Category: European Classics

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Moomin volume 6: The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip


By Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-042-3 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-553-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Enchanting Entertainment… 9/10

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

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

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

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

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove had worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm: achieving some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of European leaders in the build-up to WWII. 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 “Snork” and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument with her brother about Immanuel Kant.

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

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 second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators have reckoned the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can…

When it and third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or occasionally The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952 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. Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that towards the end she recruited brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975. His tenure as sole creator officially starts here…

Liberated from the strip’s pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other creative pursuits: generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and 9 more Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

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

Lars Fredrik Jansson (October 8th 1926 – July 31st 2000) was just as amazing as his sister. Born into that astounding clan twelve years after Tove, at 16 he started writing – and selling – his novels (nine in total). He also taught himself English because there weren’t enough Swedish-language translations of books available for his voracious reading appetite.

In 1956, he began co-scripting the Moomin newspaper strip at his sister’s request: injecting his own brand of witty whimsicality to ‘Moomin Goes Wild West’. He had been Tove’s translator from the start, seamlessly converting her Swedish text into English. When her contract with The London Evening News expired in 1959, Lars Jansson officially took over the feature, having spent the interim period learning to draw and perfectly mimic his sister’s cartooning style. He had done so in secret, with the assistance and tutelage of their mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson, and from 1961 to the strip’s end in 1974 was sole steersman of the newspaper iteration of trollish tails.

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

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

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

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

The 6th oversized (310 x 221 mm) monochrome hardback compilation gathers serial strip sagas #22-25 and is a particular favourite, and opens with Lars firmly in charge and puckishly re-exploring human frailties and foibles via a beloved old plot after a seaside excursion with the Snorkmaiden unearths ‘Moomin’s Lamp’…

Of course, the ancient artefact comes with its own rather lazy and inept genie, and when the glamour-crazed Snorkmaiden foolishly wishes for a diamond diadem despite her beau’s best advice, it triggers a bold theft and a great deal of difficulties with the local constabulary…

Soon, fugitives from the law and justice – definitely two different things here – the young malefactors have compromised the honour of overprotective Moominpapa and gone off to hide in the leafy wooded “Badlands” of Moomin Valley, enduring privation on the run until scurrilous reprobate Stinky “nobly” takes the offending lamp off their hands…

The perils of unrelenting progress and growth then manifest in ‘Moomin and the Railway’ when a bunch of burly but affable and unflappable workmen begin laying railroad tracks through the unspoiled beauty of Moomin Valley. Enraged and outraged, our young hero begins a campaign of resistance that includes persuasion, intimidation and even sabotage. Sadly, many of his initial allies turn at the prospect of increased ease, newfound affluence and plain old indifference, before incorrigible rebel Snufkin takes a hand and salvation suddenly comes in a strange form with the valley saved yet changed forever…

Contemporary Cold War concerns are then lampooned when the patriarch meets up with old school chum in ‘Moominpapa and the Spies’. Lost in a nostalgic haze with old crony Wimsy and hankering to recapture the wild and free, glory days of youth, the happy fantasist embarks on a misguided spree bound to disappoint and stumbles into an actual spy plot involving the worst operatives in the world. Ultimately Moominpapa is shanghaied and lost at sea before regaining his equilibrium and heading home again…

The weird wonderments conclude for now with another wry retort to fads and fashions as ‘Moomin and the Circus’ sees the Finn Family of trolls forced into vegetarianism when animal conservation captivates the entire valley. When Moominpapa is – most reluctantly – elected leader of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, he resolves to lead by example, and his edicts quickly show up the hypocrisy of the fashion-conscious elite who pressganged him. Everybody gets an even more urgent chance to rethink their priorities and intentions after the SPCA forces the closure of a travelling show and then has to deal with the consequences: homing the Lions, horses, elephant, ostrich, monkeys, parrots, and sea-lions who were only really happy in show biz…

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

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

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A Spirou & Fantasio Adventure: Volume 19 – The Visitor from the Mesozoic


By André Franquin with Greg & Jidéhem, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-066-1 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Marvellous Monster Madness… 9/10

Spirou (whose name translates as “squirrel”, “mischievous” and “lively kid” in the language of Walloons) was created by French cartoonist François Robert Velter – AKA Rob-Vel – for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis. He was a measured response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman. At first, Spirou (with his pet squirrel Spip) was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (an in-joke reference to Dupuis’ premier periodical Le Moustique) whose improbable adventures gradually evolved into astounding and often surreal comedy dramas.

The other red-headed lad debuted on April 21st 1938 in an 8-page, French-language tabloid magazine that bears his name to this day. Fronting a roster of new and licensed foreign strips – Fernand Dineur’s Les Aventures de Tif (latterly Tif et Tondu) and US newspaper imports Red Ryder, Brick Bradford and Superman – Le Journal de Spirou grew exponentially: adding Flemish edition Robbedoes on October 27th 1938, bumping up the page count and adding compelling action, fantasy and comedy features until it was an unassailable, unmissable necessity for Continental kids.

Spirou and chums spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with many impressive creators building on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin, who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over.

In 1946, Jijé’s assistant André Franquin inherited the strip. Gradually, he retired traditional short gag-like vignettes in favour of longer adventure serials; introducing a wide and engaging cast of regulars. He ultimately devised a phenomenally popular nigh-magical animal dubbed Marsupilami, who debuted in 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers.

Jean-Claude Fournier succeeded Franquin in 1969 and working for a decade: beginning a succession of reinventions by creator teams that included Raoul Cauvin & Nic Broca; Yves Chaland; and Philippe Vandevelde – writing as “Tome” – & artist Jean-Richard Geurts – AKA Janry.

These last reverently referenced the beloved, revered Franquin era: reviving the feature’s fortunes in 14 albums between 1984-1998. After their departure the strip diversified into parallel strands: Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By… before Lewis Trondheim and the teams of Jean-Davide Morvan/Jose-Luis Munuera and Fabien Vehlmann/Yoann stepped up.

By my count – which includes specials, spin-offs series and one-shots – they cumulatively bring the album count to upwards of 90, but for many of us the Franquin sagas are the epitome and acme of the Spirou experience…

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since October 2009, initially concentrating on translating Tome & Janry’s superb pastiche/homages of Franquin, but for this manic marvel (available in paperback and digitally) they reached back all the way to 1960 for some true Franquin-formulated furore.

Belgian superstar André Franquin was born in Etterbeek on January 3rd 1924. Drawing from an early age, he began formal art training at École Saint-Luc in 1943 but when the war forced the school’s closure a year later, Franquin found animation work at Compagnie Belge d’Animation in Brussels. Here he met Maurice de Bevere (Lucky Luke-creator “Morris”), Pierre Culliford (AKA The Smurfs creator Peyo), and Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Luc Orient).

In 1945 all but Culliford signed on with Dupuis, and Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist/illustrator, crafting covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu. Throughout those days, Franquin and Morris were being trained by Jijé – at that time main illustrator at Le Journal de Spirou. He turned the youngsters and fellow neophyte Willy Maltaite – AKA Will (Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, Le jardin des désirs) – into a perfect creative bullpen known as the La bande des quatre or “Gang of Four”. They would revolutionise Belgian comics with their prolific and engaging “Marcinelle school” style of graphic storytelling.

Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the flagship strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriquée, (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946. He ran with it for two decades, enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters like comrade/rival Fantasio and crackpot inventor the Count of Champignac. Along the way Spirou & Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, endlessly expanding their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory.

The heroes travelled to exotic places, uncovering crimes, finding the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies like Zorglub and Zantafio, as well as one of the first strong female characters in European comics, rival journalist Seccotine (renamed Cellophine in the current English translation).

In a splendid example of good practise, Franquin mentored his own band of apprentice cartoonists during the 1950s. These included Jean Roba (La Ribambelle, Boule et Bill), Jidéhem (Sophie, Ginger, Starter, Uhu-Man, Gaston Lagaffe) and Greg author of Luc Orient, Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince, Achille Talon, and Zig et Puce who all worked with him on Spirou et Fantasio.

In 1955, a contractual spat with Dupuis saw Franquin sign with rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin, collaborating with René Goscinny and Peyo whilst creating the raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. Within weeks Franquin patched things up with Dupuis and returned to Spirou, subsequently co-creating Gaston Lagaffe (known in Britain as Gomer Goof), but was obliged to carry on his Casterman commitments too…

From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted Franquin, but by 1969 the artist had reached his Spirou limit. He quit, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

His later creations include fantasy series Isabelle, illustration sequence Monsters and bleak adult conceptual series Idées Noires, but his greatest creation – and one he retained all rights to on his departure – is Marsupilami, which, in addition to comics tales, has become a star of screen, plush toy store, console and albums.

Plagued in later life by bouts of depression, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped the landscape of European comics.

Originally entitled Le voyageur du Mésozoïque and brought to you here as The Visitor from the Mesozoic this album combines a long tail (sorry couldn’t resist!) plus another, shorter adventure by the master crafted in collaboration with co-writer Greg (alias Michel Régnier) and artist Jidéhem – AKA Jean De Mesmaeker. The lead romp comes from 1957 having originated as a serial in Le Journal de Spirou #992-1018 and clearly and cleverly channelling that time’s penchant for rampaging, city-stomping giant monsters…

It begins in the Antarctic as the mushroom-mad Count de Champignac is rescued – much against his will – from his own experiments and frozen doom and brought back to France. He has with him a dinosaur egg that has been frozen for millions of years…

Getting the fragile, precious miracle back to his lab in bucolic Champignac-on-the-Sticks takes all the ingenuity and determination his pals Spirou and Fantasio can muster, but after much fuss and fluster the primordial ovum is stashed in the genius’ workshop and slowly thawing under the gimlet eyes of a handpicked team of fellow mad scientists including Doctors Nero, Schwartz, atomic pariah Sprtschk and Alexandre Specimen – “the Biologist”…

Their bumbling patience is tested to its limits when the mischievous Marsupilami becomes obsessed with the new ball toy and perhaps it’s his terrifying antics that finally force it to hatch…

Everyone is delighted when the mega-million-year-old herbivore pops out, but science is never patient and the bonkers boffins imprudently goose along its development with a little growth formula and aging extracts. Sadly, so does the Marsupilami and when everybody wakes up in the morning they’re greeted by a genial skyscraper saurian with a huge empty belly and a very bad cold…

Soon the big daft brute is shambling through the hamlet looking for browse and causing quite a commotion. The villagers might be used to weird happenings but the government respond with predictable hostility: sending in a tank column and a flight of warplanes…

They prove inefficient and quite ineffective, but the story also generates a wave of controversy. Stridently vocal, violently different pressure groups form: some wanting to save the poor endangered creature and others seeking to preserve the precious landmarks and monuments the beast is trampling. There’s even one guy who wants to make the dinosaur the latest taste sensation in his canned meat factory…

With chaos rampant Spirou looks for a solution to help the creature and finds one, but it depends on manoeuvring the monster to a certain isolated promontory. Thankfully, the Marsupilami has lost patience with his old toy and is ready to step in and step up…

Manic and wildly slapstick in tone and delivery, the story of the big beast is both charming and wickedly satirical and offers a happy ending films like Godzilla, Konga and Gorgo could never have imagined…

The rampaging silliness is counterbalanced by an equally funny but far more sinister pastiche also set in the wild world of the Merlin of Mushrooms. Back-up yarn ‘Fear on the Line’ stems from 1959, serialised as ‘La Peur au bout du fil’ in LJS #1086-1092. Notable for the first crossover appearance of comedy sluggard Gaston Lagaffe, the story details how Champignac distils the chemical essence of evil and accidentally drinks it instead of his coffee. Warned too late, Spirou and Fantasio must chase the now wicked prankster as he wreaks havoc in the village and plants bombs filled with his chemical concoctions. Happily, The Biologist is on hand to offer advice as the clock counts down to doom and our heroes give chase, but in the end it’s the Marsupilami who solves the crisis in his own bombastic manner…

The Visitor from the Mesozoic is the kind of lightly-barbed comedy-thriller that delights readers fed up with a marketplace far too full of adults-only carnage, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters or sickly-sweet fantasy.

Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductive yet wholesome élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke, and Iznogoud so compelling, this is a truly enduring landmark tale from a long line of superb exploits, and deserves to be a household name as much as those series – and even that other kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1960 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer volume 11: The Gondwana Shrine


By Yves Sente & André Juillard, coloured by Madeleine DeMille & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-094-8 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Blockbuster Thrills No Movie Can Match… 9/10

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

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

Blake and Mortimer are the graphic personification of Britain’s sadly lost and blighted Bulldog Spirit: and worthy spiritual successors to Sherlock Holmes, Allan Quatermain, Professor Challenger, Richard Hannay and all the other intrinsically decent stalwarts of lost Albion and valiant champions with direct connections to and allegiance beyond shallow national boundaries…

Following decades of fantastic exploits, the series apparently ended with the 11th album. The gripping contemporary adventure had been serialised between September 1971 and May 1972 in LJdT, but after Les trois Formules du professeur Sato: Mortimer à Tokyo was completed, Jacobs abandoned his story due to failing health and personal issues.

Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs died on February 20th 1987, having never returned to the extended adventure. Concluding volume Les trois Formules du professeur Sato: Mortimer contre Mortimer was only released in March 1990, after the Jacobs family and estate commissioned veteran cartoonist Bob de Moor to complete the tale from the originator’s pencils and notes.

The long-postponed release led to re-release of the earlier volumes, and was followed in 1996 by new adventures from two separate creative teams hired by the Jacobs Studio who would henceforth produce complete books rather than weekly serials.

The first was L’affaire Francis Blake by Jean Van Hamme & Thierry “Ted” Benoit which settled itself into a comfortably defined, familiar 1950s scenario for a rousing tale of espionage and double-dealing. Controversially, it omitted the elements of futuristic fiction and fringe science which had characterised Jacobs’ tales and focused on the suave MI5 officer rather than bombastic, belligerent boffin and inveterate scene-stealer Mortimer…

The same was broadly true for the follow-up release, published in 1999, although references to the space race and alien infestation did much to restore those fantasy credentials in Yves (XIII, Le Janitor, Thorgal) Sente & André (Bohémond de Saint-Gilles, Masquerouge, Arno, Mezek) Juillard’s La machination Voronov.

The latter team eventually won the plum job of detailing the early days and origins of the lads in Les Sarcophages du 6e Continent, Tome 1: La Menace universelle and Les Sarcophages du 6e Continent, Tome 2: Le Duel des Esprits. The albums were the 16th and 17th published exploits of the peerless pair: a boldly byzantine epic spanning decades and stretching from India under the Raj to Cold War Europe and deep beneath Antarctic ice…

The tale revealed how Blake and Mortimer first met in India before WWII: introducing Philip Angus Mortimer, his tragic first love and diabolical maniac scientist Emperor Ashoka before jumping to 1958 when the resurrected villain’s incredible technology and Soviet subversion threatened the entire world…

Battling the menace, Mortimer clashed again with despised arch nemesis Olrik who had become a crucial but unwilling tool in Ashoka’s scheme. Olrik’s previous susceptibility to the telecephalscope of Professor Septimus (see The Yellow M) made him an ideal candidate for Ashoka’s ultimate weapon: a system capable of turning cerebral energy into planet-spanning power affecting electrical devices, heavy machinery and solid objects with tremendous force.

In the final accounting, as a secret Antarctic base collapsed around them, the bitter foes abandoned their bodies to fight as pure unleashed mental entities in the planet’s ether, before being restored to their mortal frames as everything fell apart and Gondwana Base vanished in a welter of fire and ice.

Mortimer was evacuated with moments to spare, leaving the enemy to his well-deserved fate…

Released in 2008 but chronologically occurring some months after Mortimer was rescued from the ice and Ashoka’s mind machines, Le sanctuaire du Gondwana opens in drought-parched Africa as German scholar Professor Ulrich Heidegang explores the Ngorongoro crater and discovers something truly beyond comprehension. He barely escapes with his life but his sanity is shattered. Nevertheless, he presents to the global media an artefact that will forever change the history of humanity…

Months later in London, Professor Mortimer is still being treated by Dr. Mark Levy for the aftereffects of his out-of-body experience. Suffering headaches, vision problems, mood swings, and still partially amnesiac, he’s slowly rebuilding his life and relationships with the aid of captain Francis Percy Blake – who has returned to his job with MI5 – and other close friends.

Especially helpful in recovering his old life is Mortimer’s assistant Nastasia Wardinska and landlady/housekeeper Mrs Benson but the doctor still won’t allow him to return to work…

Nastasia is particularly keen to resume research. When the Antarctic citadel was destroyed, volcanic action unearthed manufactured artefacts that have since been determined as being over 350 million years old and constructed of a currently-impossible amalgam of diamond-sheathed gold!

After consulting with Blake and the copious notes for his long-delayed and postponed memoires, Mortimer opts to use his enforced leisure time to solve the mystery. Blake and old colleague Labrousse are already investigating the Antarctic site, so the Professor plans an oblique approach…

Using current geological theory and recent reports collated by archivist Mr Stone of the Daily Mail as the basis of his research, the Prof will explore another region of the world that was connected to Antarctica 350 million years ago. Rather callously rekindling an old romance with celebrated ethnologist and archaeologist Sarah Summertown, he then leads a small team to the Olduvai Gorge in Africa, which Stone’s incredible memory has pinpointed as the source of an amazing scoop: an ancient artefact with markings of diamond and gold…

None of the enthralled explorers are aware that all their efforts are being closely monitored and steered by a mysterious stranger…

Soon all the preliminaries are done and Mortimer’s team are interviewing Heidegang in his hospital room in Nairobi. The explorer has been driven mad by his experiences: hearing voices and talking of Lycaon beast-men and pre-human civilisations on a single supercontinent. He does, however, reveal the location of his find…

Whilst the searchers set out for the Ngorongoro crater, the story shifts to the mysterious stalker, who is revealed as the presumed-dead Olrik. Stalking the party, he organises a deadly squad of ne’er-do-wells, surveilling their spectacularly eventful safari as it endures incredible hardships and tragedy and striking just as they make contact with the hidden remnants of an immortal super-race who claim to be the Guardians of Gondwana…

The story then shifts into turbulent top gear as many disparate plot-strands stunningly converge and a single shocking revelation discloses the true history and ownership of Earth whilst exposing one of the heroes as anything but…

It all leads to a ruthless resumption of the duel between Olrik and Mortimer and the staggering intervention of Earth’s unseen overlords, who remove the annoyances and leave them to sort out their immediate issues elsewhere…

Binding many vivid facets of the heroes’ prestigious past exploits and achievements into a vibrant sci fi romp, this epic extravaganza blends antediluvian mystery with a savage vendetta to create a rousing quest yarn that delight fans of many genres.

These Cinebook editions also include previews and tasty teaser excerpts for other albums – Atlantis Mystery by Jacobs, and Sente & Juillard’s The Voronov Plot – plus a biographical feature and chronological publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.

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; never failing to deliver grand, old-fashioned thrills and spills in timeless fashion and with astonishing visual punch.
Original edition © Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard S.A.) 2008, by André Juillard & by Yves Sente. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011 Cinebook Ltd.

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Iznogoud’s Nightmares


By Goscinny & Tabary translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-360-4 (Album PB)

For the greater part of his too-short lifetime (1926-1977) René Goscinny was one of – if not 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 sand…

Scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to those hotly contested deserts when Goscinny teamed with sublimely gifted Swedish émigré 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…

According to the Foreword in this very special collection, the very notion of the series came from a throwaway moment in Les Vacances du Petit Nicolas, but – once it was fully formed and independent – Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created to join the roster in Record, with the first episode appearing in the January 15th 1962 issue. An assured if relatively minor hit, the strip jumped ship to Pilote – a comics periodical 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 multiple levels: for 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. Just like our Parliament today. That latter aspect is investigated in this collection of short episodes…

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. Always the deliciously malicious whimsy was 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. However, like so many comics inventions, the series grew beyond its boundaries and this volume re-presents a sidebar series that began as a s statement and grew into a separate second career for the vindictive viper…

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 – “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!”…

The retooled series launched in Pilote in 1968, quickly growing into a massive European hit, with 31 albums to date (carried on by Tabary’s children Stéphane, Muriel & Nicolas after his passing in 2011); his own solo comic; a computer game; animated film, TV cartoon show and a live-action movie.

When Goscinny died in 1977, Tabary started scripting his own sublimely stylish tales (from the 13th album onwards), gradually switching to book-length complete adventures, rather than the compilations of short, punchy vignettes which typified the collaborations.

In October, 1974, whilst the shifty shenanigans were unfolding to the delight of kids, its sandy-struck star began moonlighting: pulling double duty as a commentator and critic of real-world politics and social issues in a French newspaper. Some of the best and least dated have been resurrected here.

Published in 1979 by Editions de la Séguinière, Les Cauchemars d’Iznogoud was the 14th collection, gathering material from Le Journal du Dimanche and appears here with the usual introductory page of key characters plus an annotated text section offering political clarity and historical context. Each entry is presented as a short strip highlighting a contemporary issues seen through the wry lens of a Vile Vizier, offering a wry and raucous roster of advisory lectures with the sagacious schemer pausing his campaign to seize power from his oddly oblivious Lord and Master in favour of blessing all us proles with his wisdom and ruling acumen.

Deftly detailing how to deal with labour disputes, union demands, social unrest, unruly clergymen, domestic and foreign policy, the environment, cost-of-living crises, energy security, sporting links with pariah states, diversity, sectarianism and segregationism, and so much more, here the Caliph-in-waiting explains how to maintain a popularity and power in ancient but oh-so-contemporary Baghdad as well as the modern world…

Trust me, it’s far funnier than I’ve made it sound and all the usual magic and madness is apparent as the Vizier asks and answers questions posits potential policy in ‘If I were Minister of Labour…’, ‘If I were Minister of Energy…’ or ‘…Waste Management…’, ‘…the Interior…’, ‘…the Army…’, ‘…of Students…’, ‘…of Police…’, ‘ … the Anti-Gang Unit…’, ‘…of Negotiators…’, ‘…of Censorship…’, ‘…of the Economy…’ ‘…of Industry…’, and ‘If I were President of the Judges Union…’

Many strips are general in nature rather than addressing a specific “hot topic”, but still deliver hilariously acerbic and excoriating satirical points in bulletins like ‘If I were a Carpet Seller…’, ‘If I were Minister of Wishes…’, ‘If I dined with ordinary people…’, ‘If I were Minister of Divorce…’, ‘If I were Minister of Quality of Life…’, ‘If I spoke officialese…’ ‘ ‘If I were Minister of Compromise…’, ‘If I were Minister of Holes…’, ‘If I were Minister of Tolls…’, ‘If I were Minister of Prison Guards…’, ‘If I were the usurper…’, ‘If I were Minister of Freezing…’, ‘If I were going on holiday…’ (a popular a pressing duty of Prime ministers everywhere and one our own British bosses are world leaders in), as well as ‘If I were Secretary of Non-Smoking…’ and ‘If I were a UN Delegate…’

There is even a particularly scary sub-strand of episodes pondering – with menaces – ‘If I were your Caliph/King/Inheritor/Guess What?’…

What’s truly daunting and trenchant is just how many of these strips are still painfully relevant right now, with the darker side of sport, white & greenwashing, nepotism, cronyism and even sexual politics all poked with a very sharp stick (which is, coincidentally, my suggested solution for dealing with our 21st century ruling rascals and feather-bedding incompetents) in tales such as If I were Minister of Labour…’, ‘ ‘…of Racing…’, ‘…of Football…’, or even ‘If I were the one in charge of their “happiness”…’, If I were the Impaler…’, If I were on an official visit…’ and ‘If I were Minister of Ladies of the Night…’

Although the farcical eternal battle with his own hereditary superior is surrendered to the exigencies of a topical tone, the cast of regulars and legendary locales are still happily extant here with bumbling, long-suffering henchman and strong-arm crony Wa’at Alahf’ acting as sounding board and straight man and Caliph Haroun al Plassid acting as the oblivious powers that be in a panoply of short, sharp shockers blending un-realpolitik with world weary cynicism in a pun-punctuated comedy of errors, riddled with broad slapstick and craftily convoluted conniving…

Just such witty, fast-paced hi-jinks and craftily crafted comedy set pieces have made this addictive series a household name in France where “Iznogoud” is now an acceptable general term for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous, sans-gravitas and frequently a little short in the height department…

When first released in Britain during the late 1970s (and again in 1996) these tales made little impression, but certainly in today’s fervid climate of fustercluckery, these brisk and brutal, wonderfully beguiling strips have found an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy Kids Of All Ages…

…And journalists and Hansard, and Polit-Wonks, and dictators and…
Original edition © 2012 IMAV éditions by Goscinny & Tabary. All rights reserved. English translation 2017 Cinebook Ltd.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 18: Attack of the Zordolts


By Yoann & Vehlmann, designed by Fred Blanchard, colored by Hubert & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-022-7 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Manic Mirth and Mad Melodrama… 9/10

Spirou (which translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language) was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman.

Soon-to-be legendary weekly comic Le Journal de Spirou launched on April 21st 1938 with a rival red-headed lad as lead feature in an anthology which bears his name to this day. The eponymous hero was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed in the Moustique Hotel – a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique. His improbable adventures with pet squirrel Spip gradually evolved into far-reaching, surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his chums have spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with a phalanx of truly impressive creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was assisted by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm.

In 1946, his assistant André Franquin assumed the creative reins, gradually ditching the well-seasoned short gag vignettes in favour of epic adventure serials. He also expanded the cast, introducing a broad band of engaging regulars and eventually creating phenomenally popular magic animal Marsupilami.

Franquin was followed by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over nine stirring adventures tapping into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times: offering tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

By the 1980s the series seemed outdated and lacked direction. Three different creative teams alternated on the feature, until it was overhauled and revitalised by Philippe Vandevelde (writing as Tome) and artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry. They adapted, referenced and in many ways returned to the beloved Franquin era.

Their sterling efforts revived the floundering feature’s fortunes, generating 14 wonderful albums between 1984 and1998. As the strip diversified into parallel strands (Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By…), the team on the core feature were succeeded by Jean-David Morvan & José-Luis Munuera. Then Yoann & Vehlmann took over the never-ending procession of amazing adventures…

Multi-award-winning French comics author Fabien Vehlman was born in 1972, began his comics career in 1996 and has been favourably likened to René Goscinny. He’s best known for Green Manor (illustrated by Denis Bodart), Seven Psychopaths with Sean Phillips, Seuls (drawn by Bruno Gazzotti and available in English as Alone), Wondertown with Benoit Feroumont and Isle of 1000,000 Graves with Jason.

He assumed the writing reins on Spirou and Fantasio in collaboration with Yoann. beginning with the book on review here – 2010’s Spirou et Fantasio – Alerte aux Zorkons.

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

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since 2009, alternating between the various superb reinterpretations of Franquin and earlier efforts from the great man himself. When Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946), the new guy ran with it for two decades; enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters such as staunch comrade and rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac – The Count of Champignac…

Spirou and Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, travelling to dangerously exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Fantasio’s deranged and wicked cousin Zantafio and that maddest of scientists, Zorglub.

This old school chum and implacable rival of Champignac is an outrageous Bond movie-flavoured villain who constantly targets the Count. A brilliant engineer, his incredible machines are far less dangerous than his mesmerising mind-controlling “Zorglwave” and an apparently unshakable desire to conquer Earth and dominate the solar system from a base on the Moon…

This tale opens with the seemingly reformed plotter stealing some of Champignac’s most incredible mushroom-based miracles and triggering a massive mutational event in and around the bucolic generally placid hamlet of Champignac-in-the-Sticks.

The first Spirou and Fantasio hear of it is a desperate cell phone call from Pacôme, who has just reappeared after weeks amnesiac and missing. Driving back from a promotional tour, our heroes race across country only to find the placid region is now an armed camp, with soldiers in biohazard gear brutally decontaminating villagers.

The little valley has become a monstrous alien jungle dominated and transformed by weird and incredible plant/animal/fungus creatures, but neither they nor the military – who are keen on immediately nuking the geographical atrocity – can stop our dedicated reporters sneaking in to find their friends.

On locating the Count and his two new chums – hot Swedish science students Astrid and Lena – the lads learn that the brave new world is an accident and hideous side effect of Zorglub’s latest scheme, and that he’s sorrier than anyone at the state of the local environment.

He’s certainly keen enough on fixing the problem…

Other than the fact that everything wants to eat everything else, and that many of the human locals seem comfortable and accustomed to the changes, the main problem seems to be a rapidly proliferating and aggressive form of beast man. The jungle is now a superfast evolutionary Petri dish with everything in it part of an arms race to out-compete all rivals. These brutish bipeds have for some reason evolved immunity to Zorglub’s Zorglwave by having oodles of aggression and not enough intellect. They are ravening, unstoppable Zordolts…

Not sure what’s happening, but resolved to stop the Army bombing the village before foiling Zorglub, everybody works frantically together and succeeds in part one of the plan, but when the jests are repelled and the Zordolts stopped by Champignac’s newly-liberated dinosaur they find the villain vanished.

By the time Champignac has worked his mushroom magic in reverse and restored most of the status quo, the Master of the Z ray is long gone. If our heroes could look up high enough, they might see him well on his way to the moon with Astrid in Lena in tow and about to set his Great Masterwork in motion…

To be Continued…

Rocket-paced, action-packed, compellingly convoluted and with just the right blend of perfectly blending helter-skelter excitement and sheer daftness, Attack of the Zordolts is a terrific romp to delight devotees of easy-going adventure.

Stuffed with an astounding array of astonishing hi-tech spoofery, riotous chases and gazillions of sight gags and verbal ripostes, this exultant escapade is a fabulous fiesta of angst-free action and thrills. Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with beguiling style and seductive energy and wit, this is pure cartoon gold, truly deserving of reaching the widest audience possible.

Buy it for you, get another for the kids and give copies to all your friends…
Original edition © Dupuis, 2010 by Vehlmann, Yoann, Blanchard & Hubert. All rights reserved. English translation 2021 © Cinebook Ltd.

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It Was the War of the Trenches & Goddam This War!


By Tardi with Jean-Pierre Verney, translated by Kim Thompson & Helga Dascher (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-353-8 (HB Trenches) & 978-1-60699-582-2 (HB Goddam)

For years I’ve been declaring that Charley’s War the best comics story about The Great War ever created, but, while I’m still convinced of that fact, there’s a strong contender for the title in the astonishing award-winning conception C’était la guerre des tranchées by cartoonist Jacques Tardi. It began publication in France in 1993 and was released as an English edition by Fantagraphics in 2010. Three years later it was supplemented by an even more impressive and heart-rending sequel.

Credited with creating a new style of expressionistic illustration dubbed “the New Realism”, Tardi is one of the greatest comics creators in the world, blessed with a singular vision and adamantine ideals, even apparently refusing his country’s greatest honour through his wish to be completely free to say and create what he wants.

He was born in the Commune of Valence, Dróme in August 1946 and subsequently studied at École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and the prestigious Parisian École Nationale Supérieure des arts Décoratifs before launching his career in comics in 1969 at the home of modern French comics: Pilote.

From illustrating stories by Jean Giraud, Serge de Beketch and Pierre Christian, he moved on to Westerns, crime tales and satirical works in magazines like Record, Libération, Charlie Mensuel and L’Écho des Savanes whilst also graduating into adapting prose novels by Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Léo Malet.

The latter’s detective hero Nestor Burma became the subject of all-new albums written and drawn by Tardi once the established literary canon was exhausted leading, in 1976. to the creation of Polonius in Métal Hurlant and a legendary, super-successful star turn. Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adéle Blanc-Sec is an epic period fantasy series which initially ran in the daily Sud-Ouest. The series numbers ten volumes thus far and is still being added to.

The passionate auteur has also crafted many unforgettable anti-war stories – Adieu Brindavoine, Le Fleur au Fusil, Le trou d’obus and more – examining the plight of the common soldier, and has written novels, created radio series, worked in movies, and co-created (with writer Jean Vautrin) Le Cri du Peuple – a quartet of albums about the Parisienne revolt of the Communards.

Whilst his WWI creations are loosely inspired by the experiences of his grandfather, his 2012 graphic novel Moi René Tardi, prisonnier de guerre au Stalag IIB revealed the experiences of his father, a POW in the second conflict to ravage France in a century.

Far too few of this master’s creations are available in English (barely 20 out of more than 50) but, thanks to NBM, iBooks and Fantagraphics, we’re quickly catching up…

An unquestionable masterpiece and international multi-award winner, It Was the War of the Trenches begins with Tardi’s forthright Foreword detailing his process and motivations, plus a copious and chilling Special Thanks page, before a cartoon catalogue of humanity’s greatest folly unfolds.

These interlinked and cross-fertilising vignettes are about people not causes or battles or the fate of nations, with each tale linking to others: comprised of epigrammatic, anecdotal observations of the war as experienced by ordinary soldiers. The saga first saw print in A Suivre before being stitched together as a patchwork quilt of endurance, complaint, venality, misfortune, bravery, cupidity and stupidity, all informed primarily by family stories, but always verified and augmented by focussed research.

As the pages proceed, a litany of injustice and abiding horror unfolds as scared, weary, hopeless, betrayed and crazy men of every type suffer constant pressure, relentless ennui, physical abuse and imminent death…

Seeking and succeeding in bring those appalling experiences to life, Tardi forensically displays the constant shelling, awful weather, death in the skies and in the mud plus every possible variation in between them as an ever-changing roster of reluctant warriors wait for the end. They think of past lives and wasted chances and what turn of fate brought them to this muddy hole in the ground…

Especially poignant are those twists of luck that so often place supposed enemies together against the War itself, but always brief friendships end abruptly and badly, with the only winners being death and guilt and shame…

This is a book no one could read and sustain any vainglorious illusion of combat and honour as noble inspirations. This is a story that begs us all to stop war forever…

In 2013, after more than a decade of meticulous research and diligent crafting, It Was the War of the Trenches was finally supplemented by a sequel…

Translated as a potent and powerful hardback edition in full colour and moody, evocative tonal sequences, this pictorial polemic was originally released as six newspaper-format pamphlets entitled Putain de Guerre! From there it was collected in two albums and came to us as Goddamn This War!, tracing the course of the conflict through the experiences of an anonymous French “grunt”.

At once lucky, devious and cynically suspicious enough to survive, he is a tool used to relate the horrific, boring, scary, disgusting and just plain stupid course of an industrialised war managed by privileged, inbred idiots who think they’re playing games: restaging Napoleon’s cavalry campaigns, but this time as seen from the perspective of the poor sods actually being gassed and bombed and shot at…

Divided into five chapter-years running from ‘1914’ to ‘1919’ (as the global killing didn’t stop just because the Germans signed an Armistice in 1918 – just ask the Turks, Armenians, Russians and other Balkan nations forgotten when hostilities officially ended), the narration is stuffed with the kind of facts and trivia you won’t find in most history books. as our frustrated and disillusioned protagonist staggers from campaign to furlough to what his bosses call victory, noting no credible differences between himself and the “Boche” on the other side of the wire, but huge gulfs between the men with rifles and the toffs in brass on both sides…

This staggeringly emotional testament is backed up and supplemented by a reproduction of ‘The Song of Craonne’ – a ditty so seditious that French soldiers were executed for singing it – and a capacious, revelatory year-by-year photo-essay by historian, photographer and collector Jean-Pierre Verney. His World War I: an Illustrated Chronology chillingly shows the true faces and forces of war and is alone worth the price of admission…

It Was the War of the Trenches (C’était la guerre des tranchées) © 1993 Editions Casterman. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books.
Goddamn This War! (Putain de Guerre!) © 2013 Editions Casterman. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books.

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Darwin’s Diaries volume 1-3: The Eye of the Celts, Death of a Beast & Dual Nature


By Eduardo Ocaña & Sylvain Runberg, coloured by Tariq Bellaoui, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-095-5 (v1 Album PB/Digital edition), 978-1-84918-110-5 (v2 Album PB/Digital), 978-1-84918-144-0 (v3 Album PB/Digital)

In the eternal quest to be entertained, humans have always searched far and wide. The capacity and desire to scare ourselves thus employs a vast landscape of genres and locales as well of all time and space. It also tempts us into mixing and mashing history, imagination and fanciful speculation…

Here’s a fabulously fitting idea for fantastic Scientific Romance in the grand manner of Professor Challenger, courtesy of French writer Sylvain Runberg (Conquests; Watchdogs Legion; On Mars; Orbital) and Spanish illustrator Eduardo Ocaña (Messiah Complex, Full Tilt Boogie, Les Bâtisseurs): an enthralling triptych begun in 2010 which – despite slipping off everyone’s radar – has stood the test of time.

In England, Victoria is Queen, and her mighty nation will soon be an empire. It is, however, not at peace, and former explorer and controversial naturalist Charles Darwin is asked by Prime Minister Lord Palmerston to undertake a delicate mission in the North. It is not for his current field of expertise, but rather his early – and now – classified endeavours into the field of crypto-zoology. Not long ago, Darwin had quietly looked into the existence of mythical things: Almases, Sasquatch, Werewolves and other “clawed ones”…

The region he is despatched to is the site of railway construction, but recently the navvies, their horses and even a company of soldiers have been butchered by some beast. Darwin must go there and pacify the populace whilst ruling out any possibility that the culprit is of unknown origins…

The first minister also hints that as well as the lure of fresh knowledge, the savant should also consider that local entrepreneurial grandee Sir Howard Dickinson would be grateful enough to fund any future travels Darwin might be considering…

The scientist readily accepts – but not for the reasons expected – and is soon in York, met by forthright suffragist Suzanne Dickinson and Indian manservant Rajiv. Once ensconced in the Blue Moors hotel (her father’s latest acquisition), Darwin opens his investigation, with the suspiciously curious and hands-on Miss Dickinson always in attendance.

He finds her a superb companion. Highly educated and competent, she has been schooled in medicine and business is and acquainted with prestigious thinkers like John Stuart Mill and emancipators such as Emily Davies and Barbara Leigh Smith…

Upon examining the remains of the victims, Darwin stakes his reputation on the premise that a great tiger is loose in the wooded region. Neither his sponsors nor the striking navvies give that theory much credence, and that night, a shepherd and his dog are added to the death register. Locals begin voicing opinions that the culprits must be the weird Welsh cult led by self-professed holy man Cadell Afferson. He says he’s a druid in touch with ancient forces…

Meanwhile, Darwin’s gentlemanly facade seems to slip. When returned to the Blue Moor, he sinks into depravity, getting drunk, fighting with local bullies and availing himself of local harlot Louise Stuart. As he becomes a beast, the one he’s hunting attacks again, butchering soldiers, sabotaging the work site and apparently perishing in a massive explosion.

Suzanne is unable to refrain from commenting on the scientist’s condition when she fetches him next morning, but Darwin doesn’t care after hearing that military martinet Captain Sanders has recovered the creature’s corpse…

Originally published in 2010 as Les carnets de Darwin 1 – L’oeil des celtes, this period drama ripples with suppressed tension as it sets up a classic confrontation between man and monster to delight every thriller fan.

 

The suspense spectacularly escalates in second volume Death of a Beast (La mort d’une bête) as the press gets wind of the news that Mr. Darwin has discovered a creature previously unknown to science. Panic grips York, but rail construction recommences, thanks to the foreman’s unique methods of negotiation. As esteemed researcher and weary soldiers seek more evidence, Druid Cadell stirs the pot, warning that ancient gods will judge their actions…

Darwin believes his job nearly done, but as he dines with the Dickinsons, fresh tragedy sparks more bloodshed. When a little girl is found eviscerated, furious, terrified townsfolk turn on the druids and a brutal riot is only quashed by ruthless military intervention…

Far from that madding crowd, the scientist is amazed at his host’s familiarity with legends of shapeshifting creatures, and even more so by Suzanne’s other passion. She runs educational workshops for townswomen, teaching them to read and count and even honest trades. Her greatest joy is anticipating  the festival she and dowager Virginia Wilson have organised: Yorkshire’s first Feminist Convention…

Eventually Darwin and the soldiers are able to convince the citizens the child’s death is not due to a new beast or the Celts in the forest, but arrogant, affronted Afferson swears to take vengeance. He does possess some secret knowledge, but when he summons what really prowls the moors and forests, his mistaken belief that he is in control costs everyone dearly…

Meanwhile, in York, Darwin again gives in to his own beast and nearly dies due to it, but a horror has been roused to vicious action and whatever he truly is cannot hope to stand against it…

Blending socio-political intrigue with an immensely devious mystery where nothing is as it seems, this episode offers hints of far more at play and at stake than anyone previously suggested. Stay tuned for a big, big finish…

 

Closing chapter Dual Nature – formerly Les carnets de Darwin 3 – Double nature – moves from chilling canter to full galloping charge as fear and frenzy grip town and country, and mutilated bodies pile up. Captain Sanders informs Darwin that the investigation is done, and that Palmerston has decided the terror is the work of enemy agents set on destabilising the nation, and has sent further military personnel to mop up. Prudent and cautious, the PM has also despatched a renowned professional hunter, in case these sinister plotters instigators have indeed unleashed trained animals as part of their plan…

Sadly, effete dandy and aristocratic butcher Sir Rillons – and his entourage of privileged hangers-on – are merely the first to discover that what is actually loose is a pack of monstrous killers faster and stronger than any ever recorded before – and easily as smart as human beings…

In the aftermath of a bloody debacle, the drama reaches a messy crescendo as Darwin is abducted by the beasts and his own secret fully exposed. However, the ultra-macho monsters – distracted by and determined to crush the unnatural women demanding equal rights at their ridiculous convention – have not reckoned on uncanny hidden allies even the biologist himself is unaware that he has and ultimately, fang, claw and unnatural selection determines the outcome…

Murderous madcap mayhem and far from historically robust, this yarn is a crazily delicious feast of gory fun to charm every horror fan: a pure treat to gorge on and digest at your leisure.
© Editions du Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard SA) 2010 by Sylvain Runberg & Eduardo Ocaña. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011, 2012, 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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Lydie


By Zidrou & Jordi Lafebre, translated by Mercedes Claire Gilliom (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital edition only

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Lyrical, Lovely, Unforgettable… 10/10

It’s the season for spirits and spectres and we all love a good, healthy scare, but it’s wise to remember that ghost stories aren’t just about revenge, unfinished business or unreasoning irrational terror. So often, what’s at play is feeling of duty and ineffable loss…

As you’d expect, our Continental cousins are exceeding adept at exploring humanity’s softer sides through the medium of comics, and Lydie is a masterclass in emotive, evocative, ruthlessly sensitive storytelling to delight our senses by quietly affirming our better natures.

Be warned though: this tale is funny, heartwarming and sad. No one (at least nobody even borderline human) will scoff or sneer if you need tissues to get you to the end.

Lydie was originally released in 2012, courtesy of empathetically enthralling scripter Zidrou (Benoît Drousie) and illustrator Jordi Lafebre. Drousie is Belgian, Brussels born in 1962 and until 1990 a school teacher – prior to quitting marking books to instead make them. His primary successes include school dunce series L’Elève Ducobu, Petit Dagobert, Scott Zombi, La Ribambelle, Le Montreur d’histoires, African Trilogy, Shi, Léonardo, a revived Ric Hochet and so many more. His most celebrated and beloved stories are the Les Beaux Étés sequence (translated by Europe Comics as Glorious Summers) – and this stand-alone saga. Both are illustrated by Spanish artist Jordi Lafebre.

The sublimely gifted illustrator and art teacher was born in Barcelona in 1979 and has been a comics professional since 2001 – initially for magazines like Mister K, where he limned Toni Font’s El Mundo de Judy. Lafebre found regular work at Le Journal de Spirou, creating the romance Always Never and collaborating with Zidrou on La vieille dame qui n’avait jamais joué au tennis et autres nouvelles qui font du bien, and La Mondaine.

Even for such gifted creators and in-tune collaborators, Lydie is something special: A combination of semi-tragic feel-good fable and genteel working class ghost story, this is a beguiling confection dealing out potent emotional punches one after another – so be braced with plenty of hankies. Nevertheless, it still manages to find the good and the laudable in us, even in the lowest moments and worst of aspects of our natures: enrobing what should be crushing tragedy in the uplifting actions of a community looking out for all of its members, no matter how flawed or forgotten they might become…

It starts sometime in the last century with a little enclave of an ordinary district in the kind of town that used to be everywhere. The crowded cul-de-sac of Baron Van Dick Court is a tiny, independent world of its own, where everyone knows everyone – and most of their personal business. However, since kids will be kids, when a little bit of mischief occurred, the place became irrevocably and foreverafter “Mustachioed Baby Court”…

The denizens live piled up on each other and are a typical bunch: hard-working, industrious, painfully practical and all eking out a living as best they can, but one night something rather extraordinary happens…

It truly started some time earlier. Down in the backyard, poor, hard-up Victor Lefort was again forced to destroy his cat’s beautiful kittens, even as upstairs Doctor “Fables” Fabian was failing to save a baby. Perhaps it was for the best. Distressed mother-to-be Camille Tirion is painfully simpleminded, and had been cruelly taken advantage of by some vile anonymous sinner, so what possibly life could her child have had?

Camille – and her poor father Augustin – were subject of much gossip in the local general store/bar. Despite being a train driver and often away overnight, he has done his best raising his afflicted daughter all on his own… at least until this…

Camille’s mother also died in childbirth and now cruel fate has struck the family again…

The event affects everyone in the Court and many parents must explain to their own children how – if not why – Camille’s baby has gone and must live in a tiny wooden box under the ground in the church graveyard…

However, once all the necessary ceremonies have taken place and life in the Court moves back towards normal, something happens. It begins when Augustin finds his bereft child crumpled under the little statue of the Madonna that’s been overlooking the court for who knows how long, and continues the next day when Camille dashes joyously into the store, ecstatically telling all inside that her baby has come back.

Of course, little Lydie is invisible now…

Her joy is infectious, and no one wants to disabuse the poor simpleton of her fanciful notion, but things take a stranger turn after the feral and prolific delinquent Ayhard brothers brutally tease the “new mother “and her swaddled, intangible infant. When aged Madame Paris helps distraught Camille comfort the latest addition to the Court, the community rallies around, and before long even the most curmudgeonly dweller in Mustachioed Baby Court is playing along: from crusty shopkeeper Théophile Lefort to acid-tongued sot Madame Malisse. The priest is even cajoled into performing a special baptism for the unseen infant…

…And gradually, with everyone contributing to the fantastic lie for decades, it all seems to come fantastically true…

From this point on, the story takes on a life of its own too, so please for the sake of soul and all the lost joy modern life has stripped from you, find and read this glorious fable dedicated to the miraculous strength of imagination, power of love and irresistible force of humanity united in a grand cause…
© 2018 DARGAUD BENELUX (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) – Jordi Lafebre and Zidrou. All rights reserved.

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Rork: The Ghosts


By Andreas, coloured by Isa Cochet and translated by Montana Kane (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital edition

Born in January 1951, Andreas Martens is an incredibly versatile artist from East Germany (and from a time when that meant another country, not a different location). He trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf and the Saint-Luc Institute/comics school in Brussels. His work appeared in college magazine Le 9e Rêve, À suivre, Heavy Metal and Le Journal de Tintin where – in conjunction with his teacher Eddie Paape – he created the seminal Udolfo.

Relocating to France, Andreas adapted the works of Francois Rivière (collected in 1980 as Révélations Posthumes) and produced a graphic edition of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre for Je Bouquine.

Stand-alone works include La Caverne du Souvenir, Coutoo, Dérives and Aztèques, but his reptation was earned through gripping original series such as Raffington Detective, Cyrrus, Arq and others. His entire oeuvre is steeped in classical style, draped in period glamour and drenched in visual tension. Many are thematically linked. However, before all these, he created one of the most stylish and memorable “Challengers of The Unknown” in horror fiction: enigmatic psychic savant Rork.

His pale and moody period hero, (who first appeared in Le Journal de Tintin in 1978) draws on the tone, time and sometimes even “homaged” content of dark-fantasists August Derleth, H. P. Lovecraft and especially the Carnacki stories of William Hope Hodgson. Spiritual nomad Rork wanders the world and great beyond, unravelling mysteries and discovering startling wonders, not for fame or glory, but because he must…

In the early 1990s Dark Horse Comics serialized his adventures in their superb anthology of European comics Cheval Noir, and those translations formed the basis of a little seen or remarked upon series of albums from NBM.

After too long in absentia – that’s past Neverland, a little to the left of Narnia but not as far as The House on the Borderland – the mystic marvel returned in 2017, courtesy of digital-only publishing collective Europe Comics who kicked off what I still hope will be a complete revival by translating into English the final book in the sequence.

Released in 2012, Les fantômes is a prequel tale, regarded by devotees as volume #0, despite its being preceded by seven spooky tomes and crossovers with other Andreas concepts…

By this time, readers had learned that the snowy-haired enigma was a wizard from another dimension, compelled to solve supernatural mysteries even as he sought the secret of his own origins: twin quests that carried him all over creation and into scary battles beside many of the author’s other uncanny warriors of justice…

In this tale – vividly coloured by Isa Cochet (and I make this point as most Rork exploits have appeared in starkly stunning monochrome, in the manner and style of visual pioneers Bernie Wrightson and Jim Starlin) – the wanderer is consulted by Samuel, who has been the channel by which unquiet spirits informed the living of missing (and ultimately dead) persons…

Somehow linked to trees and forests, phantoms came to him ,and Samuel made his living helping others until the day he met Daphne and her son Cary. These living seekers’ search for a husband and father was for greed, not love or closure, and soured the diviner’s relationship with his ghosts. Now decades later, Samuel convinces Rork to intercede for him…

It’s not all altruism, though. The haughty, stubborn finder has been compelled to seek aid since ruthless treasure hunter Tryan has begun to threaten torture and worse unless Samuel uses his gifts to unearth hidden wealth. However, when the white wizard uses his own ability to converse with the departed, he hears a subtly different story and realizes he’s being played for a fool…

Andreas is fascinated by levels of reality and states of comprehension, so Rork tales always come layered with allegorical symbolism, abstract interpretation and trenchant pictorial clues pointing towards deeper meaning. As this story progresses, the mage draws Samuel into verbal duels whilst gradually removing him from the arcadian forests that harbour his ghosts: leading them to an arid desert of the American west where a godlike being offers hints to a greater truth, and where sinister pursuer Tryan falls into a cunning trap…

Ultimately, Rork divines the truth beneath strata of lies and self-deception and the mystery of Samuel is revealed for all to see…

For me, a great comic strip begins with the simple line. The greatest drawing is always about the power of black against white. Colour enhances but it seldom creates in our business. Andreas is one of the best line artists in the modern business so I’m delighted to confirm that there’s a stunning ‘Rork Gallery’ of seven breathtaking images closing his book.

Exotic, eccentric, chilling and lyrically beguiling, the traditional mysticism and otherworldly dread of these tales is a heady and captivating brew, especially with the intense, linear illustration and stark design of Andreas to mesmerize and shock your widened eyes.

Come see for yourselves why this series should be at the top of the list of books to re-release…
© 2017 ÉDITIONS DU LOMBARD (DARGAUD-LOMBARD S. A.) – ANDREAS. All rights reserved.

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Josephine Baker


By Catel & Bocquet, translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91059-329-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Story of an Actual Wonder Woman… 9/10

Here’s a rather short review of an astonishingly eventful life celebrated in a superbly expansive, compellingly detailed account from two of the best graphic biographers working in the field. As I’m always implying, my Less is your More, and this is one story you’ll want to appreciate fresh and full-on, so just buy it and be done. You won’t be sorry and will have a revelatory time…

Born Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3rd 1906 in St Louis, Missouri, the black icon, free spirit and symbol of self-determination who called herself Joséphine Baker was no scholar or schemer, but used her innate gifts as a dancer and entertainer to survive horrific acts of random racist violence and ultimately escape her origins as a despised second class citizen in the land of her birth.

A forceful, irrepressible, warm-hearted optimist with colossal empathy and a relentless sense of humour, Baker’s drive and willingness to take chances carried her to the peak of European sophistication and culture: rubbing shoulders with royalty and the cream of global creative intelligentsia: everyone from Picasso and Man Ray to Le Corbusier and Hemingway, Max Reinhardt, Buñuel, Cocteau, Colette, Pirandello, Georges Simenon and so many glittering others.

She was a vedette, singer, dancer, actress, movie star, civil rights activist, paramount artistic inspiration and – during WWII – an actual spy and French resistance operative working for future President Charles de Gaulle, as well as a ferocious defender of animals and devoted mother. Above all else, she was an entertainer par excellence…

Here, Baker’s incredibly eventful life is traced from cradle to grave in black-&-white vignettes, concentrating on her achievements, family life and relationships, seen through her progress from exploitable bit player to media sensation “La Baker”: Queen of Paris in the Jazz Age.

Her astounding energy, creativity and resolve to succeed was only exceeded by her adoration of children, secret acts of charity and unfailing ability to love men who were bad for her, but her legacy was almost erased in the years after she stopped working. Countless comeback attempts and financial troubles followed.

Perhaps she was never truly in earnest but pursuing the means to a greater end. Due to her inability to have children and immense fellow feeling for the downtrodden, Josephine had turned her post war years into an incredible social experiment, gathering orphans from many devastated countries into a single loving family… her multinational, multi-ethnic Rainbow Tribe…

All that achievement, accomplishment, unprofitable charity, disillusionment and ultimate abandonment by the august and wealthy in her own country (both of them!) led to Josephine fading from history until relatively recent times, but now she is being reclaimed by a world which could really benefit from her example…

Baker’s international fame led to frequent and painful attempts to reclaim her birth nation’s attention. Eventually – in 1937 – she renounced her American citizenship to become officially French. In later years she tried to help America’s fight against Segregation, but was shunned by both side of that struggle. At the end, as economic woes, life and ongoing illness plagued her final years, she found a few unexpected friends in powerful women like Brigitte Bardot and her final years were spent in Monaco, a guest of equally constrained and misused female icon Grace Kelly. Josephine Baker died on 11th April 1975.

Her public and private lives coalesce in this chronological dramatised narrative from award-winning graphic novelist Catel Muller (Ainsi soit Benoîte Groult, Adieu Kharkov, Lucie s’en soucie, Le Sang des Valentines) and crime novelist, screenwriter/biographer/comics writer José-Louis Bocquet (Métal Hurlant, Sur la ligne blanche, Mémoires de l’espion, Panzer Panik, Anton Six), who in their other collaborations have also explored the lives of Kiki de Montparnasse and Olympe de Gouges (…and we’ll get to them in the fullness of time).

Entertaining, enthralling, informative, and continually sparking explosions of aggrieved but justified outrage on Baker’s behalf, the book is supplemented by a vast supporting structure of extras, beginning with a heavily illustrated and highly informative ‘Timeline for Josephine Baker’, incorporating pivotal events in her public and private lives. It’s further augmented by ‘Biographical Notes’: 55 character portraits in prose and sketch form of the historical figures with supporting roles feature in this epic saga, plus as an essay on ‘The Rainbow Tribe’ by her son/historical consultant Jean-Claude Bouillon-Baker. Also included are a Bibliography and Filmography for further study.

If you love history, comics, justice triumphant or just great stories, you really need to set some records straight and read this book.
© Casterman 2021. All rights reserved.