll – “Defeats at the Hands of the Indomitable Gauls of Armorica” – he has passed it on to Confoundtheirpolitix, a Gaulish “newsmonger without borders”…

Fearing the scandal will affect profits and dreading what Caesar will do if he’s made to appear foolish or dishonest, Blockbustus instigates emergency measures and sends Roman secret police to arrest the scribe and the newsmonger. Confoundthepolitix however has already rushed to Armorica and sought sanctuary in a certain village that Romans cannot enter…

When details of the omissions on the scroll are revealed (particularly Asterix’ many exploits such as The Chieftain’s Shield, Mansions of the Gods and so on) the villagers react in different ways – those that aren’t still fighting over the horoscope predictions at least.

The excitable Lutetian newsmonger is adamant that the contents of the scroll could topple Caesar and something must be done to preserve it, prompting Chief Vitalstatistix to affably write his own history of the war to set things right. More sensibly Getafix suggests that since Gauls don’t appreciate writing but memorialise facts and history in their oral tradition, he should transport the potentially devastating data to the Forest of the Carnutes where the Grand Druid Archaeopterix can commit the information to his mighty and phenomenal cogitative cranial chronicles…

Meanwhile word has reached Centurion Verigregarius in Totorum to get that scroll back at all costs and he surrounds the village with a cordon of his best warriors. That means nothing to the villagers of course. In the dead of night Asterix, Getafix and faithful petite wonder-hound Dogmatix sneak out of a secret door and set out on their mission, dragging with them dolorous, downcast and decidedly pacifistic Obelix. They are unaware that they are being stalked by a crack squad of elite Roman army surveillance specialists, equipped with the latest advancement in the empire’s covert communications technology…

Back in Rome, every fresh evidence of Caesar’s delight in his new-found authorial celebrity terrifies Blockbustus more and more. With the humiliating last chapter still out there, a monarch’s reputation and thus the publisher’s life remain balanced on a knife-edge. Succumbing to panic, the wily advisor heads for Armorica to take personal charge of the search, even as our heroes reach the fabled forest. As their stalkers fall victim to the unique and fabulous security measures of the Carnutes druids, Getafix renews old acquaintances and begins the torturous process of committing the scroll to Archaeopterix‘ capacious memory…

In Totorum, deprived of all the ongoing fresh facts and breaking news, Blockbustus and Verigregarius plan a major assault on the village to retrieve the scroll they think is still there. Their cause is greatly advanced when they catch Confoundtheirpolitix outside the stockade and take him hostage…

Thankfully the embattled Gauls have messaging system which can reach all the way to the great forest and Archaeopterix has a power-potion of his own which will allow his guests to get back to the village in time to save the day…

Even Obelix gets to play once he learns that he was read the wrong horoscope and can have as many boars and hit as many Romans as he wants. But then Julius Caesar angrily arrives and all Tartarus breaks loose…

Fast-paced, furiously funny, stuffed with action and hilarious, contemporary swipes and timeless jibes plus a marvellously enchanting double twist ending, this is a splendid continuation of the series by creators who clearly know what they’re doing and enjoy doing it. Asterix and the Missing Scroll is an unmissable joy for lovers of laughs and devotees of comics alike and a welcome addition to the mythic canon.

True Dat…
© 2015 Les Éditions Albert René. English translation: © 2015 Les Éditions Albert René. All rights reserved.

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The Quest for the Time Bird


By Serge Le Tendre & Régis Loisel, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger (Titan Comics)
ISBN 978-1-78276-362-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Perfect post-Yule Spectacle… 10/10

Like much European art and culture, French language comics (I’m controversially including Belgium and Swiss strips in this half-baked, nigh-racist, incomprehensibly sweeping statement) often seem to be a triumph of style over content.

That doesn’t mean they’re bad – far from it – simply that sometimes the writing and plotting isn’t as important to the creators and readers as the way it looks on a page and in a book, and complex characterisation isn’t always afforded the same amount of room that scenery, players, fighting or sex gets.

When you combine that with their reading public’s total refusal to be shocked by nudity or profanity, it becomes clear why so few of the seventy-odd years of accumulated, beautiful rendered strips ever got translated into English – until now…

Beginning in the mid-1980s and having exhausted most of the all-ages options like Tintin, Asterix, Lucky Luke and Iznogoud, there was a concerted effort to bring a selection of the best mature-targeted European comics to an English-speaking (but primarily American) audience, with mixed results. Happily, that paucity of anglicised action and adventure has been relegated to the dust-bin of history in this century and we’ve all wised up a bit since then.

One of the most beguiling and intriguing of those bande dessinée serials was released by NBM between 1983 and 1987 as a quartet of splendidly fanciful fantasy albums (Ramor’s Conch, The Temple Of Oblivion, The Reige Master and The Egg Of Darkness) under the umbrella title Roxanna and the Quest for the Time Bird.

The eye-catching albums merrily married sword-and sorcery in the manner of Jim Henson’s Dark Crystal with the sly raciness and wry wit of the early Carry On films and the unmatchable imagination of top-rank artists with no artificial restrictions.

Now the entire saga has been retranslated, remastered and re-released in a humongous (246 x 325 mm) full colour hardback packed with pulchritudinous peril, astonishingly exotic locales and a vast variety of alien races all mashed together and killing time until the end of the world…

That imminently endangered orb is the eccentric realm of Akbar; first glimpsed in French as La Quête de l’oiseau du temps: intégrale cycle principal by writer Serge Le Tendre (Les Voyages de Takuan, Mister George, TaDuc) & Régis Loisel (Peter Pan, La Dernière Goutte, Le Grand Mort, Magasin General). However, before that there was also a pithy prototype version crafted by the collaborators in 1975 for the magazine Imagine and that’s been included in this splendid compilation in all its stark monochrome glory – but only in the original French so keep your phrase book or translation App handy…

The mystique and mystery open with Ramor’s Conch which introduces us to a land of many cultures, creatures and magics as the astonishingly adept and confidant Pelisse (restored to her original Gallic appellation) struggles through hostile territory to reach and recruit Bragon, the Greatest Knight in the World (and quite possibly her father) to capture the mystically mythic Time-Bird.

Opting to ignore the obviously still sore subject of the affair between the aged warrior and her mother, Pelisse wants to concentrate on preventing the destruction of the planet at the hands of a legendary mad god imprisoned within the Conch. The dark deity is prophesied to escape millennia of imprisonment in nine days’ time but there is still one chance to save everything…

Old, crotchety Bragon takes a lot of persuading, even though he once loved Pelisse’s mother. Sorceress-Princess Mara is the only chance of holding back onrushing Armageddon. She has a spell from an ancient book that will rebind Ramor but it will take more than nine days to enact. What she now needs is more time and if she can use the fantastic fowl to mystically extend her deadline all Akbar will be saved. But someone has to fetch it for her…

Of course the noble knight eventually acquiesces, but is utterly unable to prevent the annoying teenager from accompanying him. Whether it’s because she may be his daughter or simply because this rather plain-faced lass has the sexiest body on the planet and the mind of a young girl (which here translates as a devastating blend of ingénue maiden and tart-in-training) and not one whit of a sense of self-preservation he can’t decide…

Despite and not because of her constant cajoling, he “decides” to keep her with him as they set out on their desperate quest, the first step of which is to steal the Conch itself from a teeming desert city of lusty religious maniacs who haven’t even seen a woman in months.

After much derring-do and snide asides they succeed, acquiring a breast-obsessed (Pelisse’s chest is unfeasibly large and inviting and heaves most distractingly according to almost everyone she meets), inept young warrior in the process. Even though he’s clearly hopeless, Pelisse has formed a peculiar romantic attachment to him – but only as long as he never shows his face and remains an object of enticing, enigmatic mystery…

Bragon too is keeping a very close eye on him and their surroundings as they have also attracted a relentless stalker in the burly shape of deadly Bulrog – a former squire and pupil of the old knight – employed by fanatical cultists to ensure Ramor is liberated…

Second chapter The Temple of Oblivion sees a rather fraught reunion between Bragon and Mara as the knight deposits the painfully-recovered Conch and takes a party to the aforementioned temple to translate runic clues which will lead to the location of the Time-Bird.

With the chronal creature safely in custody they can literally stop the clock until Mara can re-confine the nearly-free mad god, but the arduous trek pushes the questers to their emotional and physical limits and a dark edge creeps into the tale as they again succeed, but only at the cost of their latest companion.

Sorely troubled, Bragon, Pelisse and her masked warrior head to their next destination, with only seven days remaining…

Riga finds them slogging through jungles strikingly similar to French Indo-China, gradually nearing their goal but unknowingly stalked by weird vulture-like beings. The scabrous, rapacious beast-beings are led by a puissant warrior of indeterminate vintage who has honed his phenomenal combat skills for decades, becoming an obsessive hunter, dedicated to dealing out death as a spiritual experience.

Over the course of four days much is revealed about Bragon and Bulrog – now a (dis)trusted member of the team – and confirmation comes that everything is not as it seems with the irresistible and so-off-limits Pelisse or her far-distant, ever-more impatient mother.

Most worrisome is the fact that a strange magical trickster dubbed Fol of Dol has attached himself to the party, frustrating everybody with tantalising clues and erratically endangering all their lives whenever the whim takes him…

Of course there is an unspoken connection between the deadly butcher Riga and Bragon and their ultimate confrontation is shocking and final. Then, without ever feeling like the creators are treading water, the chapter closes with three days to doomsday, our weary pilgrims uncomfortably united and the path to the Time-Bird wide open before them…

The Egg of Darkness plays hob with synchronicity and chronology, opening many years after the events of the previous chapters, with an old man relating the adventures as a bedtime story for his grandchildren. The fantastic action is overtaken by a metaphysical detour and explosive revelations about the quest and participants which provide a spectacular shock-ending. As with all great myth tales the heroes triumph and fade but still leave something for imagination to chew at, as well as wiggle-room for a return…

You’ll be delighted to learn – I know I was – that Le Tendre & Loisel did indeed periodically revive their amazing creations and hopefully we’ll be seeing those sagas very soon…

Although plotted with austere, even spartan simplicity and a dearth of subtext, the stylish worldliness of Loisel and Le Tendre in the sparse and evocative script, the frankly phenomenal illustration and sheer inventiveness of the locales of astonishing Akbar are irresistible lures into a special world of reading magic that every comics lover and fantasy fanatic should experience.

It’s not Tintin, it’s not Asterix, it is foreign and it is very good.

Go questing for it.

© DARGAUD 2011 by Le Tendre, Loisel.
Quest for the Time-Bird is available in selected shops now and available to pre-order for a December 29th 2015 internet release.

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Yakari and Little Thunder’s Secret


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominque and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-223-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Astounding Spectacle with a Potent Message… 9/10

Children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded in 1964 by Swiss journalist André Jobin who began writing for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre who had begun his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs), working on Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Spirou. Together they created the well-received Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure gold two years later with their next collaboration.

Launching in 1969, Yakari detailed the life of a little Sioux lad on the Great Plains; sometime after the introduction of horses by the Conquistadores but before the coming of the modern White Man.

Abundantly packed with gentle whimsy, the beguiling strip celebrates a bucolic existence of noble wanderers in tune with nature and free of strife, punctuated with the odd crisis generally resolved without fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart, compassionate, valiant… and can converse with all animals…

As “Derib”, de Ribaupierre – equally excellent in both the enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style and with devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustration – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators through such groundbreaking strips as Celui-qui-est-né-deux-fois, Jo (the first comic on AIDS ever published), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne).

Many of his stunning works over the decades feature his adored Western themes, built on magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes, and Yakari is considered by most fans and critics to be the feature which primed the gun. With the boldly visual story under review here, the steady transition to his more epic milieux has never been more evident…

Le secret de Petit Tonnerre was first released as a European album in 1981 and became Cinebook’s 12th Yakari volume in 2014, but that won’t be a problem for chronology or continuity addicts as the tale is both stunningly simple and effectively evergreen; easily accessible and welcoming for young kids and/or their adult minders meeting the bold little Brave for the first time…

It all begins one bright sunny day as Yakari races in a fever of excitement through the Arcadian landscape on his faithful steed Little Thunder: both equally lost in a joyously exhilarating paroxysm of speed and excitement, running to the max just because they can…

Once they have pushed themselves to their physical limits, the weary, jubilant friends return to camp and Little Thunder joins the corral for the night, but when morning comes and the lad rushes to greet his beloved pony again Yakari experiences a shocking sight…

Little Thunder is gone and none of the other horses can tell him where the wonder-horse has gone. Heartbroken and scared the forlorn lad searches the camp and scours the surrounding countryside, but his best friend has vanished without trace…

Miles away the superb stallion is pressing on, gripped by an uncanny instinctive urgency to follow an ancient route far out into the desert. Narrowly avoiding capture by human hunters from another tribe, Little Thunder relentlessly advances, meeting other magnificent horses also overcoming ferocious hardships to gather in a distant place for an incredible rendezvous.

Meanwhile back in the village, Yakari is setting out to search for his missing friend, accompanied by another pony eager to help in what might be a long and hazardous quest. Their tracking is assisted by helpful prairie dogs who chatted with Little Thunder when he passed. None have any idea why the pony was so determined, only that his mission was one of tremendous importance…

Far, far ahead, the arduous journey and increasingly brutal terrain have winnowed out all but the fittest and most determined equine pilgrims. Eventually the trek even forces Yakari and his new four-footed companion to turn back, but Little Thunder and a few other horses push on, resolved to complete their meeting with destiny.

Eventually the hardiest survivors arrive on a strange plain and as the sun sets they are hailed by a staggeringly beautiful black stallion: the Spirit of the Horse People…

The gathered herd are the latest to have been called to “The Rock of the Hoof” to undergo the four lethally testing trials which will transform them into the acme and pinnacle of what horses can aspire to be. The ritual has been held since time immemorial and only the greatest amongst them will succeed and survive…

The epic undertaking further diminishes the gathering and those who triumph are changed forever.

Some time later Little Thunder trots back into Camp but can say nothing of his obvious ordeal. Yakari doesn’t mind: he is ecstatic that his greatest friend has returned and although he is burning to know where he went and what caused the fresh scars that mar that beautiful hide. He is content to accept that the events must always be Little Thunder’s Secret…

Visually captivating and edged with fearsome tension, this a potently compelling mystery which favours thrills and chills over laughs but remains happily heart-warming: Job’s mystical plot allowing Derib another unmissable opportunity to prove his astonishing mastery of mood, scene and action-illustration by crafting a powerful fable of trust and friendship, unafraid to show youngsters that not every story is without tragedy and triumph often comes at a price…

The exploits of the valiant little voyager who speaks to animals and enjoys a unique place in an exotic world is a decades-long celebration of marvellously moving and enticingly entertaining adventure, honouring and eulogising an iconic culture with grace, wit, wonder and especially humour.

These gentle sagas are true landmarks of comics literature and Yakari is a strip no fan of graphic entertainment should ignore.
Original edition © Derib + Job – Editions du Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard s.a.) 1981, 2002. English translation 2014 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Yoko Tsuno volume 10: Message for Eternity


By Roger Leloup translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-251-5

The uncannily edgy yet excessively accessible European exploits of Japanese scientific adventurer Yoko Tsuno began first began gracing the pages of Spirou in September 1970 and are still going strong.

The explosive, eye-popping, expansively globe-girdling multi-award winning series was the brainchild of Roger Leloup, another hugely talented Belgian who worked as a studio assistant to Herge’s on The Adventures of Tintin before striking out on his own.

Compellingly told, superbly imaginative but always solidly grounded in hyper-realistic settings sporting utterly authentic and unshakably believable technology, these illustrated epics were at the vanguard of a wave of strips featuring competent, clever and brave female protagonists which revolutionised Continental comics from the last third of the 20th century onwards and are as potently empowering now as they ever were.

The initial Spirou stories ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’, ‘La belle et la bête’ and ‘Cap 351’ were short introductory vignettes before the superbly capable Miss Tsuno and her always awestruck and overwhelmed male comrades Pol and Vic truly hit their stride with premier extended saga Le trio de l’étrange which began serialisation with the May 13th 1971 issue.

That epic of extraterrestrial intrigue was the first of 27 European albums to date, and the on show here was first serialised in Spirou #1882-1905 (9th May-17 October 17th 1974) and released the following year as Message pour l’éternité. A skilfully suspenseful mystery thriller, it was chronologically the fifth album and reaches us as Cinebook’s tenth translated chronicle.

It all begins as ever-restless Yoko perfects her skills in a new hobby. Gliding high above Brittany she fortuitously sets down in a field near a vast telecommunications complex. Offered a tour of the space-probing facility she learns from one of the scientists of a fantastic “ghost message” recently picked up by satellites: a Morse code signal from a British plane lost in 1933. Moreover the signal is still being regularly broadcast…

When Yoko tries to arrange to have her glider picked up and sort out her own departure, a mysterious Englishman offers her a lift in his private helicopter. He has an ulterior motive: an employee of the company which insured the lost flight he is looking for someone with certain precise qualifications to trace the downed flight and recover a fortune in jewels from it. Her fee will be £20,000…

It transpires that his firm has known where the plane went down for some time, but geographical and logistic difficulties have prevented them from undertaking a recovery mission until now. Moreover, although they have now started the process, the petite engineer is physically superior to the candidates the company are currently working with…

Cautiously accepting the commission, Yoko starts planning but even before Pol and Vic can join her the following day, strange accidents and incidents begin to imperil her life…

The boys are understandably reluctant but that attitude turns to sheer frustration and terror after someone tries to shoot down Yoko as she practises in her glider. This only makes her more determined to complete the job at all costs.

Two weeks later the trio are heading to the daunting Swiss fortress the company uses as a base when another spectacular murder attempt almost ends their lives, but Yoko is undaunted. Not so Vic and Pol, especially after hearing that two of her fellow trainees have recently died in similar “accidents” in the mountains…

Carrying on regardless, she is introduced to the fantastic glider-&-launch system which will take her to the previously unattainable crash site and begins perfecting her landing technique in a fantastic training simulator.

Eventually more details are provided and the real story unfolds. The Handley-Page transport they are seeking was conveying diplomatic mail from Karachi to London in November 1933, but vanished in a storm over Afghanistan. Decades later a satellite somehow picked up a broken radio message stating it had landed… somewhere…

The businessman the trio call “Milord” identifies himself as Major Dundee – a spymaster from Britain’s Ministry of Defence – and explains how a shady American former U2 pilot approached the British government, claiming to have spotted the downed ship during a clandestine over-flight of Soviet territories.

He provided purloined photos showing the plane in the centre of a vast circular crater on the Russo-Chinese border, but subsequent reconnaissance flights revealed nothing in the hole and the decision was taken to make a physical assessment, even though the already inaccessible site was deep in hostile enemy territory…

Since then it has become clear that some unidentified agent or group is acting against the recovery project, probably intent on retrieving the ship’s mysterious but valuable cargo for a foreign power.

Events spiral out of control when a traitor in the training team attempts to kill Yoko and “Operation Albatross” is rushed to commencement before the unknown enemy can try again…

Within a day she is transported in a most fantastic and speedy manner around the world before her space-age glider prototype is secretly deployed over the enigmatic crater…

Narrowly avoiding patrolling Soviet jets, Yoko deftly manoeuvres into the mist-covered chasm and plunges into one of the most uncanny experiences of her life.

The old plane is certainly gone. The floor of the crater is strangely cracked and at the centre stands a strangely burned and blackened monolith, there are uncharacteristic animal bones everywhere and at one end of the vast cavity there is a primitive but large graveyard…

Whilst the astounded girl is exploring she is ambushed by her treacherous fellow trainee who has raced after her by conventional means and parachuted into the bizarre basin. However, his original plans have changed drastically since arrival and despite the machine gun he wields he needs Yoko’s help.

He’s already located the Handley-Page – somehow manually dragged under an unsuspected overhang in the crater – but is mortally afraid of what he describes as the “tiny people” infesting the terrifying impact bowl…

As the unlikely allies head towards the perfectly preserved plane, the truth about the terrifying homunculi is shockingly revealed and they encounter the last human survivor of downed Diplomatic Flight, discover to their supreme cost the uncanny and ultimately deadly atmospheric anomaly which has kept the plane a secret for decades and turned the crater into a vast geological radio set…

When the dust settles Yoko realises she is trapped in the subterranean anomaly. With all her escape plans rendered useless she must align herself with the bizarre sole survivor and his bestial, rebellious servants, but she also refuses to give up on the recovery mission.

Of course that doesn’t mean that she has to trust anything the old relic in the hole or Major Dundee has said. With that in mind she lays her own plans to settle matters…

As always the most potent asset of these breathtaking dramas is the astonishingly authentic and staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship and storytelling, which superbly benefits from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail, honed through years of working on Tintin.

With this sleekly beguiling tale Yoko proved that she was a truly multi-faceted adventurer, equally at home in all manner of dramatic milieus and able to hold her own against the likes of James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Tintin or any other genre-busting super-star: as triumphantly capable pitted against spies and crooks as alien invaders, weird science or unchecked force of nature…

This is a splendidly frenetic, tense thriller which will appeal to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy or devious espionage exploit.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1973, 1979 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2015 © Cinebook Ltd.