Category: European Classics

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Iznogoud volume 5: A Carrot for Iznogoud


By Goscinny & Tabary,translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-021-4

For the greater part of his too-short lifetime (1926-1977) René Goscinny was one of the most prolific and most-read writers of comic strips the world has ever seen. Incredibly, he still is.

Among his most popular comic collaborations are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas and, of course Asterix the Gaul, but there were so many others, such as the dazzling, dark deeds of a dastardly usurper whose dreams of diabolical skulduggery all proved to be ultimately no more than castles in the sand…

Scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to the hotly contested deserts when Goscinny teamed with sublimely gifted Swedish ̩migr̩ Jean Tabary (1930-2011) Рwho numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips Рto concoct the innocuous history of imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah.

However it was the strip’s villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud, who stole the show – possibly the conniving little imp’s only successful coup.

Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created for Record; the first episode appearing in the January 15th issue in 1962. A minor hit, it subsequently jumped ship to Pilote – a comics magazine created and edited by Goscinny – where it was refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little rat-bag who had increasingly been hogging all the laughs and limelight.

Like all the best storytelling, Iznogoud works on two levels: as a comedic romp with sneaky baddies invariably hoisted on their own petards and coming a cropper for younger readers, whilst older, wiser heads revelled in the pun-filled, witty satire: the same magic formula which made its more famous cousin Asterix such a global success.

…And just like the saga of the indomitable little Gaul, this irresistibly addictive Arabian nonsense is adapted here by master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who made those Roman Follies so very palatable to the English tongue.

Moreover the deliciously malicious whimsy is always heavily laden with manic absurdity and brilliantly applied creative anachronism to keep the plots bizarrely fresh and inventive.

Insidious anti-hero Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to affable, easy-going Haroun Al Plassid, Caliph of Ancient Baghdad, but the sneaky little toad has loftier ambitions, or as he is always shouting “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!”

The revamped series launched in Pilote in 1968, quickly becoming a massive European hit, with 29 albums to date (carried on by Tabary’s children Stéphane, Muriel and Nicolas), his own solo comic, a computer game, animated film, TV cartoon show and even a live action movie.

When Goscinny died in 1977 Tabary added the scripting to his sublimely stylish illustration (from the 13th album onwards), moving to book-length complete tales, rather than the compilations of short punchy stories that typified the collaborations.

This fifth Cinebook album was actually the seventh French album (released in 1971 as Une carotte pour Iznogoud) with the lead tale an exceptional, extended epic comprising half the book, bolstered by a triumvirate of shorter yarns and prefaced as ever with a handy catch-up profile page of the usual suspects…

The eponymous ‘A Carrot for Iznogoud’, is a rare bird indeed as the verminous Vizier is all but absent from proceedings which commence when gentle, isolated and very dim Haroun Al Plassid finally gets an inkling of what his trusted deputy is truly like…

Stealing out into Baghdad disguised as an insurance salesman, the Caliph finally gets the message that his beloved people fear, despise and revile his precious Iznogoud. Shocked and dismayed he ponders what to do before – politely – accidentally aiding an ancient wizard (or perhaps crazy old coot…).

In gratitude the dotard tells him of a fabled vegetable that makes people nice. Desperately keen to redeem and “cure” his advisor, the Caliph instantly dashes off on a monumental solo voyage of discovery to secure some of the legendary “Carrot”.

The logic is simple: if eating carrots makes you nice all he has to do is find a place where people are pleasant, kind, honest and generous. The deed is nowhere near as simple as the thought – or indeed, the Caliph…

After exhausting and enraging the grocers and market sellers of his own lands, the search takes the determined Haroun Al Plassid to neighbouring kingdoms, across deserts and even oceans (where he encounters a certain band of pirates moonlighting from their damp and dangerous day jobs in Asterix), but everywhere all he finds are conmen, chancers, rude brutes and impatient surly types just like the ones at home in Baghdad.

He is almost ready to give up when he is sold as a slave to lordly Rhu’Barbfoul in distant Lastyearatmarienbad and sent to the kitchens to grate carrots for soup.

Excited beyond belief he begs his master to give him a carrot and release him, which after hearing the tale of woe and (perhaps) thanks to the steady diet of nice-making veg, the nervous lord does…

The journey home is no less dramatic or magical, though fraught with painful ironies, but even after the Caliph reclaims his vacated throne, the ameliorating herb he fought so hard to secure does not at the last find its way to its intended target…

Wry and deliciously surreal, the epic is an especial change of pace as the evil architect of all woes only appears in two panels over the 19 hilarious pages…

He is completely present for the three venal vignettes which follow, beginning with an outrageously bizarre close encounter in the desert entitled ‘Magic-Fiction’.

When Iznogoud and bumbling, long-suffering crony Wa’at Alahf are taking a break from the sorcery-besotted city of Baghdad they stumble across a couple of Martian explorers. The curious, affable alien explorers want facts and data for their records but, after seeing the power of their Spatial-Temporaliser ray-guns, all the Vizier can envisage is the effect the weapons would have on the royal simpleton he wants to replace: an indolent oaf who couldn’t answer a straight question if his dinner depended on it…

Sadly, after sneaking the E.T.’s back to the palace, Iznogoud’s intemperate temperament gets the better of him before his plan can succeed…

Baghdad is a city that suffers with an excess of heat but in ‘Iznogoud on Thin Ice’the vile vizier hears tell of a drinks seller whose wares are always freezing cold. Ever inquisitive and always looking for an angle he investigates and discovers that the unfortunate lady in charge is so unseemly that anyone who glimpses her face is frozen solid with shock. She just stacks the chilled out victims in her cellar and stores her drinks beside them…

The infernal imp’s heart soars! All he has to do is get the Caliph to peek under the appalling and enigmatic Gehtorehd‘s ever-present veil and the throne is his…

Sadly her gift doesn’t work on anyone with an elevated temperature, so even after getting the gorgon into the palace Iznogoud has to wait for the doctors to cure the Caliph who has a touch of fever, All he has to do is wait a while, but Iznogoud is a very impatient potentate-in-waiting…

There’s more direct skulduggery afoot in ‘Tried and Tsetsed’ which closes this compilation of crazy criminality. When bribe-taking Iznogoud officially greets an embassage from Africa he is given the most dangerous beast they know as a placating present by the chief ambassador who came ill-prepared to grease palms.

He is less than impressed until he is advised that the dread Tsetse Fly can put victims into a permanent slumber with one little bite. Now seeing his dreams falling into place at last, the Vizier lays his plans to introduce the bug to his boss, but is distracted by his idiot servant Wa’at Alahf and releases the flying terror in the wrong room…

Snappy, fast-paced hi-jinks and abundantly stocked with gloriously agonising pun-ishments (see what I did there?), this mirthfully infectious series is a household name in France where “Iznogoud” is common parlance for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and frequently not that tall.

When first released in Britain in the 1970s, these tales made little impression, but hopefully this snappy, wonderfully moreish strip will finally find an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy Kids Of All Ages…
© 1971 Dargaud Editeur Paris by Goscinny & Tabary. All rights reserved.

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Glacial Period


By Nicolas De Crécy translated by Joe Johnson (NBM ComicsLit/Louvre: Musée du Louvre Éditions)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-855-0

In 2005 one of the greatest museums in the world began an intriguing ongoing project with the upstart art form of comics; inviting some of the world’s most accomplished masters of graphic narrative to create new works in response to the centuries of acquired treasures residing within the grand repository of arts, history and culture.

The tales are produced in close collaboration with the forward-looking authorities of the Louvre, and always push the envelope of what can be accomplished by master craftsman inspired by their creative antecedents and forebears. These are no thinly-concealed catalogues of exhibition contents gift-wrapped in cartoon terms to gull potential visitors off their couches and into a stuffy edifice of public culture, but vibrant and challenging comics events calculated to make you think again about what creativity and history mean…

The first of those stellar tomes, originally released as Période glaciaire, has been recently repackaged as a deluxe and lavish oversized (286 x 222mm) hardback edition by NBM giving a readers that rarest of things – a second bite of the cherry…

Born in Lyon in September 1966 into a large family of artistic overachievers,Nicolas de Crécy was, in 1987, part of the first graduating class of students from de l’école de Bande dessinée des Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême.

After working at Studios Disney at Montreuil, he published his first album Foligatto in 1991. Since then he has produced more than thirty albums; both one-off books such as Journal d’un fantôme, Escales, Plaisir de myope and La Nuit du grand méchant loup and series/serials such as Léon la came, Monsieur Fruit and Salvatore.

He is justly considered a wünderkind of French comics and his unique take on the role of the Louvre is – typically – boldly off-kilter, ingeniously amusing and fantastically sardonic…

Thousands of years from now Earth is a frozen dustheap. Scrabbling through its barren remains one day comes a turbulent group of scientists and archaeologists. The humans are a tendentious bunch, constantly bickering and pontificating on what the civilisation they are obsessed with understanding was like. Most have their own theories and perhaps only looking for finds to validate their views.

Far more open and philosophical are the tubby talking dogs who act as frontrunners; their hyper-keen noses sniffing out areas where potential finds are buried. Especially sensitive – in every meaning of the term – is Hulk.

The rotund canine rogue can feel the tension in the party and when he sleeps (as often as possible) he has strange dreams and visions of beautiful old things…

When he and official expedition leader Juliette are briefly separated from the group in a storm the ensuing calm reveals an ancient structure freshly uncovered. Soon the humans are all over the “temple” and making grand plans, but the irascible mutt knows this find is mere dross and rubbish…

Another angry discussion results in top historian Paul being left behind to research and catalogue the temple whilst the others press on to uncover the fabled lost metropolis buried somewhere in this desolate region…

Hulk isn’t fooled: he sees that imperious alpha male Gregor has designs on Juliette and is slowly isolating her from the others. After she ignores the canny canine’s warnings, Hulk wanders off into the cold night and next morning impatient Gregor convinces the party to go on without him.

Alone and no longer distracted, Hulk’s incredible faculties detects a faint scent and he begins to dig down. Before long he has broken into a stone vault filled with fascinating artefacts and, as ever, following his nose discovers a mesmerising maze of corridors, revealing incredible facts about the lost civilisation…

Under the cold light skies above, Juliette and Gregor clash over who is truly in charge and poor studious Joseph suffers for his chivalry when he intervenes. Further interpersonal violence is only prevented when the treacherously unstable landscape shifts and from the icy crust an ancient structure begins to inexorably rise.

Hysterically elated, Gregor drags the stunned archaeologists into the fabled metropolis and all are stunned by the images and artefacts they find. Soon they are frantically hypothesising, guessing and just plain spitballing as they plunge deeper and deeper into the still shaky and shifting edifice. Entranced and intoxicated by the panoply of pictures and statues, the humans’ imaginations are running amok…

Soon from outside Esteban calls out to them – he has spotted another glistening building forcing its way out of the snows…

The treasure trove seems unending: a final repository of ancient magnificence that leads them ever inward as the monumental mausoleum inexorably pushes upwards into the dying sunlight.

Elsewhere, deep below them, Hulk is making his own explorations and encounters something uncanny and bizarre. Soon he is conversing with the oldest statues and objet d’art in the vaults of history. The relics know that the Louvre is in its tectonic death throes and need his help to save all the wonderful “living” treasures which have waited here for patient millennia…

Sharing with him the true stories, mistakes and triumphs of the past races of man, dog and anxious, animated exhibits unite in a desperate attempt to save their quintessential timeless splendours from final obliteration…

Accompanied by a formidable and informative List of Works which feature most prominently in this captivating yarn, Glacial Period is a bemusing, wide-eyed and light-hearted epic as well as an utterly engrossing and darkly charming graphic discussion on the nature and value of art and our eternal ever-changing relationship to it. It is also an entrancing, witty literal shaggy dog story in comics form that reads superbly even if you wouldn’t be caught dead in a museum, French or otherwise.

Why not give it a go and see if your cool attitude thaws after all…?
© 2005 Futuropolis/Musée du Louvre Éditions. English Edition © 2006 NBM.

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Phantoms of the Louvre


By Enki Bilal translated by Joe Johnson (NBM ComicsLit/Louvre: Musée du Louvre Éditions)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-841-3

A few years ago the legendary Louvre Museum in Paris began an intriguing and extremely rewarding collaboration with the world of comics, and their latest beguiling translated bande dessinée is now available in English courtesy of those fine folks at NBM.

Phantoms of the Louvre is a lush and beautiful, oversized hardback graphic art book which reproduces the stunning results of master storyteller Bilal’s creative response to the collected treasures and even architecture of the prestigious institution.

The origins and details of the project are described in his Preface and the 22 artworks which resulted had their own exhibition in the Louvre in 2013.

The premise is delightfully simple: each item and place in the galleries is blessed or afflicted by a ghost somehow attached to an item which affected their lives or passing, and Bilal incorporates a photo of each artefact with an image of the ghost.

The story of every phantom is then told in poetic prose augmented by photos, sketches and designs of the revenant in question…

Enes Bilalović AKA Enki Bilal was born in Belgrade in 1951, breaking into French comics in 1972 with Le Bal Maudit for Pilote. Throughout the 1970s he grew in skill and fame, and achieved English-language celebrity once his work began appearing in America’s Heavy Metal magazine.

Best known for his self-scripted Nikopol Trilogy (Gods in Chaos, The Woman Trap and Cold Equator) his other bleakly beguiling and ferociously contemplative works include Ship of Stone, The Town That Didn’t Exist, Exterminator 17, Four?, Magma, Julia & Roem and many, many more. In recent years Bilal returned to contemporary political themes with his much-lauded, self-penned Hatzfeld Tetralogy…

As always, the work is produced in close collaboration with the forward-looking authorities of the Musée du Louvre, but this is no gosh-wow, “Night-at-the-Museum”, thinly-concealed catalogue of contents from a stuffy edifice of public culture. Rather, here is a gripping, intense, informative and insightful glimpse into the power of art and history as engines of imagination and personal obsession.

Weaving fact into an imaginary tapestry of fictions detailing the putative lives of those affected by or affecting the creation of the inspirational treasures, the stunning procession of lost souls leads off with ‘Aloyisias Alevratos’ inspired by The Winged Victory of Samothrace, detailing an ancient sculptor’s history whilst ‘Antonio Di Aquila’ recounts the short, tragic life of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s assistants/models during the period when the master painted the Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco Del Giocondo, called Mona Lisa, La Gioconda or La Joconde…

‘Enheduana Arwi-A’ was a remarkable woman who engraved part of the tablet containing The Code of Hammurabi whilst ‘Arjuna Asegaff’ turned a troubled life around to become a popular model who posed for Baron Pierre-Narcisse Guérin’s The return of Marcus Sextus and ‘Analia Avellaneda’ developed a new pigment which fascinated Doménikos Theotókopoulous, called “El Greco” during the creation of Saint Louis, King of France and a Page, but cost the tragic lady her life…

‘Ahmose Chepseset’ was a crazed vandal in ancient Egypt whose actions despoiled much of the relic dubbed Man’s Head, vengeful half-caste ‘Djeynaba’ was a near-supernatural blight who tainted the Red Rooms and unrepentant Nazi ‘Colonel Markus Dudke’ killed himself in The Grand Gallery…

‘Lantelme Fouache’ was the brutal father whose murder inspired Eugene Delacriox’ The Orphan Girl at the Cemetery whilst fisherman ‘Jacobus Grobbendoeke’ was recovered from the sea and incorporated into The Fish Market (after) Frans Snyders, whilst illicit woman warrior ‘Hecuba’ wore the Corinthian-style helmet as part of her imposture of a male hoplite seven centuries before Christ.

A doomed childhood love touched ‘Melencoloia Hrasny’ and Albrecht Dürer which resulted in a famed Portrait of the Artist whereas ill-fated Janissary ‘Zvonimir Karakasevic’ suffered a slow death which led to his becoming a forgotten component of sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle’s Voltaire Nude. Poor farm boy ‘Lakshek’ had more affinity for the bovines which inspired the Human-headed Winged Bull than the cruel, callous men who carved it…

Roman soldier ‘Longinus’ used his spear to wound the crucified Messiah depicted as Christ Dead, the Amazon ‘Marpada’ adored her equine companions – as exemplified by the marble Horse Head – far more than men and ‘Gaius Livius Maximus’ was a doctor of Rome who ended his own life upon the ancient Bed on display here.

‘Bella De Montefalco’ was the childish accidental instigator of a grotesque crime of passion hinted at in The Shadows of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appear to Dante and Virgil by Ary Scheffer, but professional duellist ‘Lyubino Nuzri’ was a willing killer who met his fate in the forever after haunted Alcove Room, and the ‘The Regodesebes Twins’ mere tools of destiny whose cruel deaths only tangentially affected The Countess Del Carpio, Marquessa de La Solana as portrayed by Francisco de Goya y Lucietes shortly before her own demise…

A criminal and beast in human form, butcher ‘Willem Tümpeldt’ provided The Slaughtered Ox immortalised by Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn but Muslim artist ‘Doura Ximenez’ had to dress as a man and remain unknown to craft the anonymous Supposed Portrait of Gabrielle d’Estrées and her sister the Duchess de Villars which concludes this tour of the night galleries…

With detailed floor plan maps showing where the art works, rooms and artefacts referenced are displayed, this is a truly magical collection that no art lover or devotee of the medium can afford to miss…

© 2012 Futuropolis/Musée du Louvre Éditions. © NBM 2014 for the English translation by Joe Johnson. All rights reserved.

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Snowpiecer: The Escape


By Jacques Lob & Jean-Marc Rochette translated by Virginie Selavy (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-143-3

All science fiction is social commentary and, no matter when, where or how set, holds up a mirror to the concerns of the time of its creation. Many stories – in whatever medium – can go on to reshape the culture that spawned them.

There’s a reason why the Soviets proscribed many types of popular writing but actively encouraged (certain flavours of) science fiction. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Metropolis, 1984, Solaris, Star Trek, Alien and so many others escaped the ghetto of mere genre to change the cognitive landscape of the world, and hundreds more such groundbreaking and worthy efforts would do the same if we could get enough people to read or see them.

And most importantly, when done well and with honesty, such stories are also incredibly entertaining.

All over the world comics have always looked to the stars and voyaged to the future. Europe especially has long been producing spectacularly gripping and enthralling “Worlds of If…” and Franco-Belgian graphic storytelling in particular abounds with undiscovered treasures.

For every Blake & Mortimer or Barbarella, Valérian & Laureline, Airtight Garage, Chimpanzee Complex or Gods in Chaos there is an impossible hidden wealth of others, all perched tantalisingly out of reach for everybody unable or unwilling to read nothing but English.

To coincide with the release of spectacular summer blockbuster movie Snowpiercer, Titan Comics have released an economical paperback edition of another long-overlooked masterpiece. The book – a stunning example of bleak Cold War paranoid fantasy – is also electronically accessible to iPhone, iPad, Web, Android and Kindle consumers.

The original mesmerising monochrome adventure, written by Jacques Lob (Ténébrax, Submerman, Superdupont) and rendered by painter/illustrator Jean-Marc Rochette (Le Dépoteur de Chrysanthèmes, Les Aventures Psychotiques de Napoléon et Bonaparte), was first serialised in 1982 in À Suivre and collected two years later as Le Transperceneige, and like most landmark yarns has a driving central conceit which is simple, brilliant and awesome.

In the future life is harsh, oppressive and ferociously claustrophobic. When eternal winter descended upon the Earth, fugitive remnants of humanity boarded a vast vacation super-train and began an eternal circumambulation of the iceball planet on railway tracks originally designed to offer the idle rich the ultimate pleasure cruise.

Thanks to lax security, as the locomotive started its unceasing circuit of the globe, gangs of destitutes boarded the vehicle, but were forced by the military contingent into the last of the 1001 cars pulled by the modern miracle of engineering.

Now decades later, the self-contained and self-sustaining Engine hurtles through unending polar gloom in a perpetual loop, carrying within a raw, fragmented and declining microcosm of the society that was lost to the new ice age…

All contact with the Tail-enders of the “Third Class” has been suspended ever since they tried to break through to the better conditions of the middle and front carriages. Their “Wild Rush” was repelled by armed guards and the survivors – who recall the terrifying event as “the Massacre” – were kicked back to their rolling slums and sealed in to die…

The story proper begins as Lieutenant Zayim is called to an incident in a toilet. Somehow an individual has survived the -30 degree chill and monstrous acceleration, climbing along the outside of the train to smash his way into a centre carriage.

Normally the importunate refugee would be killed and ejected but the stunned officer receives instruction from his Colonel that the indigent – named Proloff – is to be interviewed by the leaders up in First Class.

Before that, however, the invader must be quarantined as the carriage doctor has no idea what contagions must proliferate in the squalor of the rear. But whilst Proloff is isolated, idealistic young activist Adeline Belleau forces her way into the carriage.

She is with a humanitarian Aid Group agitating to integrate the abandoned Tail-enders with the rest of the train, but is unceremoniously confined with the intruder and suffers the same appalling indignities as her unfortunate client…

After a “night” in custody Proloff and Adeline are escorted by Sergeant Briscard and his squad through the strange and terrifying semi-autonomous carriages: each a disparate region of the ever-rolling city, contributing something to the survival of all.

Travelling through each car during their slow walk, Proloff observes how humanity has uniquely adapted on the journey to nowhere, but that each tiny kingdom is filled with people scared, damaged and increasingly dangerous.

In one car they are even attacked by bandits…

The invader also begins to glean certain facts: a religion has grown that worships the unlimited life-bestowing power of Saint Loco, rumours that the train is inexorably slowing down, reports that a plague has begun in the carriage he broke into. Even Adeline has picked up a cold from somewhere…

As they slowly approach the front, Proloff and Adeline grow closer, uniting against the antipathy of the incrementally better off passengers who all want the Powers-That-Be to jettison the dragging, superfluous end carriages packed with filthy Tail-enders…

When they at last reach the luxurious “Golden Cars” the outcasts are interviewed by military Top Brass and the President himself.

He confirms that the train is indeed losing speed and that the furthest carriages will be ditched, but asks Proloff to act as an emissary, facilitating the dispersal of the human dregs throughout the rest of the train.

Billeted with Al, the timidly innocuous Train Archivist, Historian and Librarian, Proloff quickly confirms his suspicion that he is being played. Whilst deftly avoiding the grilling regarding conditions at the train’s tail, he swaps some theories about how the ice age really began and just how coincidentally lucky it was that this prototype vacation super-train was set up, ready and waiting to save the rich and powerful… and only accidentally and unwillingly a selection of the rest of humanity…

Stoically taking in the decadent debauchery of the First Class cars, Proloff is ready to die before going back, and when word of plague and revolution provokes an attack by the paranoid autocrats, he and Adeline decide to move even further forward, to see the mighty Engine before they die.

What they find there changes everything for everyone, forever…

This incisive exploration of a delicately balanced ostensibly stable society in crisis is a sparkling allegory and punishing metaphor, playing Hell and poverty at the bottom against wealth in Heaven at the top, all seen through the eyes of a rebel who rejects both options in favour of a personal destiny, and is long overdue for the kind of recognition bestowed on that hallowed list of SF greats cited above.

Dark, brooding, manic and compulsive, Snowpiercer is a must-see masterpiece no fantasy fan can afford to miss.

Transperceneige/Snowpiercer and all contents are ™ and © 2013 Casterman.

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Moomin: the Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip volume 2


By Tove Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-897299-19-7

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 in 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.

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and practically bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Her father Viktor was a sculptor, her mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars and Per Olov became a cartoonist/writer and photographer respectively. 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 act in.

After intensive study from 1930-1938 (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.

Intensely creative in 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), a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian, misfit trolls and their strange friends…

A young over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm, and achieved some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of Chamberlain and other European leaders in the build-up to World War II. She was also an in-demand illustrator for many magazines and children’s books. She had also started selling comic strips as early as 1929.

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

The lumpy, gently adventurous big-eyed 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 about Immanuel Kant with her brother.

The term “Moomin” came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited by 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.

The Moomins and the Great Flood was relatively unsuccessful but Jansson persisted, probably as much for her own edification as any other reason, and in 1946 the second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators have reckoned the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear destruction.

When it and her third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or occasionally The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952 to great acclaim, it 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 about 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 Jansson 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 sagas which promptly captivated readers of all ages. Tove’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 had recruited her brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975.

Free of the strip Tove returned to painting, writing and her other creative pursuits, generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and another nine Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as thirteen books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Her awards are too numerous to mention but consider this: how many modern artists – let alone comics creators – get their faces on the national currency? She died on June 27th 2001.

Her Moomin comic strip has been collected in seven Scandinavian volumes and the discerning folk at Drawn & Quarterly have translated these into English for your – and especially my – sheer delight and delectation.

This second oversized (312 x 222mm) monochrome hardback compilation commences with ‘Moomin’s Winter Follies’ as the rotund, gracious and deeply considerate young troll has an accident on ice which prompts the family to begin their preparations for the winter’s hibernation.

However after those efforts lead to nothing but petty disaster, boldly unconventional Moomin Pappa decides that tradition isn’t everything and decrees that they shall all stay awake for the icy months ahead…

The family and their many friends however are soon bedevilled by the obnoxiously enthusiastic Mr. Brisk who cajoles the easygoing Moomins to indulge in his abiding passion for winter sports. The results are painful and far from impressive, but the ruggedly athletic Brisk does turn the head of the overly romantic and lonely Mymble…

As usual, the object of her affections is blithely oblivious, caring only for the upcoming Winter Games, but when the beauteous Snorkmaiden also begins to succumb to Brisk’s physical charms Moomin is compelled to take up ski-jumping to win back her attention.

When that goes poorly he is tempted into contemplating murder until cooler heads, his own gentle nature and the onset of spring produces a gentler solution…

Moomins are easygoing free spirits, bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores and societal pressures. Mamma is warm and capable but overly concerned with propriety and appearances whilst Pappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys.

However when prideful snobbish Mrs. Fillyjonk moves in next door, her snooty attitudes unfavourably affect the entire family, resulting in the hiring of ‘Moomin Mamma’s Maid’.

The search for a suitable servant results in disruption and discontent before the dour, distressed and doom-obsessed Misabel – along with her direly depressed dog Pimple – begin to further blight the formerly happy household.

Misabel suffers from secrets and a persecution complex and when Fillyjonk goes missing a detective starts hanging around, adding to the general aura of anxiety until Moomin Mamma shakes herself out of her status-induced funk and starts a campaign to cheer up and change the latest additions to her wildly imaginative, but oddly welcoming home…

‘Moomin Builds a House’ sees Mymble’s eccentrically forgetful but fruitful mother come to visit, inflicting her latest batch of wild and wilful youngsters – seventeen, or thereabouts – on the normally compassionate and understanding trolls.

The children are, to put it mildly, little monsters: destructive, practical joking arsonistic hellions who would put the Belles of St. Trinians to shame and to rout…

Soon, impressionable Moomin is driven out of his home and, egged on by the worst of the brood Little My, attempts to build his own house in the woods.

Possessing none of Moomin Pappa’s artisan or craft skills, the lad’s efforts are far from satisfactory but nonetheless his flighty paramour Snorkmaiden soon joins him, intent on making the shaky edifice their romantic hideaway. Sadly, with Little My still around, their best laid plans soon come unstuck…

This utterly incomparable and heartwarming box of graphic delights concludes with a brilliantly satitical salutary romp as ‘Moomin Begins a New Life’, wherein an itinerant thinker enters the valley sharing his secret recipe for “How to be Happy”.

The Prophet is remarkably convincing and, seeing how his pronouncements and suggestions have changed the lives of all their friends and neighbours, the graciously impressionable Moomins try to adjust their behaviour to maximise their joy, unaware that they are already as happy and content as anyone can be…

With the entire community blissed out, the well-intentioned Prophet then convinces the constable to release all the folk in jail, allowing mischievous trickster and scofflaw Stinky to resume his prankish shenanigans…

After convincing Moomin Pappa to set up an illicit still producing hard liquor – which incites Snorkmaiden to run off with another young man – Stinky then convinces heartbroken, abandoned Moomin to turn to the dark side by becoming a glamorous highwayman and jewel thief to win her back.

Having spread malice and disorder Stinky’s next stunt is badly misjudged as he invites a puritan, fire-and-brimstone rival philosopher dubbed the Black Prophet to come and save all the sinners…

Thankfully, as the rival Prophets’ war of words escalates Moomin Mamma at last reaches the end of her patience and intervenes…

Wrapping up the Wild Things wonderment is the short essay ‘Tove Jansson: To Live in Peace, Plant Potatoes, and Dream’: a comprehensive biography and commentary by Alisia Grace Chase PhD which celebrates the incredible achievements of this genteel giant of literature.

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 kid’s stories into classics of literature. These volumes are an international treasure and no fan of the medium – or biped with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without them.

© 2007 Solo/Bulls. All other material © its creators. All rights reserved.

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Valerian and Laureline book 6: Ambassador of the Shadows


By Méziéres & Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-178-5   (Dargaud edition) 2-205-06949-7

Valérian and Laureline is the most influential science fiction comics series ever drawn, an innovation-packed big ideas drama stuffed with wry comment and sardonic sideswipes at contemporary mores and prejudices.

Although to a large extent those venerable strips defined and later re-defined the medium itself, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie or that franchise’s numerous homages, pastiches and rip-offs has been exposed to many doses of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in authentic futurism and light-hearted swashbuckling rollercoaster romps of Méziéres & Christin than any other cartoon spacer.

Val̩rian: Spatio-Temporal Agent debuted in Pilote #420 (November 9th 1967) and was an instant hit. It gradually evolved into Val̩rian and Laureline as the feisty sidekick developed into the equal partner Рif not scene stealing star Рin a light-hearted, fantastically imaginative time-travelling, space-warping fantasy stuffed with wry, satirical, humanist action and political commentary.

At first Valerian was an affable, capable but unimaginative by-the-book space cop tasked with protecting the official universal chronology by counteracting paradoxes caused by incautious time-travellers.

When Valérian travelled to 11th century France in debut tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’ and still not translated into English yet), he was rescued from doom by a fiery, capable young woman named Laureline. He brought her back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative capital of the Terran Empire, Galaxity. The indomitable female firebrand trained as a Spatiotemporal operative and began accompanying him on all his missions.

Ambassador of the Shadows originally ran in Pilote from July to October 1975 and finds the wide-ranging Spatiotemporal agents assigned to an arrogant and obnoxious Terran diplomat transferring to the cosmically cosmopolitan space edifice known as Point Central.

Over the eons many races and species have converged there for commerce and social intercourse by the simple expedient of bolting their own prefabricated constructed segment to the colossal, continually expanding hodge-podge whole…

With no central authority, different species take turns presiding over the amassed multitudes via the immense Hall of Screens. However, no decent species would ever leave its own tailor-made environment…

And now it is Earth’s turn to take the lead but, as they vector in for landing, the pompous martinet they are escorting informs Valerian and Laureline of a slight modification in their orders. They are still to the Ambassador’s bodyguards but must stay extra vigilant as Earth is going to uses its term in office to bring “order and discipline” to the lackadaisical way the universe is run.

The assembled races will be invited to join a federation run – and policed – by Earth. …And just to make sure, there’s a Terran space fleet of 10, 000 warships manoeuvring just out of Point Central’s  sensor range…

Laureline is outraged but like Valerian can do nothing except acquiesce. For her pains she is put in charge of the mission’s funds – a Grumpy Transmuter from Bluxte – which can mass-excrete any currency or object of trade or barter swallowed by its always scowling other end…

All kitted-out, the trio and the living cash-machine spacewalk to Point Central but before the mission can begin an alien ambush occurs. Mystery warriors using Xoxos cocoon guns inundate the attending officers and dignitaries and only Valerian escapes plastic entombment.

As the raiders make off with the Ambassador, the Spatiotemporal Agent gives chase but is easily captured and dragged off too…

By the time Laureline breaks loose they are long gone and she is left to pick up the pieces with stiff-necked human bureaucrat Colonel Diol, Under Chief of Protocol.

Determined but with little to go on, she is cautiously optimistic when a trio of aliens come knocking. Ignoring Diol’s protest at the shocking impropriety she invites the scurrilous Shingouz into the Earth Segment. They are mercenary information brokers and claim to have been invited by the Ambassador before his abduction…

From them – and thanks to the pained efforts of the Grumpy Transmuter – she purchases a few hints and allegations as well as a map of Point Central which might lead to Earth’s secret allies in the cosmopolis…

With the constantly bleating Diol reluctantly in tow, Laureline begins a quest through the underbelly of the station, seeing for the first time the mute but ubiquitous Zools: a much ignored under-race which has been maintaining Point Central for millennia.

The Earthlings’ perambulations take them to the centaur-like Kamuniks: barbaric feudal mercenaries allied to Galaxity and appreciative of humanity’s martial prowess, and over a lavish feast – liberally augmented by another painfully exotic payment courtesy of the overworked Transmuter – the warriors steer Laureline towards potential suspects the Bagulins: low grade muscle-for-hire who frequent the tawdry red-light sector run by The Suffuss…

Despite Diol’s nigh-apoplexy the adamant and inquisitive Laureline follows the trail to the sin segment where she experiences the particular talents of the hosts: amorphous shapeshifters who can make any carnal dream come literally true.

Well into overtime now, the exhausted Grumpy buys the help of one Suffuss who smuggles the junior Spatiotemporal operative into a Bagulin party and the next link in the chain…

And so it goes as, with occasional prodding from the Shingouz, Laureline gets ever-closer to the enigmatic beings truly pulling all the strings on Point Central whilst elsewhere Valerian frees the Ambassador from a bizarre and ethereal captivity only to find the doctrinaire war-maker is undergoing a strange change of heart.

Seemingly landing their deserted ship on a paradisiacal “world with no name” they bask in an idyllic paradise and converse with noble primitives who have an uncanny aura of great power.

These beings built the first section of Point Central and ruled the universe before withdrawing from mundane material affairs, but they still maintain a watch over their creation from the shadows and won’t let any race or species to dominate or conquer their pan-galactic melting pot of space…

In a more physical portion of reality Laureline follows her final clues and reaches the strange central area where Val and the Ambassador lie dazed and confused. By the time they all return to the Earth Segment a few major changes have taken place in the governance of the immense star station but, oddly, the Ambassador doesn’t seem to mind…

Ambassador of the Shadows was the first Valerian tale to make it into English, appearing as a serial in the American Heavy Metal magazine from January to April 1984 (volume 4, #10 to Volume 5, #1).

Socially aware and ethically crusading, this is one of the smartest, most beguilingly cynical comics tales to catch the 1970s wave of political awareness and still ranks amongst the very best to explore the social aspects and iniquities of colonialism.

And of course there’s the usual glorious blend of astounding action, imaginative imagery and fantastic creatures to leaven the morality play with space-operatic fun-filled, visually breathtaking and stunningly ingenious wide-eyed wonderment…

Between 1981 and 1985, Dargaud-Canada and Dargaud-USA published a quartet of these albums in English (with a limited UK imprint from Hodder-Dargaud) under the umbrella title Valerian: Spatiotemporal Agent and this tale was the fourth release, translated then by L. Mitchell.

Although this modern Cinebook release boasts far better print and colour values plus a more fluid translation, total completists might also be interested in tracking down the 20th century edition too as it boasts a foreword by comics god Will Eisner, full creator biographies and a fascinating, insightful illustrated overview by French science fiction author and editor Daniel Riche…

© Dargaud Paris, 1975 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2012 Cinebook Ltd.

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Asterix and the Magic Carpet


By Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-0-75284-776-4

The son of Italian immigrants, Alberto Aleandro Uderzo was born on April 25th 1927, in Fismes, on the Marne. As a child reading Mickey Mouse in Le Pétit Parisien he showed artistic flair from an early age but dreamed of becoming an aircraft mechanic. Albert became a French citizen when he was seven and found employment at 13, apprenticed to the Paris Publishing Society, where he learned design, typography, calligraphy and photo retouching.

When World War II broke out he spent time with farming relatives in Brittany and joined his father’s furniture-making business. Brittany beguiled and fascinated Uderzo: when a location for Asterix‘s idyllic village was being mooted, the region was the only choice.

In the post-war rebuilding of France, Uderzo returned to Paris and became a successful artist in the recovering nation’s burgeoning comics industry.

His first published work, a pastiche of Aesop’s Fables, appeared in Junior and in 1945 he was introduced to industry giant Edmond-François Calvo (whose own masterpiece The Beast is Dead is far too long overdue for a commemorative reissue…).

The tireless Uderzo’s subsequent creations included the indomitable eccentric Clopinard, Belloy, l’Invulnérable, Prince Rollin and Arys Buck. He illustrated Em-Ré-Vil’s novel Flamberge, worked in animation, as a journalist and illustrator for France Dimanche, and created the vertical comicstrip ‘Le Crime ne Paie pas’ for France-Soir.

In 1950 he illustrated a few episodes of the franchised European version of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Jr. for Bravo!

An inveterate traveller, the artistic prodigy met Rene Goscinny in 1951. Soon becoming fast friends, they decided to work together at the new Paris office of Belgian Publishing giant World Press. Their first collaboration was in November of that year; a feature piece on savoir vivre (how to live right or gracious living) for women’s weekly Bonnes Soirée, following which an avalanche of splendid strips and serials poured forth.

Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior were created for La Libre Junior and they produced a western starring a “Red Indian” who eventually evolved into the delightfully infamous Oumpah-Pah. In 1955, with the formation of Édifrance/Édipresse, Uderzo drew Bill Blanchart for La Libre Junior, replaced Christian Godard on Benjamin et Benjamine and in 1957 added Charlier’s Clairette to his portfolio.

The following year, he made his debut in Tintin, as Oumpah-Pah finally found a home and a rapturous audience. Uderzo also drew Poussin et Poussif, La Famille Moutonet and La Famille Cokalane.

When Pilote launched in 1959 Uderzo was a major creative force for the new magazine collaborating with Charlier on Tanguy et Laverdure and launching – with Goscinny – a little something called Asterix…

Although the gallant Gaul was a massive hit from the start, Uderzo continued working on Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure, but once the first hilarious historical romp was collected in an album as Ast̩rix le gaulois in 1961 it became clear that the series would demand most of his time Рespecially since the incredible Goscinny never seemed to require rest or run out of ideas.

By 1967 Asterix occupied all Uderzo’s time and attention, so in 1974 the partners formed Idéfix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation. When Goscinny passed away three years later, Uderzo had to be convinced to continue the adventures as writer and artist, producing a further ten volumes until 2010 when he retired.

After nearly 15 years as a weekly comic serial subsequently collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st (Asterix and Caesar’s Gift) was the first published as a complete original album before serialisation.

Thereafter each new release was a long anticipated, eagerly awaited treat for the strip’s millions of fans…

According to UNESCO’s Index Translationum, Uderzo is the tenth most-often translated French-language author in the world and the third most-translated French language comics author – right after his old mate René Goscinny and the medium’s grand master Hergé.

More than 325 million copies of 35 Asterix books have sold worldwide, making his joint creators France’s best-selling international authors. Now the torch has been passed and new sagas of the indomitable are being created by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad…

One of the most popular comics features on Earth, the collected chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages since his debut, with twelve animated and live-action movies, TV series, assorted games, toys, merchandise and even a theme park outside Paris (Parc Astérix, naturellement)…

Like all the best stories the narrative premise works on more than one level: read it as an action-packed comedic romp of sneaky and bullying baddies coming a cropper if you want or as a punfully sly and witty satire for older, wiser heads. We Brits are further blessed by the brilliantly light touch of master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who played no small part in making the indomitable little Gaul so very palatable to English tongues.

More than half of the canon takes place in Uderzo’s beloved 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. The land is divided by the notional conquerors into provinces of Celtica, Aquitania and Amorica, but the very tip of the last just refuses to be pacified…

The remaining epics occur in various locales throughout the Ancient World, with the Garrulous Gallic Gentlemen often quizzical tourists and bemused commentators in every fantastic land and corner of the civilisations that proliferated in that fabled era…

Whenever the heroes were playing at home, the Romans, unable to defeat the last bastion of Gallic insouciance, futilely resorted to a policy of absolute containment. Thus the little seaside hamlet was permanently hemmed in by the heavily fortified garrisons of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.

The Gauls couldn’t care less, daily defying and frustrating the world’s greatest military machine simply by going about their everyday affairs, protected by the miraculous magic potion of resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits of the diminutive dynamo and his simplistic, supercharged best friend Obelix…

Firmly established as a global brand and premium French export by the mid-1960s, Asterix the Gaul continued to grow in quality as Goscinny & Uderzo toiled ever onward, crafting further fabulous sagas; building a stunning legacy of graphic excellence and storytelling gold.

By the time this edition was released Goscinny had been gone for a decade and Uderzo was slowly but surely finding his own authorial voice…

Asterix and the Magic Carpet (originally and quite ponderously entitled Astérix chez Rahàzade ou Le compte des mille et une heures – which translates as Asterix meets Orinjade or the 1001 Hours Countdown) was released in 1987 and once again saw Asterix and Obelix undertake a long voyage into the unknown: one packed with exotic climes, odd people and bold adventure, all deliciously underpinned by topical lampooning and timeless swingeing satire.

Before the Arabian adventure begins, a delightful in-character portrait of Goscinny and Uderzo as their greatest creations Asterix and Obelix whets the appetite for the fun to come, after which the 28th saga begins with a friendly feast, suddenly ruined twice over by the singing of the Bard Cacofonix.

Firstly there’s the plain fact that he is singing at all, but the real problem is that his newly discovered vocal style summons up storms and creates violent downpours.

The thunderous deluge also brings a surprised visitor to the village. Watziznehm the Fakir was passing by far above on his flying carpet when the tempest tossed him to earth. It was a painful but happy accident since the Indian wise man was on a mission to find some miraculous Gauls and a certified rainmaker…

Soon Asterix, Obelix and canine wonder Dogmatix are heading Due East to save beautiful princess Orinjade from the machinations of Guru Hoodunnit, who wants to sacrifice her to end a terrible drought and seize the reins of power from her father Rajah Watzit. When the flying wizard left it was with a countdown of 1001 hours to doom…

Our heroes are only accompanying the real star of the Fakir’s quest: with a deadline looming to execute the princess, Watziznehm needs to get Cacofonix there in time to sing up a storm – or rather a monsoon…

Travel aboard the flying carpet is swift and comfortable but ever-hungry Obelix is continually holding up proceedings with many pit-stops to refuel his cavernous stomach, whilst the Bard’s practising frequently leads to stormy weather and unnecessary diversions…

After the usual dalliance with pirates, a bird’s eye tour of Rome and a brief voyage on a Greek trading ship, the tourists soar over Athens and get shot at above Tyre before a natural storm sets the carpet alight and they crash-land in Persia.

Despite being in the land of carpets, the travellers are unable to secure a replacement until a band of Scythian raiders attack the village and Asterix and Obelix negotiate a trade deal: hundreds of pummelled plunderers for a freshly unbeatable new rug…

As the heroes plunge ever eastward, in the Valley of the Ganges Hoodunnit and his creepy mystic crony Owzat gloat at their impending takeover, even as poor Orinjade’s stout defiance begins to weaken.

When the Gauls and their Fakir chauffeur arrive with only a day to spare, it all seems over for the ghastly guru, but as the Bard begins his song he discovers that the arduous journey has given him laryngitis.

For the first time ever somebody wants him to sing and he has lost his voice…

With time running out the Rajah’s doctors’ diagnosis seems crazy: immersion in various unwholesome by-products of sacred elephants. Rather than settle for half-measures the Gauls decide to take Cacofonix to the jungle abode of Howdoo the Elephant Trainer and bury him in the curative well away from civilised senses…

This only gives the villains the opportunity they have been waiting for. When Watziznehm and the Gauls go to collect the Bard in the morning, Owzat engages the Fakir in a magical duel. Leaving them to their tricks Asterix and Obelix press on and find that the storm-singer has been kidnapped…

Happily, dashing Dogmatix is on hand to track down the Bard, an especially easy task as he now smells like he sings…

Hoodunnit is mirthfully preparing the stage for Orinjade’s sacrifice when, after the usual Gallic fisticuffs from our heroes, Cacofonix makes his Asian debut and sets everything – including the skies – to rights in the very nick of time…

Stuffed with light-hearted action, good-natured joshing, raucous, bombastic, bellicose hi-jinks and a torrent of punishing puns to astound and bemuse youngsters of all ages, this tale again celebrates the spectacular illustrative ability of Uderzo and proves that the potion-powered paragon of Gallic Pride is in safe and steady hands.

Full of Eastern Promise, this sublime slice of French polish and graphic élan is all you need to make any holiday excursion or comfy staycation unforgettable.

© 1987 Les Editions Albert René, Goscinny/Uderzo. Revised English translations © 1988, 2003 Hachette. All rights reserved.

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The Chimpanzee Complex volume 3: Civilisation


By Richard Marazano & Jean-Michel Ponzio, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-043-6

French comics creators excel at challenging, mind-blowing, compelling science fiction. Whether boisterous, mind-boggling space opera like Valerian and Laureline, surreal meta-spiritual exploration such as Moebius’ Airtight Garage or the tense, tech-heavy veritas of Orbital, our Gallic cousins always got it: the genre is not about tech or monsters; it’s about people encountering new and uncanny ideas…

Prolific, multi-award winning Richard Marazano was born in Fontenay-aux-Roses in 1971. He initially pursued a career in science before switching to Fine Arts courses in Angoulême and debuted in bande dessinée in the mid 1990s. Although an extremely impressive artist and colourist when illustrating his own stories (Le Bataillon des Lâches, Le Syndrome d’Abel), he is best known for his collaborations with other artists such as Michel Durand (Cuervos), Marcelo Frusin (L’Expédition) and Xavier Delaporte (Chaabi) to name but a few.

His partnerships with artist Jean-Michel Ponzio are especially fruitful and rewarding. As well as Le Complexe du Chimpanzé – the trilogy under discussion here – the daring duo have also produced the taut, intricate social futurism of Genetiksâ„¢ and high-flying paranoiac cautionary tale Le Protocole Pélican.

Jean-Michel Ponzio was born in Marignane and, after a period of scholastic pick-&-mix during the 1980s, began working as a filmmaker and animator for the advertising industry. He moved into movies, designing backgrounds and settings; listing Fight Club and Batman and Robin among his many subtle successes.

In 2000 he started moonlighting as an illustrator of book covers and edged into comics four years later, creating the art for Laurent Genfort’s T’ien Keou, before writing and illustrating Kybrilon for publisher Soliel in 2005.

This led to a tidal wave of bande dessinée assignments before he began his association with Marazano in 2007. He’s still very, very busy and his stunning combination of photorealist painting, 3D design and rotoscoping techniques grace and enhance a multitude of comics from authors as varied as Richard Malka to Janhel.

Perhaps still the very best of these talented individuals’ joint efforts is The Chimpanzee Complex trilogy which concludes its English translation here with Civilisation…

When, six and a half decades after it first returned, the Apollo 11 Command Module splashed down in the Indian Ocean in February 2035, redundant NASA astronaut Helen Freeman was pressed into the top-secret investigation of the incredible passengers, deserting once again her troubled and too-often neglected daughter Sofia.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first men to walk on the moon, and nobody – including them – had any idea where they’d been for sixty-five years. For the baffled spacers it was only days since their mission began…

On learning how history had already recorded their triumphant return and unremarkable deaths years later, the legends went ballistic: exhibiting what Freeman knew as the traumatic shock response peculiar to space voyagers categorised by NASA as “the Chimpanzee Complex”…

They had no knowledge of “their” missing third astronaut Michael Collins (if he ever existed). Nobody could explain what they might be and no test science could devise was able to disprove or corroborate their incredible story…

Compelled to work under Military Spook Konrad Stealberg, Freeman’s subsequent interviews uncovered even more questions but no answers. Then one day the enigma-nauts began exhibiting memory gaps.

Whilst her best friend – NASA bureaucrat Robert Conway – left to look after her increasingly intransigent daughter, Helen and Konrad’s team were presented with another insoluble mystery when the astronauts suddenly expired: becoming decades-old corpses overnight…

Soon Helen was reluctantly piloting a mission to the moon in the mothballed but hastily reconditioned shuttle originally designed for Mars – until budget cuts scotched the project. Her trusted comrades and fellow unemployed astronauts Kurt, Alex and Aleksa were just as delighted to be back in space, but as apprehensive as Helen over the military presence and top-secret paraphernalia piled aboard.

They were even less sanguine when Stealberg and his creepy elite commandos replaced the regular crew.

En route they discovered the secret history of the 1960s Space Race: America’s black ops space program and the USSR’s clandestine and apparently failed mission to Mars.

Even bigger shocks materialised on the moon when they found the pressure-suited corpses of Aldrin and Armstrong deep in a concealed fissure. In orbit above them a vintage Command Module was intercepted by their own shuttle.

The relic contained Collins’ corpse and a decades-old Russian distress call the pilot had recorded. The message had been sent by Commies from Mars…

NASA never had an American monopoly on spaceflight: the military had run a covert, parallel program from the very start, funded by pirating portions of NASA’s budget at the personal instigation of ex-Nazi rocket pioneer Werner von Braun…

Moreover, the 66-year old Russian distress message in the capsule’s primitive computers proved the Soviets had also been far more committed to space exploration than history recorded – and just as secretive as the USA…

Mid-flight Stealberg took over, unveiling interplanetary hibernation chambers and turning the now-militarised mission towards the Red Planet. Amidst fears of what awaited them, Helen fell into cold sleep, agonising that she had again abandoned and betrayed Sophia …

When they arrived they only found greater mysteries. The Soviet attempt had been a success and a thriving base at the pole welcomed the Americans. Nothing made sense though. The Russians believed they had been there for twelve years – not six and a half decades – and mission commander Yuri Gagarin (whose death in had been faked in 1968 to facilitate his smooth transition to commander of their Mars-shot) was obsessed with a bizarre scientific hoodoo he called “probability of presence”.

His ruminations on Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and whether such a subatomic phenomenon could apply to larger constructs (like human beings) in a constant and simultaneous state of being and non-being was a truly disturbing idea, but Helen had no time to debate it or their shared regrets about their abandoned Earthbound children as the other Cosmonauts had insanely decide to destroy their own base…

As she returned to the greenhouse module, Konrad presented an even more pressing problem. He had discovered Gagarin’s sixty-years-dead corpse…

As colonists Vladimir and Borislav set fire to the base modules, the Americans retreated to their vehicle, dragging the hysterical Helen, who had promised her very much alive Yuri a ride home…

The tension peaked when they got back to the orbiting Shuttle: Paul had vanished without a trace. Thoroughly rattled, Konrad ordered an immediate return to Earth, with increased watches for every day of the trip.

By May 2036, on Earth Cooper and Sophia both eagerly await Helen’s return at Cape Canaveral. However as the Shuttle approached it suddenly vanished from the tracking systems. Aboard ship Helen and Kurt saw their home planet disappear. Helpless, unable to brake and with no world in view, they rejoined the others in cold-sleep, not knowing when they would reawaken or if they’d still be in the solar system when they did.

Helen’s last conscious thoughts were of the daughter she might never see again…

The epic conclusion picks up in the Great Unknown as hibernation ends after seventy years. Only Helen and Aleksa are still alive; all the other cryo-capsules having failed at some indeterminate time.

With only finite resources and dwindling power, Helen consoles herself by catching up on messages beamed in hope and anticipation by Robbie Cooper, but is roused from her fatalistic depression by Aleksa who has made a shocking discovery.

Seeing one of the EVA suits missing, he at first believed their comrade Alex had committed suicide by walking out of the airlock. Then he saw the impossibly huge unidentified space vessel and called Helen…

Suiting up and arming themselves, they cross to the ship, Helen further encumbered by a laptop with all the messages – read and unread – from Robert stored on it. They have no idea when Alex left, or if she even tried to reach the UFO.

However as it is their only hope of survival, they make a leap into the void and after great struggle find themselves in a vast and terrifying mechanical chamber of disturbing proportions.

Alex’s abandoned gear is on the floor. She had clearly camped there for some time before vanishing into the dark, dusty cavernous interior…

Whilst they rest and consider their next move, Helen watches the last message Robbie sent from Earth. It is sixty-seven years old…

Later, Helen freaks out when they find Alex’s empty suit until Aleksa does the unthinkable and opens his own EVA garb. The enigma ship has warmth and a breathable atmosphere…

And then something pushes part of the vessel over on them…

The pair narrowly escape harm and cautiously explore the vessel, but after splitting up Aleksa is attacked again. When terrified Helen finds him he is hugging the crazed, decrepit, wizened but still alive Alex.

Mute but still vital she leads them through vaulting passageways to what they can only assume is a skeleton. A really, really big one…

Outside a viewing portal, Mars spins by above them. It’s as if they’ve come home …

However fast or far or forward humanity travels, their fears and foibles go with them and before long distrust and dread spark a final confrontation in the uncanny construct. Thus only one person makes an implausible, inexplicable escape back to Earth…

It’s 2097 and as a long-missing craft splashes down in the ocean to begin the circle anew, it becomes clear that some mysteries, like some philosophies and some family bonds, remain ineffably beyond the sphere of rational thinking…

Bold, challenging and enticingly human, this astonishing science mystery dances and darts adroitly between beguiling metaphysics and hard-wired mortal passions, easily encompassing our species’ inbuilt inescapable isolation, wide-eyed wonderment, hunger to know more and the terror of finding out, with Marazano’s pared-to-the-bone script brought to hyper-life with stunning clarity by Ponzio to produce a timeless fusion of passion, paranoia and familial fulfilment.

Do you read me? Do read The Chimpanzee Complex.

© Darguad, Paris, 2008 by Marazano& Ponzio. All rights reserved. English translation © 2010 Cinebook Ltd.

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Hunger House


By Loka Kanarp & C/M Edenborg,translated by C/M Edenborg & Martin Tistedt (Borderline Press)
ISBN: 978-0-99269-724-2

If you thought “Scandi-Crime” was an impressive tweak on an old genre, wait until you see what our northern cousins can do with horror…

Resurrecting the classic ghost story in this seductive and compelling lavish two-colour hardback tome, husband-&-wife team Carl-Michael Edenborg and Loka Kanarp have concocted a sharp, sweet and sour compote of dark desire and chilling craving in their account of a slumbering supernatural force and its appalling allure for two troubled and unhappy girls…

Deeps in the woods a ramshackle edifice awaits as, nearer town and selfish, judgemental, facile modern civilisation, sisters Elsa and Fredrike grow increasingly uncomfortable with their new foster parents.

The smugly sanctimonious old poseurs are delighted with the idea and their roles as guardians – and especially in the reactions of their equally shallow friends and neighbours – but really don’t seem that invested in the recently-bereft children in their charge…

Unhappy to be the star exhibit at a garden party, the girls soon sneak off and wander into the wilds on the edge of town. They’re heading for a strange place Elsa heard about at school. They really shouldn’t go in. All the kids say it’s haunted…

The deserted domicile is vast: a procession of bleak and empty rooms where the previous inhabitants seemingly disappeared in the middle of a coffee klatsch…

As they idly roam together, the bare boards suddenly break beneath them and Elsa falls into a darkness far deeper and longer than the mere gap between floors. The hole is bigger than the house and even after climbing down on a rope Fredrike cannot touch the bottom…

Dejectedly returning alone to her foster parents’ home she tries to explain what has happened but is cut short when Elsa saunters in. She is not the same.

For one thing, she is cruel and mean and bullying, but the real kicker is at supper when a cutlery mishap proves the elder sister is no longer even human…

Of course, the pompous, self-opinionated adults notice nothing, and later as Fredrike cowers in bed looking at photos of happier times, the thing that looks like Elsa creeps in and offers to show her secrets and surprises if she will return to the ruined house with her…

Author, publisher and editor Edenborg (My Cruel Fate) runs his own publishing house – Vertigo Forlag – and co-wrote Hungerhusetwith graphic novelist Kanarp (another sterling alumni of the Comics Art School of Malmö whose previous works include Pearls and Bullets and To My Friends and Enemies)  to satisfy their own love of suspense-horror movies.

Their passion is our happy windfall as this sublimely seductive and truly beguiling mystery unfolds in ways both uneasily familiar and intensely original…

If being simultaneously unsettled and delightfully satiated is your particular meat, Hunger House is a dish you will never regret ordering.
© 2014 Loka Kanarp & C/M Edenborg.

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City of Crocodiles


By Knut Larsson (Borderline Press)
ISBN: 978-0-99269-725-9

Born in 1972, Swedish cartoonist, artist, filmmaker and teacher – at the prestigious Comics Art School of Malmö – Knut Larsson is blessed with a unique vision and talent to spare (just check out his graphic albums Canimus, Lokmannen (Locomotive Man), Biografmaskinisten (The Projectionist), Kolonialsjukhuset – En kolonialläkares anteckningar (Colonial Hospital – A Colonial Doctor’s Notebook) or Triton.

If you’re a keen devotee of Euro-comics you’ll have seen his stories in C’est Bon Anthology, Electrocomics, Galago, Glömp, Rayon Frais, Strapazin, Stripburger, Turkey Comix and others, and may well have visited his international exhibitions as far afield as Angoulême, Tokyo, Erlangen or St. Petersburg. Typically, he is not a household name in Britain or America.

Yet…

Back in 2008 Larsson crafted Krokodilstaden: an eerie, post-apocalyptic, horror-tinged love story devoid of all dialogue or sound effects: a neosymbolist paean to the end times combining brutish, callous survivalism, ghostly mysticism, unchanging human passions, stubborn self-inflicted loneliness and the tenacious capacity of life to adapt to changing situations. Now Borderline Press have released it in an English Edition as their latest deliciously eerie offering: City of Crocodiles…

Rendered in muted greys and brown monotones, one panel per page, the tale focuses on a drowned Earth where the waters have risen, relegating humanity to the top floors of buildings whilst toothy amphibians have proliferated all around and below them. Adamant Mankind is still hanging on, turning crocodiles into the primary natural resource: food, clothing, tooled utensils and even objects of cultish worship.

The saurians are everywhere and everybody and everything – humans, birds, surviving mammalian pets – are missing limbs or appendages…

In this world one particular croc-hunter ekes out his solitary existence, trading reptiles for booze and gasoline, haunted by his memories until the day he captures a strangely enticing woman in his nets. She is young, beautiful, exotic… and has a vestigial reptilian tail.

Avoiding the spooky, crazy crocodile cultists he takes her back to his place and endeavours to dress her in the garb and form of his dead lover before she seduces him…

Sadly that’s when his dearly departed darling returns, bristling with malice and ready for some spirited revenge…

Wry, moving, nightmarish yet ethereally lovely, City of Crocodiles is a masterpiece of visual storytelling that will astound and delight all lovers of the weird and macabre.
© 2008, 2014 Knut Larsson.