European Classics – Page 59

January 19, 2015

Orbital volume 3: Nomads

By Serge PellÃ© & Sylvain Runberg, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-080-1

The truest thing that can be said about French science fiction is that it always delivers amazing style and panache even when the underlying premise might be less than original. In Serge PellÃ© & Sylvain Runberg’s beautiful Orbital series a seemingly-mismatched pair of Diplomatic Peacekeeper agents are deployed to quell incipient brushfire wars and mediate internal pressures within a vast pan-species intergalactic alliance, but the hoary â€œbuddy-movieâ€ format is a mere skeleton for eye-popping missions, star-spanning intrigue and intense personal interactions which are always are handled with deft wit and great imagination, never failing to carry the reader along in a blaze of fantastic funâ€¦

What you need to know: after decades of pariah-status galactic exclusion, Earth in the 23^rd century has finally been allowed to join a vast Confederation of interstellar civilisations, despite grave and abiding concerns about humanity’s aggressive nature and xenophobic tendencies.

A militant â€œIsolationistâ€ faction on Earth had moved from politics to horrific terrorism in the immediate run-up to formal induction, committing atrocities both on Earth and distant worlds where mankind had developed colonies and mining bases, but ultimately they failed to prevent humanity’s inclusion in the pan-galactic union.

One particular Confederation worry was the way humans had treated the alien civilisation of the Sandjarrs, whose world was invaded in Earth’s all-consuming drive for territory and exploitable resources. The subsequent atrocities almost exterminated the stoic, pacifistic desert creaturesâ€¦

Interworld Diplomatic Office operatives are assigned in pairs to troubleshoot throughout the galaxy, defusing crises before they can become flashpoints of violence. IDO’s first human recruit Caleb Swany had been surprisingly teamed with Sandjarr Mezoke Izzua, a situation clearly designed as a high-profile political stunt, as was their initial mission: convincing an Earth mining colony to surrender a profitable planetary mining industry back to the aliens who actually own the moon Senestem it was situated onâ€¦

Moreover, even though Earth is a now a member of the Confederation, with humans well placed in all branches of interstellar service, the Isolationist cause is still deeply cherished by many, needing only the slightest spark to reigniteâ€¦

Orbital: Nomads is the third epic album published by Cinebook (originally released in 2009 as ‘Nomades’), and picks up soon after Caleb and Mezoke’s hard-won solution was implemented.

The Galactic Great-and-Good have arrived on Earth to very publicly celebrate and affirm the end of Human/Sandjarr hostilities in a series of spectacular Reconciliation Ceremonies, but the political glad-handing looks to be upstaged by another interspecies crisisâ€¦

One of the greatest benefits of induction into The Confederation has been the infusion of alien technologies which have cleansed and reinvigorated the ecosystem of long-abused and much-polluted Earth.

Now however an incident has occurred in the newly restocked, abundant seas and mangrove swamps around Malaysia, with the sudden death of millions of fish leading to a bloody clash between local fishermen and an unsuspected enclave of a race of nomadic space-gypsies called The Rapakhunâ€¦

In Kuala Lumpur Caleb is reminiscing with his old mentor Hector Ulrich – instrumental in brokering Earth into the Confederation and Swany into the Interworld Diplomatic Office – when news arrives of the trouble.

This will be tricky: much of mankind is still anti-alien, and locale economies are fragile, whilst the Rapakhun are no innocent angels. Many space civilisations despise them: the stellar nomads are flighty wanderers who go where they please, refuse to be represented in or on Confederation Councils and worst of all, practice cannibalismâ€¦

Many Confederation races despise them and by the time Caleb and Mezoke arrive on scene events have escalated and tensions heightened to fever pitch as a committee of human fishermen face off against Rapakhun spokeswoman Alkuun.

The ancient tries to explain that the problem was an escaped Elokarn. The wanderers’ gigantic domesticated aquatic beasts have all been excessively agitated since arriving on Earthâ€¦

With the Diplomatic Agents assuring all parties that tests are being undertaken to ascertain not only why the Elokarn went crazy but also why the fish are dying off again, the situation seems contained, but when Alkuun invites the human guests to join in their holy consumption of a still-living and eager Rapakhun male they are physically revolted.

No amount of explanation that the willing, deeply spiritual and hugely prestigious sacrifice is meant to strengthen and invigorate the gods of Earth can offset the grisly sightâ€¦

Returning to Kuala Lumpur, Mezoke and Caleb are anxious. Although the Malaysian Navy are policing the area, the IDO agents know full well the tenuous trust humans place in any alien species, but their attention is unfortunately diverted by the sudden arrival of Caleb’s old friend Lukas Vesely.

The scrawny teen of his youth has become a hulking, good-natured member of Ulrich’s security force and seems very keen to relive the good old days. Caleb, of course, has no idea of Lukas’ usual duties, which include brutally and mercilessly dealing with any isolationist protests which might give visiting aliens the wrong impression about Confederate Earthâ€¦

In the mangrove swamps fish are still dying and when another group of fisherman get too close to the agreed-upon neutral zone Ulrich’s forces overreact and vaporise them, outraging many watching members of the Malaysian Navyâ€¦

Caleb and Mezoke are otherwise fully occupied as the delegation of Sandjarr dignitaries have arrived. The aloof and stand-offish nature of the guests of honour provoke Mezoke to surly silence, and reports from Senestem take the shine off their supposed triumphant solution whilst test results from the mangrove swamps all prove inconclusive. No contamination of any sort has killed the fish: the culprit is some unknown form of energyâ€¦

Caleb attempts to downplay and even suppress the concatenation of bad news in hope of keeping the Reconciliation Ceremonies alive over Mezuke’s objections until she reveals a shocking truth about her life before joining IDOâ€¦

The death of the fishermen meanwhile has reached the populace and a â€œpatrioticâ€ clique in the Navy peacekeeping force has colluded to look the other way if the fishermen want to deal with the nomads once and for allâ€¦

By the time the IDO agents learn of the incursion the appalling bloodshed has ceased and, wading through a site of unspeakable carnage, Caleb and Mezuke decide to split up. The rapidly destabilising situation on Earth must be carefully managed but most crucial is to send an urgent investigation team to the last world the Rapakhun visited and find out exactly what the wanderers are really capable ofâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Fast-paced, action-packed, gritty space-opera with delightfully complex sub-plots fuelled by political intrigue and infighting elevates this tale to lofty and exotic heights, proving Orbital to be a series well worth watchingâ€¦
Original edition Â© Dupuis 2009 by Runberg & PellÃ©. All rights reserved. This edition published 2011 by Cinebook Ltd.

January 15, 2015January 14, 2015

Scared to Death volume 1: The Vampire from the Marshes

By Mauricet & Vanholme, with colours by Laurent Carpentier and translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978- 1-905460-47-2

There’s a grand old tradition of scaring, empowering and entertaining kids through carefully crafted horror stories with junior protagonists, and this occasional series is one of the better modern examples.

Conceived and executed by journalist Virgine Vanholme and youthful yet seasoned illustrator Alain Mauricet, the Mort de Trouille series of albums was launched by Casterman in the year 2000. There have been seven sinister sorties so farâ€¦

Whilst I’ve not been able to find out much about the author, the artist is rather well travelled, having worked for CrossGen, Image and DC in America as well as on a wide variety of features in Europe.

He’s also to be seen in David Lloyd’s magnificently wonderful digital delight Aces Weeklyâ€¦

Born in 1967, Mauricet originally inherited the comic bug from his parents and, after studying at the Academy of Fine Arts under legendary creator Eddy Paape, began his own career aged 20 at Spirou.

From spot cartoons he graduated to strips, creating superhero parody Cosmic Patrouille with Jean-Louis Janssens and Les Rastafioles with Sergio Salma. Following the aforementioned stateside sojourn he resumed his Franco-Belgian efforts with the strip under review here, as well as basketball comedy Basket Dunk (with Christophe Cazanove) and Boulard (with Erroc) and others.

He now lives in Brussels, and also designs for computer games whilst working on a more personal graphic enterprise entitled Une Bien Belle Nuance de Rougeâ€¦

Back in early 2000, though, he was detailing the first of a sequence of spooky yarns starring studious Robin Lavigne and boisterous overly-imaginative Max Mornet, a couple of lads with an infallible instinct for ferreting out the weird and uncannyâ€¦

In 2008 Cinebook picked up Mort de Trouille: Le vampire des Marais and invited British and American kids to solve the mystery of The Vampire from the Marshes, which began when the boys first snuck a peek at forensic scientist Dr. Lavigne‘s locked filesâ€¦

The well-travelled medic has been called in to examine a body found in rural Deadwater Swamp: a corpse stinking of booze, drained of blood and completely covered in hundreds of tiny triangular bite marksâ€¦

His son Robin and especially horror-story obsessed Max are fascinated by the case and the latter envisions all manner of ghastly and vivid vampiric scenarios, despite his more prosaic pal’s protestationsâ€¦

All too soon the lads are invading the (still potential) crime scene, recording their own findings and suppositions. They are quite freaked out when they find a strangely slaughtered bird but completely terrified when they disturb a poacher who chases them off with murderous cursesâ€¦

Unbeknownst to all involved, their prying has also alerted and disturbed a clan of far more dangerous and unnatural creaturesâ€¦

Soon the boys are being constantly shadowed by an uncanny, cloaked figure who even breaks into the Lavigne home as it strives to preserve its anonymity and ancient secrets from the eyes of prying, violent mankind. It is noisily disturbed as it closes in on the boys and they can only thank their lucky stars that the household cat is such a noisy and vicious beast when stepped uponâ€¦

Events peak to a cursed crescendo next day after Max falls into his own hastily dug vampire trap and is taken by the noisome Nosferatu. Whilst Robin anxiously and urgently searches for his missing friend, Max is learning the tragic secret history of the bloodsuckers.

His oddly ambivalent abductor is Janus and seems rather reluctant to bleed him as a proper vampire should. The creature has, however, no problem leaving him – and the freshly captured Robin who stumbles upon them – to drown in a deep wellâ€¦

Next morning Dr. Lavigne and the police are frantically searching the swamp for the missing boys and only find them thanks to some unknown person leaving Max’s camera on the rim of a wellâ€¦

As the frightened boys are pulled to safety, Robin’s dad questions them and goes ballistic when he learns they’ve been looking through his confidential files. He also utterly trashes their ridiculous theory of vampire killers, patiently explaining the true and rational – if exceedingly grim and grisly – cause of death of the drunk in the swampâ€¦

Chastened but undaunted and sharing an incredible secret no adults will ever believe, the boys are taken home whilst deep in the wooded mire an ancient family of incredible beings pulls up stakes and moves restlessly on to who knows whereâ€¦

Deliciously delivered in the manner of Goosebumps and Scooby-Doo, this is a superb slice of all-ages spooky fun in the classic mould that will enthral and enchant everyone who’s suffered from â€œfather knows bestâ€ syndrome and loves tall tales with devilish twists.
Original edition Â© Casterman, 2000 by Mauricet & Vanholme. English translation Â© 2008 by Cinebook Ltd.

January 11, 2015January 10, 2015

Asterix and the Falling Sky

By Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-0-7528-7548-4

Asterix began life in the last year of the 1950s and is part of the fabric of French life. His adventures have touched billions of people all around the world over the decades. However when this particular tale was released it was like nothing anybody had ever seen before. It fact it is considered to be the most controversial and least well-regarded by purists. Some even hate itâ€¦

They are all welcome to their opinions. I must admit that I too found it a little unsettling when I first read it. So I read it some more and saw the elements that I’d initially had trouble with weren’t lax or lazy or bad but just not what I was expecting. Soon it became one of my favourites just because it was so different.

Uderzo was and is a comics creator par excellence. With Rene Goscinny he created, owned and controlled his intellectual property Asterix and used it to tell the tales he wanted to tell.

It was his right to say and draw whatever he wanted to through his creation and nobody has the right to dictate what he could or could not do with it as long as no laws were broken.

It’s a lesson the whole world needs to learn, now more than everâ€¦

A son of Italian immigrants, Alberto Aleandro Uderzo was born on April 25^th 1927 in Fismes on the Marne. He dreamed of becoming an aircraft mechanic but even as a young child watching Walt Disney cartons and reading Mickey Mouse in Le PÃ©tit Parisien he showed artistic flair.

Albert became a French citizen when he was seven and found employment at thirteen, apprenticed to the Paris Publishing Society, where he learned design, typography, calligraphy and photo retouching. He was brought to that pivotal point by his older brother Bruno (to whom this volume is gratefully and lovingly dedicated for starting the ball rolling) but when World War II reached France he moved to Brittany, spending time with farming relatives and joining his father’s furniture-making business.

The region beguiled and fascinated Uderzo and when a location for Asterix‘s idyllic village was being mooted, that beautiful countryside was the only possible choiceâ€¦

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-FranÃ§ois Calvo (whose own comic masterpiece The Beast is Dead is far too long overdue for a commemorative reissueâ€¦).

Tireless Uderzo’s subsequent creations included the indomitable eccentric Clopinard, Belloy, l’InvulnÃ©rable, Prince Rollin and Arys Buck. He illustrated Em-RÃ©-Vil’s novel Flamberge, dabbled in animation, worked 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 first met Goscinny in 1951. Soon bosom buddies, they resolved to work together at the new Paris office of Belgian Publishing giant World Press. Their first collaboration was published in November of that year; a feature piece on savoir vivre (gracious living) for women’s weekly Bonnes SoirÃ©e, following which an avalanche of splendid strips and serials poured forth.

Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior were created for La Libre Junior and they resulted in a western starring a â€œRed Indianâ€ who eventually evolved into the delightfully infamous Oumpah-Pah. In 1955, with the formation of Ã‰difrance/Ã‰dipresse, Uderzo drew Bill Blanchart (also 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 enterprise, collaborating with Charlier on Tanguy et Laverdure and devising – with Goscinny – a little something called Asterixâ€¦

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

By 1967 Asterix occupied all Uderzo’s time and attention, and in 1974 the partners formed IdÃ©fix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation. When Goscinny passed away three years later, Uderzo had to be convinced to continue the adventures as both writer and artist, producing a further ten volumes until 2010 when he gracefully 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 prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new release was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for the strip’s millions of fansâ€¦

More than 325 million copies of 35 Asterix books have sold worldwide, making his joint creators France’s best-selling international authors, and now that torch has been passed and new sagas of the incomparable icon and his bellicose brethren are being created by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conradâ€¦

One of the most popular comics on Earth, the collected chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages since his debut, with numerous animated and live-action movies, TV series, games, toys, merchandise and even a theme park outside Paris (Parc AstÃ©rix, naturellement)â€¦

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. English-speakers 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.

Many of the intoxicating epics are set in various exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, with the Garrulous Gallic Gentlemen reduced to quizzical tourists and bemused commentators in every fantastic land and corner of the civilisations that proliferated in that fabled era. The rest – more than half of the canon – 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.

The land is divided by the notional conquerors into provinces of Celtica, Aquitania and Amorica, but the very tip of the last named just refuses to be pacifiedâ€¦

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 Obelixâ€¦

This particular iconoclasm, Uderzo’s eighth solo outing (and originally entitled Le Ciel lui tombe sur la tÃªte) was released in 2005 as the 31^st volume of an ever-unfolding saga. The English language version was released that same year as Asterix and the Falling Sky. Apart from the unlikely thematic content and quicker pacing, the critics’ main problem seemed to stem from a sleeker, slicker, less busy style of illustration – almost a classical animation look – but that’s actually the point of the tale.

The entire book is a self-admitted tribute to the Walt Disney cartoons of the artist’s formative years, as well as a sneakily good-natured critique of modern comics as then currently typified by American superheroes and Japanese mangaâ€¦

The contentious tale opens with the doughty little Gaul and his affable pal Obelix in the midst of a relaxing boar hunt when they notice that their quarry has frozen into petrified solidity.

Perplexed, they head back through the eerily silent forest to the village, only to discover that all their friends have been similarly stupefied and rendered rigidly inertâ€¦

Only faithful canine companion Dogmatix and the old Druid Getafix have any life in them, but only when Obelix admits to giving the pooch the occasional tipple of Magic Potion does Asterix deduce that it’s because they all have the potent brew currently flowing though their systemsâ€¦

With one mystery solved they debate how to cure everybody else – as well as all the woodland creatures and especially the wild boars – but are soon distracted by the arrival of an immense golden sphere floating above and eclipsing the villageâ€¦

Out of if floats a strange but friendly creature who introduces himself as â€œToonâ€ from the distant star Tadsilweny (it’s an anagram, but don’t expect any help from me). He is accompanied by a mightily powered being in a tight-fitting blue-and-red costume with a cape. Toon calls him Supercloneâ€¦

The mighty minion casually insults Obelix and learns that he’s not completely invulnerable, but otherwise the visitors are generally benevolent. The paralysis plague is an accidental effect of Toon’s vessel, but a quick adjustment by the strange visitor soon brings the surroundings back to frenetic life.

That’s when the trouble really starts as the villagers – and especially Chief Vitalstatistix – see the giant globe floating overhead as a portent that at long last the sky is fallingâ€¦

After another good-spirited, strenuously physical debate, things calm down and Toon explains he’s come from the Galactic Council to confiscate an earthly super-weapon and prevent it falling into the hands of belligerent alien conquerors the Nagmas (that’s another anagram) and there’s nothing the baffled Earthlings can do about itâ€¦

At the Roman camp of Compendium Centurion Polyanthus is especially baffled and quite angry. His men have already had a painful encounter with the Superclone but the commander refuses to believe their wild stories about floating balls and strangers even weirder than the Gauls, but he’s soon forced to change his mind when a gigantic metal totem pole lands in blaze of flame right in his courtyard.

Out of it flies an incredible, bizarre, insectoid, oriental-seeming warrior demanding the whereabouts of a powerful wonder-weapon. Extremely cowed and slightly charred, Polyanthus tells him about the Magic Potion the Gauls always use to make his life miserableâ€¦

The Nagma immediately hurries off and encounters Obelix, but the rotund terrestrial is immune to all the invader’s armaments and martial arts attacks and responds by demonstrating with devastating efficacy how Gauls fightâ€¦

After zapping Dogmatix the Nagma retreats and when Obelix dashes back to the village follows him. No sooner has Toon cured the wonder mutt than the colossal Nagma robot-ship arrives, forcing the friendly alien to fly off and intercept it in his golden globeâ€¦

The Nagma tries to trade high-tech ordnance for the Gauls’ â€œsecret weaponâ€ but Asterix is having none of it, instead treating the invader to a dose of potion-infused punishment.

Stalemated the Nagma then unleashes an army of automatons dubbed Cyberats and Toon responds by deploying a legion of Superclones. The battle is short and pointless and a truce finds both visitors deciding to share the weaponâ€¦

Vitalstatistix is outraged but Getafix is surprisingly sanguine, opting to let both Toon and Nagma sample the heady brew for themselves. The effects are not what the visitors could have hoped for and the enraged alien oriental unleashes more Cyberats in a sneak attack.

Responding quickly, Asterix and Obelix employ two Superclones to fly them up to the marauding robots, dealing with them in time-honoured Gaulish fashion.

The distraction has unfortunately allowed the Nagma to kidnap Getafix and Toon returns to his globe-ship to engage his robotic foe in a deadly game of brinksmanship whilst a Superclone liberates the incensed Druid. None too soon the furious, frustrated Nagma decides enough is enough and blasts off, determined never to come back to this crazy planetâ€¦

Down below Polyanthus has meanwhile taken advantage of the chaos and confusion to rally his legions for a surprise attack, arriving just as the Gauls are enjoying a victory feast with their new alien ally. The assault goes extremely badly for the Romans, particularly after a delayed effect of the potion transforms affable Toon into something monstrous and uncannyâ€¦

Eventually all ends well and, thanks to technological wizardry, all the earthly participants are returned to their safely uncomplicated lives, once again oblivious to the dangers and wonders of a greater universeâ€¦

Fast, funny, stuffed with action and hilarious, tongue-in-cheek hi-jinks, this is a joyous rocket-paced rollercoaster for lovers of laughs and all open-minded devotees of comics. This still-controversial award-winning(Eagle 2006 winner for Best European Comic) yarn only confirmed Uderzo’s reputation as a storyteller willing to take risks and change things up, whilst his stunning ability to pace a tale was never better demonstrated. Asterix and the Falling Sky proves that the potion-powered paragons of Gallic Pride will never lose their potent punch.
Â© 2005 Les Ã‰ditions Albert RenÃ©, Goscinny-Uderzo. English translation: Â© 2005 Les Ã‰ditions Albert RenÃ©, Goscinny/Uderzo. All rights reserved.

January 8, 2015August 18, 2024

Green Manor volume 1: Assassins and Gentlemen

By Bodart & Vehlmann, translated by Elaine Kemp (Cinebook Expresso)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-53-3

The French are generally considered more passionate than us Brits and always eager to dole out grandiose appellations and epithets about creators, but at least they’re very seldom wrong in their acclamations. Young writer Fabien Vehlmann was only born in 1972 yet his prodigious canon of work (published from 1998 to the present) has earned him the soubriquet of â€œthe Goscinny of the 21^st Centuryâ€

Vehlmann entered the world in Mont-de-Marsan and grew up in Savoie, studying business management before taking a job with a theatre group. In 1996, after entering a writing contest in Spirou, he caught the comics bug ands two years later published – with illustrative collaborator Denis Bodart – a quirky, mordantly dark and sophisticated portmanteau period crime comedy entitled Green Manor.

The episodic, blackly funny tribute to the seamy underside of Victoriana appeared only sporadically until 2005 (and was revived in 2011), whilst the author spread his wings with a swathe of other features such as Wondertown (art by BenoÃ®t Feroumont) and the hugely popular children’s thriller Seuls (with artist Bruno Gazzotti) before undertaking a high-profile stint on veteran all-ages adventure strip Spirou et Fantasio.

Vehlmann has continued to craft enticing and engaging tales for kids (Samedi et Dimanche) but is equally adept on more mature fare like Sept psychopathes (with Sean Phillips). He even briefly drew his own strip Bob le Cowboyâ€¦

His partner in crime on Green Manor was Denis Bodart, who studied at the Saint Luc academy in Brussels before taking up teaching. He soon resorted to a life in comics, debuting in 1985 with Saint-Germaine des Morts (scripted by Streng) for publishing house BÃ©dÃ©scope.

Three years later he co-created – with writer Yann (Yannick Le Pennetier) – CÃ©lestin Speculoos for Circus and Nicotine Goudron for l’Ã‰cho des Savanes whilst becoming a jobbing freelance comics artist with work regularly appearing in Spirou and elsewhere.

Following his highly acclaimed turn here he moved on to succeed Jean-Maire Beuriot as artist of Casterman’s prestigious Amours Fragiles.

The premise is both deliciously simple and wickedly palatable. As this book opens in the infamous Bethlehem Psychiatric Hospital in 1899, prominent Dr. Thorne is seeking to interview the inmate known as Thomas Below.

That poor unfortunate had served as a domestic in a Gentleman’s Club for his entire life but became violently delusional mere days before retirement. Now as Thorne questions the madman deep in the bowels of â€œBedlamâ€, the savant realises the sorry soul before him believes he is Green Manor incarnate. He has certainly been privy to all that strange place’s secrets, surprises and hushed-up scandalsâ€¦

Hesitantly Below begins telling tales of rich, powerful and ostensibly honourable men at their most excessive and unbearableâ€¦

What follows is a macabre menu of short tales beginning with ‘Delicious Shivers’ wherein a roomful of The Great and the Good gather around aged patriarch Dr. Byron on an October night in 1879. The respected physician poses an intriguing challenge to the assemblage: â€œcan there be a murder without a victim or a murderer?â€

Most of the men gathered have dark hearts and cunning minds and Sir Foswell rises to the challenge with his story of a noted aristocrat who erased an unwise early marriage – and â€œdisappearedâ€ his unwanted bride – by dint of bloodshed, money and influence.

Inspector Darcroft then proffers a case whereby there was no discernable murderer although the victim was most certainly gunned down at close rangeâ€¦

As the heated banter builds, events take a very dark turn once Byron informs them that he has personally caused such an impossible crime to be committed. To the shocked silence of the throng he describes how the administration of an extremely slow-acting poison in the drinks of some, many or all of those gathered may or may not kill an unspecified number of them at some unguessable time in the futureâ€¦

Of course he might just be jesting to win a point but nobody goes home complacently that nightâ€¦

‘Post-Scriptum’ then describes the lethal intellectual duel between dashing young Detective Johnson and aged Sir Alfred Montgomery in August 1882, after the latter defies the policeman to stop him killing a young woman. The rules of the competition are quite strict and the noble believes he has succeeded in committing a perfect crime, but although the noble correctly considers himself a cunning planner his character judgement leaves much to be desiredâ€¦

Weary and frustrated police Inspector Gray‘s decades-long hunt for a serial killer ends in shock and castigation when he arrives at an astounding conclusion one gloomy night at the Club in September 1882.

That worthy’s too-late grasp of an impossible ‘Modus Operandi’ subsequently leads to glorious triumph but also a most surprising outcome and response from a fellow clubman and confidanteâ€¦

The most baroque and arcane yarn in this collection involves another intellectual game and imaginative wager placed in March 1893, when two connoisseurs of crime determine to commit the most artful murder of all time. Their target must be none other than author and criminologist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and to make things interesting the offending weapon must be ’21 Halberds’â€¦

In April 1872 Lord Denton invited young artist Eric Kaye into the Green Manor Club to repair a damaged painting by the great lost genius Jason Sutter. However the dazzled dauber became obsessed with the story behind the austere family portrait – especially the tragic beautiful daughter who suddenly vanished from history – depicted in ‘Sutter 1801’ but his fervent enquiries led to the resolution of a decades old mystery, murder most foul and eventual banishment as his only reward.

Proud and undaunted, Kaye patiently devised a most exquisite vengeanceâ€¦

The catalogue of upper class skulduggery concludes with ‘The Ballad of Dr. Thompson’ and a most arcane and uncanny murder mystery which begins in 1878 when great friends Professor Ballard and Thompson bid each other a drunken goodnight on the club steps.

Only one of them makes it home safely and when the other’s corpse is found stuffed into a grandfather clock the police investigations soon lead to the most insane of conclusionsâ€¦

Wry, witty, wickedly funny and sublimely entertaining, Assassins and Gentlemen offers a superbly rewarding peek at High Society and low morals which will delight and astound lovers of clever crime fiction and classy comics confabulations.
Original edition Â© Dupuis 2005 by Vehlmann & Bodart. All rights reserved. English translation 2008 by Cinebook Ltd.

January 6, 2015

XIII volume 1: The Day of the Black Sun

By William Vance & Jean Van Hamme, coloured by Petra (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-039-9

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

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

Immediately clicking with the public, by 1976 he had also branched out into novels and screenwriting. His big break was the monumentally successful fantasy series Thorgal for Tintin magazine. He then cemented his reputation with mass-market bestsellers Largo Winch and XIII as well as more cerebral fare such as Chninkel and Les maÃ®tres de l’orge.

In 2010 Van Hamme was listed as the second-best selling comics author in France, ranked beside the seemingly unassailable HergÃ© and Uderzo.

William Vance is the comics nom de plume of William van Cutsem, who was born in 1935 in Anderlecht. After military service in 1955-1956 he studied art at the AcadÃ©mie Royale des Beaux-Arts and promptly became an illustrator of biographic features for Tintin in 1962. His art is a classical blend of meticulous realism, scrupulous detail and spectacular if 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 â€œGregâ€). Further success followed when he replaced GÃ©rald Forton on science fiction classic Bob Morane in Femmes d’Aujourd’hui, (and later Pilote and Tintin).

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

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

The series was a monumental hit in Europe – although publishing house Dargaud were initially a little slow to catch on – but has fared less well in its many attempts to make the translation jump to English, with Catalan Communications, Alias Comics and even Marvel all failing to maximise the potential of the gritty mystery thriller.

The epic conspiracy thriller of unrelenting mood, mystery and mayhem begins as The Day of the Black Sun (originally Le jour du soleil noir) opens on a windswept, rocky shore where retired Abe‘s quiet day of fishing is ruined after he reels in a bodyâ€¦

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

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

There is a further complication. The gunshot victim – a splendid physical specimen clearly no stranger to action or violence – has suffered massive and probably irreversible brain trauma. Although now sound in body he has completely lost his mind. His language skills, social and reflexive conditioning and muscle memories all remain intact, but every detail of his personal life-history has been utterly erasedâ€¦

Some time later as Martha explains all this to the swiftly recuperating stranger – whom Abe and Sally have named â€œAlanâ€ after their own dead son – his lost past life explosively intrudes when contract killers invade the remote beach house with guns blazingâ€¦

Terrifying skills he has no conception of immediately surface and Alan lethally counters the attack, but too late to save anybody but himself and Marthaâ€¦

In the aftermath Alan finds a photo of him and a young woman on one of the hitmen and, with Martha’s help, traces the picture to nearby metropolis Eastown. Desperate for answers and certain that more killers must be coming, the human question mark heads off to confront unimaginable danger and hopefully find the answers he so urgently needsâ€¦

Eager to find the mystery woman he was clearly intimate with, Alan tracks the photograph to the offices of the local newspaper, which brings him to the attention of a less than honest cop who recognises the amnesiac and makes sinister plansâ€¦

The woman in the photo is Kim Rowland, a local widow officially listed as a â€œmissing personâ€. When Alan goes to her house he finds the key he was carrying fits the front doorâ€¦

Inside is a scene of devastation, but a thorough search utilising gifts he was unaware he possessed turns up another key and a note warning someone named â€œJakeâ€ that â€œThe Mongooseâ€ has found her and she’s going to disappearâ€¦

As he continues his probing Alan/Jake is ambushed by the dirty cop and newspaper Editor Wayne. Gloating Lieutenant Hemmings calls him â€œSheltonâ€ and demands the return of a large amount of money the baffled amnesiac has no memory of.

Thinking fast, Alan/Jake/Shelton guesses that the new key he found is for a safe-deposit box and bluffs the thugs into taking him to the biggest bank in townâ€¦

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

Later in a shabby hotel room the agonised amnesiac considers the huge amount of cash in the case and not for the first time wonders what kind of man he used to beâ€¦

Preferring motion to inactivity, Alan prepares to leave and stumbles into a mob of armed killers about to bust into his room. In a blur of lethal activity he escapes to the roof with the thugs in hot pursuit and stumbles into another group led by a man addressed as Colonel Amosâ€¦

The chilling executive calls his captive â€œThirteenâ€, claiming to have previously dealt with his predecessors XI and XIII over something called the â€œBlack Sun caseâ€â€¦

The Colonel also very much wants to know who Alan is, but has a few shocking facts already at his disposal. The most sensational is a film of the recent assassination of the American President which clearly shows the lone gunman to be none other than the now-appalled Thirteenâ€¦

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

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

Another band of murderers is waiting; led by a mild-seeming man Alan inexplicably calls The Mongoose. The smug killer expresses surprise and admiration: he thought he’d killed Thirteen months agoâ€¦

Tragedy follows an explosion of deadly violence as the agonised amnesiac goes into instinctive action. The henchman are mercilessly despatched – although too late to save Martha – but The Mongoose escapes, promising dire revengeâ€¦

With nothing but doubt, confusion and corpses behind him, the mystery man regretfully hops a freight train west and heads toward into an uncertain futureâ€¦

And so began one of the most compelling and convoluted mystery adventures ever conceived, with subsequent instalments constantly taking the questing Thirteen two steps forward, one step back as he encountered a world of pain and peril whilst tracking down the web of past lives he seemingly ledâ€¦

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

January 4, 2015January 3, 2015

Iznogoud the Infamous

By Goscinny and Tabary (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-074-0

For the greater part of his too-short lifetime (1926-1977) RenÃ© Goscinny was one of the most prolific and most-read writers of comic strips the world has ever seen. 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 perpetually proved to be ultimately no more than castles in the sandâ€¦

Scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to the hotly contested deserts when Goscinny teamed with sublimely gifted Swedish Ã©migrÃ© Jean Tabary (1930-2011) – who numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips – to detail 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; with the first episode appearing in the January 15th issue. 1962. A minor hit, it subsequently jumped ship to Pilote – a comics magazine created and edited by Goscinny – where it was artfully refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little ratbag who had increasingly been hogging all the laughs and limelight.

Like all great storytelling, Iznogoud works on two levels: for the youngsters it’s a comedic romp with adorably wicked baddies invariably hoisted on their own petards and coming a-cropper, whilst older, wiser heads can revel in pun-filled, witty satires and marvellously accessible episodic comic capers.

This same magic formula made its more famous cousin Asterix a monolithic global success and, just like the saga of the indomitable Gaul, the irresistibly addictive Arabian Nit was originally adapted into English by master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who made those Roman Follies so very palatable to British tastes.

As always the deliciously malicious whimsy is heavily dosed with manic absurdity, cleverly contemporary cultural critiques and brilliantly delivered creative anachronisms which serve to keep the assorted escapades bizarrely fresh and hilariously inventive.

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

The retooled series launched in Pilote in 1968, and quickly became a massive European hit, with 29 albums to date (carried on by Tabary’s children StÃ©phane, 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 began scripting his own sublimely stylish tales (from the 13th album onwards), switching to book-length complete adventures, rather than the compilations of short, punchy vignettes which typified the collaborations.

Originally released in 1969, Iznogoud l’infÃ¢me was the fourth Dargaud collection and the second volume published by Methuen in 1977, and here it’s the seventh splendid Cinebook album, offering a wry and raucous quintet of short tales with the Vile Vizier on top form as he schemes to seize power from his sublimely oblivious Lord and Master.

The eternal drama begins with ‘The Sinister Liquidator’, which finds Iznogoud and his bumbling, long-suffering henchman and strong-arm crony Wa’at Alahf making their way through a malodorous swamp in search of a Djinn with the power to reduce all he touches to unliving liquid.

Enduring the evil Ifreet’s ghastly manners and painful punning, the devilish diplomat strikes a bargain which spells doom for the Caliphâ€¦ but first he has to get the demon back to the palace.

Since the Djinn cannot completely leave his fetid fluid environment and glorious bustling Baghdad is beyond the Great Desert, Iznogoud and Wa’at Alahf must Djinngerly transport their secret weapon home. Moreover, as under no circumstances can they afford to be moistened by the monster themselves, a succession of buckets, bowls, bottles and vials inexorably diminish the watery wonder and the Vile Vizier’s chances of success until – as you’d expect – the inevitable occursâ€¦

The pun-punctuated comedy of errors is followed by a sneaky dose of inspired iniquity dubbed ‘The Invisible Menace’ wherein the Vizier learns a magic spell which will banish his imperial impediment from the sight of man. Of course he still has to find and keep his target still long enough for the magic to workâ€¦

Sheer broad slapstick-riddled farce is the secret ingredient of the next craftily convoluted saga. When Iznogoud deliberately accepts a cursed gem which brings catastrophic misfortune in the expectation that he can palm it off on his unsuspecting boss, he greatly underestimates the power of ‘The Unlucky Diamond’.

As soon the ghastly gem latches on to a truly deserving victim and unleashes a succession of punitive calamities, it determines to never let goâ€¦

A state visit by an African potentate allows the Vizier plenty of time to confer with his opposite number in ‘The Magic Doll’. However the bemused Witch Doctor has no idea that his numerous demonstrations of voodoo magic with a clay figurine are Iznogoud’s dry runs for a stab at the throne.

Of course, for the sorcery to work the Vizier has to somehow obtain a lock of Haroun Al Plassid’s closely guarded and held-as-holy hairâ€¦

The manic mirth concludes with a decent into sheer surreal absurdity (granting Tabary license to ascend to M.C. Escher-like heights of graphic invention) as an itinerant magician known as ‘The Mysterious Billposter’ creates a magic advert which can transport people to an idealised paradisiacal holiday destination.

Iznogoud is far more interested in the fact that, once in, no-one can get out againâ€¦

Just for a change the plan succeeds perfectly and the blithely unaware Caliph is trapped in an inescapable, idealised extra-dimensional state. Sadly, due to his extreme eagerness, so is his not-so-faithful Vizierâ€¦

Just such witty, fast-paced hi-jinks and craftily crafted comedy set pieces have made this addictive series a household name in France where â€œIznogoudâ€ is common term for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and frequently a little lacking in height.

When first released in Britain during the late 1970s (and again in 1996 as a periodical comicbook) these tales made little impression, but certainly now this snappy, wonderfully beguiling strip has finally and deservedly found an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy Kids Of All Agesâ€¦
Original edition Â© Dargaud Editeur Paris, 1969 by Goscinny & Tabary. All rights reserved. This edition published 2011 by Cinebook Ltd.

January 2, 2015January 1, 2015

Rael: Into the Shadow of the Sun

By Colin Wilson (Acme Press/Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-87008-465-9

Colin Wilson has been a major force in world comics for decades. Born in New Zealand in 1949, he studied at Christchurch School of Art at the end of the 1960s and became a freelance illustrator. In 1977 he created his own influential fanzine Strips and in 1980 migrated to Britain, finding success and a modicum of fame at 2000AD drawing Tharg’s Future Shocks, Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper.

After two years he moved to France and created dystopic sci fi trilogy Dans l’Ombre du Soleil for publisher Glenat. The acclaimed series brought him to the attention of Jean-Michel Charlier and his idol Jean Giraud/Moebius. Soon he was illustrating one of the most popular characters in the world – La Jeunesse de Blueberry (Young Blueberry) – to universal acclaim.

Since then he’s expanded his horizons even further, working on the Star Wars franchise, WildStorm’s US revision of Battler Britton and crime thriller Point Blank (with Ed Brubaker), triumphantly returned to 2000AD, and remained a force in European comics. He’s even joined a select band of stars to have worked on Sergio Bonelli Editore’s iconic spaghetti western Tex Willer.

Back in 1988 British publisher Acme Press – in conjunction with Eclipse Books – re-translated (Wilson wrote the first album in English and had it translated into vernacular French by writer Frank Giroud) the opening book in his gripping sci fi trilogy as Rael: Into the Shadow of the Sun.

Despite its superb artwork and thrilling premise it sank without trace on the comics-boom saturated shelves of US and UK Direct Sales Stores.

Far too long overdue for a modern re-release, our story opens as a handful of hardy, human survivors scavenge on an Earth ravaged by genetic and ecological catastrophe. Their latest risky venture is a trap however and an unknowable time later leader Rael and his wary comrades awaken in an incredible new environment: clean, antiseptic, sterile and orbiting high above the broken world they were born intoâ€¦

The satellite habitat is one of three occupied when the world collapsed, but now even this technological paradise is under threat. There’s mutiny amidst the workers and even worseâ€¦

As explained by dictatorial leader Madame Steiner, The Genesis Project is the result of positive and pre-emptive action by responsible individuals answerable to no government. In only twenty years three perfect artificial worlds were constructed and subsequently saved the worthy when Earth succumbed to war and man-made disease.

Now the hardy newcomers are being given the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the project, but Steiner is not being completely candid. As the deeply suspicious Rael finds when he accidentally opens the wrong door, Chief Medical Officer Doctor William Canaris daily deals with a growing menace: a contagion inexorably ravaging the sky-dwellers which the prisoners from Earth seem immune toâ€¦

The survivors have been shanghaied for medical experimentation and, if any survive, slave labour to replace the mutineers. When they discover this and violently react the soldiery comes down hard and Rael seizes his chance to escapeâ€¦

Driven ever deeper into the bowels of the monumental construct by trigger-happy hunters, the lost and wounded fugitive eventually collapses, even as far above Canaris meticulously works his way through the prisoners, making a major medical breakthroughâ€¦

Far away, when consciousness returns Rael finds himself tended to by a strange hermit named Oliphant. The recluse evinces no interest in Steiner and her schemes or the rest of depleted humanity, but instead reveals the incredible secrets of â€œhisâ€ inner world.

Most unbelievable is the pristine natural ecosystem at its centre: a preserve of rocky peaks and verdant forests used by the upper echelons of Genesis Society as their own playground.

Moreover, although Oliphant refuses to acknowledge them either, the environment has its secret guardians: autonomous robotic Constructs which originally built the satellites and now work passively against Steiner’s rapacious practises. Befriending the outsider they reveal to Rael the shocking truth behind the planet’s collapseâ€¦

With outrage boiling through his being and all his friends slowly being expended, the rebel Earthman then charismatically convinces the robot sentinels to make a stand, leading a rebellion that might be the very last expression of human freedomâ€¦

Fast-paced, beautifully illustrated and still astoundingly timely in content, Into the Shadow of the Sun is a masterpiece of fantastic fiction which truly deserves a comprehensive new edition and another shot at the A-List of graphic entertainments.

December 29, 2014December 29, 2014

Street View

Whilst everyone else you know is risking life and limb at the post-Christmas sales (or carpal tunnel syndrome by buying online) here’s a splendid little graphic confection to add to your own shopping list.

French bande dessinÃ©e creator (Exode, Ibicus, Les Petits Ruisseaux) and filmmaker (Wandering Streams, Du goudron et des plumes) Pascal RabatÃ© was born in August 1961 in Tours. Raised in Langeais, he studied printmaking at l’Ã‰cole des Beaux-Arts d’Angers in the 1980s before he began selling comics tales in 1989.

Always experimental, his works ran against contemporary trends as he moved towards a personal kind of Expressionism. His four-volume Tolstoy graphic adaptation Ibicus garnered awards and critical acclaim and cemented his reputation amongst the leading lights of French comics.

In 2013 he crafted a novel and sublimely witty tribute to Alfred Hitchcock (specifically Rear Window) entitled FenÃªtre sur rue (MatinÃ©es), FenÃªtre sur rue (SoirÃ©es) which is now available to English speakers. To be honest there’s only a tantalising, scene-setting introductory paragraph to angliciseâ€¦ everything else is this confection is a wry witty pictorial progression of timeless pantomime and voyeuristic intrigueâ€¦

Street View (Mornings) is an â€œaccordion bookâ€: there is no spine holding individual pages together, but rather ten â€œwidescreenâ€ tableaux, run together as one continuous (neatly folded) Mise-en-scÃ¨ne scroll, depicting intimate and personal events as one morning passes on an ordinary street.

The scenario depicts two shops with upstairs apartments, a small house and a low-rise block of flats through certain times of day, with seventeen glass storefronts, doors and windows all affording sneaky peeks at folks living their lives in what they think is perfect privacy…

With the reader as silent witness, all their stories unfold before our sensation-hungry eyes: single viewpoint vignettes of frustration, love, betrayal, family crisis, outrageous humour, petty vindictiveness, idiocy, vanity, bad behaviour, drastic change and maybe even murderâ€¦

Street View (Evenings) is the flipside of the scroll, revealing for the dedicated viewer the freedom and license which grips all those isolated participants when they think themselves fully cloaked by darkness (if not drapes and curtains) â€¦

This thrilling, funny – and yes, little bit creepy – intoxicating ensemble piece is a superb example of how pure graphic storytelling can beguile, inform and entertain: transcending barriers of language and custom with slickly effective imagery and primal narrative. It’s also one hell of a damn fine read and you simply must see itâ€¦

December 24, 2014December 22, 2014

The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer: The Yellow â€œMâ€

By Edgar P. Jacobs, translated by Clarence E. Holland (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-21-2

Master storyteller Edgar P. Jacobs pitted his distinguished duo of Scientific Adventurers Captain Francis Blake and Professor Philip Mortimer against a wide variety of perils and menaces in stunning action thrillers which merged science fiction, detective mysteries and supernatural thrillers in the same timeless Ligne claire style which had done so much to make intrepid boy reporter Tintin a global sensation.

The strip debuted in Le Journal de Tintin #1 (26^th September 1946): an anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland. The new anthology was edited by HergÃ©, with his eponymous star ably supplemented by a host of new heroes and featuresâ€¦

Le Marque Jaune was the third astounding exploit of the peerless pair, originally serialised in Le Journal de Tintin from August 6^th 1953 to November 3^rd 1954, before being collected as the sixth drama-drenched album in 1956.

This moody stand-alone extravaganza is the first in the modern Cinebook sequence with the True Brits for once on home soil as they struggle to solve an eerie mystery and capture an apparently superhuman criminalâ€¦

The tale begins a few days before Christmas on a night raining cats and dogs. The guards at the Tower of London are dutifully going about their appointed tasks when a sudden power cut douses all the lights.

By the time Beefeaters and Yeomen can find alternative lighting the damage is done. The Jewel Room is ransacked, the Imperial Crown missing and the wall emblazoned with a large letter M in a bold circle of yellow chalk.

The shocking travesty is but the latest in an outrageous series of incredible crimes by someone the newspapers have taken to calling The Yellow Mâ€¦

Incensed by the latest outrage the Home Office assigns MI6 to the case and their top man Blake is seconded to assist Chief Inspector Glenn Kendall of Scotland Yard. So serious is the matter that Blake instantly cables his old comrade Professor Mortimer, dragging the bellicose boffin back from a well-deserved vacation in Scotland.

London is ablaze with rumour and speculation about the super-bandit. The old warhorses adjourn to the Centaur Club in Piccadilly to discuss events but as they settle in for a chinwag, Mortimer gets a fleeting impression that they are being spied uponâ€¦

Suddenly they are interrupted by four fellow members also hotly debating the case. Sir Hugh Calvin is a judge at the Central Criminal Court; Leslie Macomber edits the Daily Mail and Professor Robert Vernay is a prominent figure in the British Medical Association and they all are hotly disputing Dr Jonathan Septimus – of the Psychiatric Institute – who propounds a theory that the phantom felon is a prime example of his pet theory of â€œThe Evil Influence of Cellular Developmentâ€â€¦

The enlarged group continues the verbal back-and-forth into the small hours and when they finally break up Vernay follows his habit of walking home. He does not make it. The police find only his hat and a chalked letter in a circleâ€¦

The flamboyant rogue seems to be everywhere. When Blake and Mortimer interview Macomber, Calvin and the terrified Septimus next day, the invisible enigma somehow gets close enough to leave his mark on the MI6 officer’s coat, before sending a mocking cable warning the Mail’s Editor that more and worse is comingâ€¦

That night Macomber is abducted from his office in plain view of his staff and Kendall is found in a dazed state after failing to protect Judge Calvin from a mystery intruderâ€¦

Septimus concludes that he is next and convinces Blake to get him out of London. The pair board a train for Suffolk with a complement of detectives but even these precautions are not enough. The psychiatrist is impossibly plucked from the Express before it is wrecked in a horrific collision with another train.

In London, cerebral Mortimer has been researching another angle with the assistance of Daily Mail archivist Mr. Stone and has found a decades-old link between the missing menâ€¦

It all revolves around a controversial medical text entitled â€œThe Mega Waveâ€ and a scandalous court case, but when the Professor tries to secure a copy of the incredibly rare volume from the British Museum Library he is confounded by the Yellow M who invisibly purloins the last known copy in existenceâ€¦

That evening he shares his thoughts with the returned Blake, unaware that his house has been bugged. Hours later a mysterious cloaked intruder breaks in but has a fit after passing some of Mortimer’s Egyptian souvenirs. The noise arouses the household and the masked burglar is confronted by Blake, Mortimer and burly manservant Nasir.

Incredibly the villain defeats them all with incredible strength and electrical shocks, even shrugging off bullets when they shoot himâ€¦

Exploding through a second story window the M laughs maniacally as they continue futilely firing before running off into the London night. In their shock the adventurers return to the drawing room and trip over the intruder’s listening devicesâ€¦

Later the recovered Kendall visits just as a package arrives. It contains an anonymous note from someone wishing to share information and directs Blake to a late night rendezvous at Limehouse Dock. The message also contains a desperate note from the missing Septimus begging Blake to complyâ€¦

Well aware that it’s a trap and over Mortimer’s strenuous protests, Blake and Kendall lay plans to turn the meeting to their advantage. Left at home the Professor is surprised by a late visit from Stone. The remarkably efficient researcher has found a copy of The Mega Wave and rushed over to show Mortimer.

As Blake manfully braves the foggy waterfront and walks into deadly danger Mortimer is reading the tome, deducing who is behind the plot and perhaps even how the malign miracles are pulled offâ€¦

In Limehouse the empty commercial buildings become a spectacular battleground as Blake and the police confront the masked man who easily holds them all at bay with incredible feats of speed and strength, before breaking out of the supposedly impenetrable blue cordon and escaping.

In his destructive flight he tumbles into the frantic Mortimer who is dashing in to warn his old friend. Changing tack, the boffin gives chase, doggedly following the superhuman enigma through parks and sewers until he finds himself in a hidden basement laboratory being assaulted by mind-control devices devised by the sinister mastermind actually behind the entire campaign of vengeance and terrorâ€¦

As the smirking villain gives an exultant speech of explanation, triumph and justification, Mortimer sees the fate of the abducted men and meets the human guinea pig who has been terrorising London at the behest of a madman. It is the very last person he ever expected to see again, but as he reels in shock Blake and Kendall are on his trail, thanks to the efforts of an avaricious cabbie with a good memory for facesâ€¦

As Christmas Day dawns Blake and Kendall lead a raid on the hidden citadel to rescue Mortimer, but the wily savant has already taken dramatic steps to secure his own release and defeat his insane, implacable opponent…

Fast-paced, action-packed, wry and magnificently eerie, this fabulously retro thriller is an intoxicating moody mystery and a sheer delight for lovers of fantastic fiction. Blake & Mortimer are the graphic personification of the Bulldog Spirit and worthy successors to the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Allan Quatermain, Professor Challenger, Richard Hannay and all the other valiant stalwarts of lost Albionâ€¦

In 1986 this story was reformatted and repackaged in a super-sized English translation, the last of six volumes with additional material (mostly covers from the weekly Tintin added to the story as splash pages) as part of a European push to win some of the lucrative Tintin and Asterix market here, but failed to find an audience. There were no more translations until January 2007 when Cinebook released this tome to far greater approval and much successâ€¦

Gripping and fantastic in the truest tradition of pulp sci-fi and Boy’s Own Adventures, Blake and Mortimer are the very epitome of dogged heroic determination; always delivering grand, old-fashioned Blood-&-Thunder thrills and spills in timeless fashion and with astonishing visual punch. Any kid able to suspend modern mores and cultural disbelief (call it alternate earth history or bakelite-punk if you want) will experience the adventure of their livesâ€¦ and so will their children.

This Cinebook edition also includes a selection of colour cover sketches and roughs plus a biographical feature and chronological publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.
Original editions Â© Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) 1987 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2007 Cinebook Ltd.

December 23, 2014December 22, 2014

Moomin: the Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip volume 5

By Tove and Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-89729-994-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Moomins Aren’t Just For Christmas, But For Lifeâ€¦ 10/10

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20^th century: equally adept at shaping words and images to create worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components such as 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) she 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: SmÃ¥trollen och den stora Ã¶versvÃ¤mningen (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 friendsâ€¦

A youthful 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, and had 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 â€œSnorkâ€ 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 â€œMoominâ€ 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 didn’t make much of an initial impact 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 Armageddon.

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 undergÃ¤ng – 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. The three strips in this volume were all scripted by Lars and illustrated by his sister.

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.

Tove Jansson died on June 27^th 2001 and 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?

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

Moomintrolls are easygoing free spirits, bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores and societal pressures. Moominmama is warm and capable but overly concerned with propriety and appearances whilst Moominpappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys. Their son Moomin is a meek and dreamy boy who adores their permanent guest Snorkmaiden – although that impressionable gamin prefers to play things slowly whilst waiting for somebody potentially betterâ€¦

This fifth oversized (312 x 222mm) monochrome hardback compilation gathers the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st strip sagas and is a particular favourite, comprising a trio of epic length sequences commencing with ‘Moomin Winter’ as the worst snow season in living memory begins and the nonconformist family decide that this year they will return to traditional ways and hibernate as proper Moomintrolls shouldâ€¦

However happenstance and their own magnanimous natures work against them as other locals – less prepared for the winter’s icy blasts – keep turning up seeking succour, solace and shelter. Naturally no decent creature could turn away neighbours – or even complete strangers – in needâ€¦

First it’s timid Miss Fluffins nervously tapping on the door then a little later the quirkily obnoxious Gromf imposing himself upon them, but the truly disruptive influence only arrives after a most odd Christmas when the snow lies metres deep around the house. Delivered through an upstairs window by the indefatigable parcel post is a box containing a baby Niblingâ€¦

Abandoning all hope of a successful hibernation, the Moomins become unwilling but polite hosts to them all although, as Niblings are such legendary troublemakers, it’s understandable that Moominmama first goes on a heroic expedition to all the neighbours, striving to find a suitable home (i.e. somebody else’s) for the little miteâ€¦

She even briefly considers the draconian local orphanage before relenting and returning home with the nosy, chaos-causing little critterâ€¦

As well as having voracious eating habits, the Nibling is less than welcome for its incessant curiosity and stunningly forthright rudeness. As the snowbound days pass the inquisitive meddler sniffs out every shameful secret of the household from Fluffins’ strangely masculine habits to Snorkmaiden’s binge eating, young Moomintroll’s aspirations to thespianism or the fearsome Gromf’s addiction to knitting doiliesâ€¦

These secrets and others it uses to virtually run the house. Moominpapa retires to his study to reminisce and read the papers whilst his long-suffering wife resorts to the thankless tasks of housework to keep busy. Eventually however, as the months go by the Moomins decide it’s time for drastic action and try to starve all their increasingly unwelcome guests outâ€¦

Sadly, as ever, the hosts are too gracious and well-mannered to persist for long and soon the boy troll and incessant Nibling are skiing through the winter wilderness hunting grizzly and moose for the larder. A little later, things come to a comical head when the assemblage decides to share all their secret peccadilloes thus depriving the mischievous Nibling of its powerâ€¦

This comedy of manners is followed by a boisterously sedate and surreal adventure as ‘Moomin Under Sail’ finds Moominpapa and family joining neighbour Too-Tikki (the eminently practical and capable lady was based on Jansson’s life partner, graphic artist Tuulikki PietilÃ¤, and first appeared in the novel Moominland Midwinter) in building a wooden sailing ship and going voyagingâ€¦

The construction is well underway, with everyone contributing in their own unique way, when a wandering poet appears and names the vessel â€œMermaidâ€ – which rash Moomin misspells as â€œMurmadeâ€ when painting the hull – before moving on, and all too soon the travellers are underwayâ€¦

At least they would be if they hadn’t built their boat on a hill and now can’t shift it. Fortunately Too-Tikki knows a rather irascible but polite giant Booble named Mr. Edward who she can convince to move the river for themâ€¦

And in a roar of waters they are off, hurtling out to sea in search of wonder, mystery and romance. It comes all too soon as food and whisky starts to vanish and â€“ at least for the ever-imaginative Snorkmaiden â€“ passion is found when the terrified shipmates discover that the beguiling, advantage-taking poet has stowed awayâ€¦

Young Moomin is less than sanguine that his one and only has become besotted with the unscrupulous scribbler and is secretly delighted when a school of seagoing wild Niblings board the vessel and eat all his odesâ€¦

None too soon they depart, taking the poet with them whilst leaving one of their cubs behind. The rapacious tyke is rather sweet but has a disturbing taste for paper and leather goodsâ€¦

Things begin to go further awry as the babe eats all the charts so Too-Tikki captures some clouds for the child to chew, accidentally precipitating a colossal hurricane which rips their sails away. Happily the clouds make a suitable substitute. There’s even some left to give to Mr. Edward when the aggrieved Booble suddenly shows upâ€¦

Sighting land the Moomins and Co go ashore to re-supply and hear worrying stories of a pirate marauder dubbed the â€œBloody Maryâ€ before heading back out to sea and encountering a Marie Celeste-like conundrum and inevitable encountering the dread privateers.

Imagine the surprise of the Murmade mariners when they discover the wild freebooters are in fact old acquaintancesâ€¦

This amazing, enchanting collection concludes with a salutary tale of unrequited love as Moomin makes a new friend and becomes involved with ‘Fuddler’s Courtship’. The meek and rather scruffy young man is a collector of many things – but most especially buttons – and reveals to his new chum that he is hopelessly in love with quirky, overly romantic and lonely Mymbleâ€¦

Despite their misgivings over the clear mismatch, Moomin and Snorkmaiden attempt to facilitate affairs but the target of the Fuddler’s affections is currently enamoured of a dynamic strongman. Although she’s prepared to give any new suitor a chance, his clumsiness, diffidence, messiness and collecting habits soon drive Mymble back to her photos of the oblivious Sebastianâ€¦

With his confidence crushed Fuddler retreats to his coffee-can home to be depressed, provoking Moomin and Snorkmaiden to call in newspaper psychiatrist Dr. Hatter. It is a terrible mistakeâ€¦

The Shrink is a mass of complexes and neuroses and soon he has infected almost everybody with one of his problems. Moreover Mymble finds the tortured â€œgeniusâ€ utterly fascinating.

Moomin then tries everything – even a helpful ghost – to drive Hatter away, but only succeeds in having his entire family locked up. Happily the Fuddler has a collection of keys and other cage-opening gimmicks amongst his copious possessionsâ€¦

The course of true love continues to run anything but smoothly for all concerned until one night the Fuddler meets a sweet, confused and messily charming collector of shells and stones. Her name is The Jumbleâ€¦

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 carbon-based lifeform with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without them.
Â© 2010, 2014 Solo/Bulls. All other material Â© its creators. All rights reserved.

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