Category: European

Posted on

In the Pines – 5 Murder Ballads


By Erik Kriek (Fantagraphics/Canongate Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78689-214-0 (HB/Digital edition)

This book contains Discriminatory Content included for historical authenticity.

If you don’t know what a murder ballad is you should start this sublime hardcover anthology by reading Jan Donkers’ superb background essay at the back of the book before treating yourself to the grim graphic glories crafted by Dutch artisan/illustrator Erik Kreik.

In ‘Murder Ballads’ you will learn the history of the ancient musical sub-genre as well as the direct genealogy of the quintet of sordid, sorry sagas adapted from sound to stunning words and pictures here. However – and just because it’s you – the term is generally applied to folk music story-songs from many countries all dealing with love, crime, sex, social transgression and unnatural death…

In 2016 Erik Kriek (creator of silent superhero spoof Gutsman; Little Andy Roid; Het Onzienbare/From Beyond) – adapted a number of vintage and modern Murder Ballads into strip format. A huge fan of all forms of popular Americana, he also covered the songs with his band The Blue Grass Boogiemen on a CD naturally entitled In the Pines – 5 Murder Ballads. The book won Germany’s 2016 Rudolf Dirks Award and the spin-off garnered Album of the Year 2017 from Dutch Comics.

Amsterdam-born Kriek is a graduate of the Rietveld Academy for Art and Design and a hotly in-demand illustrator of books (like Holland’s Tolkien & Harry Potter editions), magazines, apparel, skateboards, et al, and will happily turn his hand to a variety of styles & disciplines. Gutsman was reconceived as a soundless mime ballet in 2006 and his collection of Lovecraft adaptations Het onzienbare, en andere verhalen H. P. Lovecraft has been republished in many languages. He followed up this with his first children’s book Mika, the Little Bear That Didn’t Want to Go To Sleep.

A multi-national phenomenon, In the Pines delivers its moody messages of ill-starred love in dreamy, two-coloured incidents. US fans will recognise the drawing style as echoing the very best EC horror tales by “Ghastly” Graham Ingels or early Bernie Wrightson. The concerto of terror opens with ‘Pretty Polly and the Ship’s Carpenter’, a much-covered traditional ditty (The Byrds; Judy Collins; The Stanley Brothers) rendered here in green & black on crisp white pages. It details the fore-doomed fate of a young man who fled to sea to escape his sins, only to see them resurface in death for his shipmates during a seemingly supernatural storm…

Tinted in sepia, ‘The Long Black Veil’ is a relatively modern song, composed and written by Marijohn Wilkin & Danny Dill in 1959 and most notably recorded by Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash, The Band, Mick Jagger, Nick Cave amongst so many others. It reveals how a farmer is faced with a staggering choice: hang for a murder he did not commit or betray the confidence of the adulterous woman who is his only alibi…

Racially-charged and rendered in tones of muddy ochre, ‘Taneytown’ was originally delivered by Steve Earle, a synthesis of so many lynching incidents that shame and blight the history of the (early) 20th century American South. Here a young black man, sick of the life he’s subject to in rural Maryland, takes the knife his negro war hero father used in the trenches of the Great War and heads for trouble in the whitest part of town…

Written by singer Gillian Welch, ‘Caleb Meyer’ is adapted in tones of chilling aquamarine and presents a young wife betrayed, terrorised and assaulted who wins for herself a potent dose of ironic retribution before we close this sinister songbook in tones of watered down blood with ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’.

Possible the most well-known of the perilous pentangle, the strip is based on a dark ditty created by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds for their 1996 album Murder Ballads. Sung as a duet with Kylie Minogue, the song was based on traditional air Down in the Willow Garden. The story seen here presents a complex web of trauma and tension involving a murderous escaped convict, a gang of hidden outlaws, lost treasure, a solitary house in the deep woods and a protective mother most conveniently absent. Tragically, neither the rapidly pursuing posse nor the vile-intentioned villain have any idea what young Elisa is truly capable of, or why her father called her his “wild rose”…

Making something compelling and beautiful from the worst aspects and acts of human behaviour is no mean feat, either in song or pictures, but In the Pines accomplishes the deed with gripping style, vibrant polish and immense charm. This is a book every lover or victim of human foible will adore, potent and evocative with a sly gift to captivate and transport us just as the music intoxicates the mind’s eye through the ears.

One last note: Kriek is reputed to relax in Irish bars – possibly drinking but mostly singing and playing the banjo – so let’s hope that he’s got many more songs yet to draw, once the ambience reaches the appropriate crescendo.
© Erik Kriek, 2016. “Murder Ballads” © Jan Donkers. 2016. All rights reserved.

Posted on

The Great Marc Evers: The True Story of a Champion Against All Odds


By Ivo van Woerden, adapted & illustrated by Gemma Plum, coloured by Marloes Dekkers and translated by Michele Hutchison (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-51-5 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced for dramatic effect.

Comics are the natural home of triumphal heroes and extraordinary feats, but in general the victories (and rare defeats) of fictive sporting heroes have been restricted to Britain and Japan where many, many panel stars have been footballers, drivers, runners, jockeys, wrestlers, boxers, speedway riders, cricketers, basketball & baseball heroes, skiers, skateboarders and the like. Deeply provincial America never bothered much except for pugilists Popeye & Joe Palooka (or in transitory promotional sallies like Marvel’s truly awful NFL SuperPro title in 1991), and even impressively broadminded Europe has been fairly selective in its sporting choices – like Béka (AKA Bertrand Escaich & Caroline Roque) & Poupard’s comedy strip Les Rugbymen / The Rugger Boys or that apparently immortal race driver Michel Vaillant.

The exception to all those statements is the subgenre of graphic biographies, where exceptional individuals including track and field stars overcoming initial disadvantages are a popular and growing category. In recent years we’ve covered many – like Roberto Clemente, Tillie Walden, Mylo Choy, Emile Griffith, Harry Haft, Suzanne Lenglen, and so many more, but none as remarkable as The Great Marc Evers…

At two-year old, Evers was (finally) diagnosed with profound intellectual impairments comprising a specific Learning Disability as well as severe ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Despite prognoses ranging from “give up now” to “just go away”, Marc’s parents and siblings toiled constantly to make a human life for their boy, who had been written off as hopeless: incapable of learning to talk, dress, coordinate his actions or even vacate his bowels without aid. However, and thanks to help from forward thinking agencies and specialists, Frank and Gitty Evers found places he could fit in and ways to develop his autonomy and agency.

Swimming became a lifeline for the boy and he excelled. After years of steadfast effort, Marc represented Holland at the 2012 London Paralympics. He won gold, as he done so many times before and would do again. Taking five Paralympic medals and numerous world records, he is the Netherlands’ greatest Paralympic swimming champion; in both disability and all-comers divisions Evers has been Paralympic, World and European champion in the 100m breaststroke and is the Netherlands’ greatest aquatic sportsman…

Of course, you can read up on his sporting achievements and full life elsewhere (such as in the original biography, or this Graphic Novel or even online) but for now let’s talk some more about comics and acknowledge illustrator-adaptor Gemma Plum and colour-artist Marloes Dekkers who transformed journalist Ivo van Woerden’s prose biography of the swimming superstar’s progress into a masterful exhibition of the power of graphic narrative.

The most telling tactic is the use of silence. There are few conversational gambits. Marc’s world is full of extended quiet moments, whether under water or locked in his bubble of isolation and hyper-observation.

Here you will see a combination of traditional sequential narrative describing the life story of the characters interacting with an ingenious array of visual flourishes (such as pictorial tics to mirror Marc’s distracted states and carefully utilised panel repetitions reproduced over and again to emphasise the conceptual freezes and pauses that make up the life of those with any degree of ASD). These old “presponses” to new variations neatly and repeatedly hammer home the point that dealing with an ASD child is relentless, surprising, wearisome, tedious and has no ending in sight, but shows also that with effort and dedication, and the right help, any situation can be managed…

Moving, rewarding, inspirational and ingeniously inventive, The Great Marc Evers is an intimate, candid, powerfully optimistic and relentlessly hopeful coming-of-age tale reminding us of the value of perseverance, resolve and trust.
Text and artwork © Stichting Grafische Journalistiek, 2026. Translation © Michele Hutchison, 2026.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: All You Need to Know About Fitting In Whilst Standing Out… 8/10

The Great Marc Evers will be published on 1st October 2025 and is available for pre-order now.

Posted on

Yoko Tsuno volume 21 – The Celestial Boat


By Roger Leloup, coloured by Studio Leonardo & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-187-3 (PB Album)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

On September 24th 1970, freelance electronics engineer Yoko Tsuno first began her troubleshooting career as an indomitable intellectual adventurer. Her debut in Le Journal de Spirou was initially realised in “Marcinelle style” cartoonish 8 page short ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’ and although she is still delighting readers and making new fans to this day, for a while it looked as if she wasn’t going anywhere soon. Thankfully, her astonishing, astoundingly accessible exploits were revised and she soon evolved into a paragon of peril, helming a highpoint of amazingly authentic pseudo-realistic fantasies numbering amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created.

Tsuno’s globe-girdling mystery cases and space-&-time-spanning epics are the brainchild of Belgian maestro Roger Leloup who launched his own solo career in 1953 whilst working as studio assistant/technical artist on Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin. Compellingly told, sublimely imaginative and – no matter how implausible the premise of an individual yarn – always firmly grounded in hyper-realistic settings underpinned by solidly-constructed, unshakably believable technology and unswerving scientific principles, Leloup’s illustrated escapades were at the vanguard of a wave of strips revolutionising European comics. Early in the journey, he switched from loose illustration to a mesmerising realism that is the series’ signature. The long-overdue sea-change in gender roles and stereotyping his eastern star heralded led to a torrent of clever, competent, brave and formidable women protagonists taking their rightful places as heroic ideals and not romantic lures. That small revolution consequently elevated Continental comics in the process.

Masterful Miss Tsuno’s first outings are sadly STILL unavailable Hold-up en hi-fi, and co-sequels La belle et la bête and Cap 351, were introductory vignettes prior to epic authenticity taking a firm grip in 1971 when the unflappable problem solver met valiant but lesser (male) pals Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen. Instantly hitting her stride in premier full-length saga Le trio de l’étrange (in LJdS’s May 13th edition), from then on, Tsuno’s exploits encompassed explosive errands in exotic corners of our world, spy-&-crime capers, devastating deep-space sagas and time-travelling jaunts such as this one. There are 32 European bande dessinée albums to date, with 21 translated into English thus far, albeit – and ironically – none are available in digital formats…

Initially serialised in LJdS #3138 to 3148, spanning June 29th – 12th August 1998, La Jonque céleste became Europe’s 22nd collected Yoko Tsuno album at year’s end. It finds our tireless trouble-finder back on Earth and striving to separate history from myth – and legend from harsh political truth – in a cold case of child abuse and apparent mysticism that spans a millennium…

Aboard a commercial jet, Tsuno is flying to China with adopted daughter Morning Dew when an onboard incident involving an ailing archaeologist abruptly leaves “Dew” in accidental possession of an antique doll and mysterious ivory globe. These the afflicted passenger was delivering to an unspecified address. The aged items are apparently clues to a fabulous treasure and the lost location of the “seventh tooth of the dragon” but further information is unavailable after he is seemingly struck down by an invisible force…

Attentive Yoko’s instincts and suspicions are further aroused when they disembark and officials attempt to confiscate the items. Naturally, they are deftly foiled and diverted by Ms. Tsuno’s clever misdirection. With Dew in tow, she tracks down the ailing man’s intended destination and meets fading historical scholar Professor Fung at his riverside residence. Welcomed graciously, she learns of his studies into – and reconstruction of – an ancient multi-lensed “signal device” and the accompanying legend of the lost tomb of The Emperor Zhen-Zong’s Fourth Wife.

That bizarre episode saw said emperor spend years and vast resources seeking to erase the unhappy bride from history…

Fung is delighted when Yoko hands him the ivory sphere that completes his reconstructed contraption, and – after the doll also provides hidden components – deduces that his courier’s mishandling of the “The Spheres of Yin Shi” caused his collapse and continuing malady. With the highly-polished lens in his possession, Fung demonstrates the incredible mirror-gadget to be a weapon Emperor Zhenzong employed back in 11th century Song China…

Dew & Yoko also befriend Fung’s personal doctor Lin Po. Although dedicated, she is clearly at odds with and mistrusts her prestigious patient on many issues, but gradually, cautiously she becomes embroiled in the unfolding adventure after Yoko’s sentimental heartstrings are tugged by the physician’s sharing brushed-over further details of the ancient tale of injustice cruelty and imperial abuse.

With Dew staying at Fung’s house, Yoko and Lin Po voyage by houseboat to an isolated but gloriously beautiful mountain region. Here long ago, ambition and human greed fomented rebellion and tragedy, compelling the august ruler to marry 6-year old Xin Yi for political expediency. Now, Lin Po shows Yoko the hidden tomb she accidentally stumbled upon. It contains the child-bride’s ceremonial barge and a sealed funerary urn resembling the doll of the wife. Shockingly, it somehow generates a steady heartbeat!

Fascinated, the adventurer and moved mother resolves that neither history nor imperial power will stop her from saving the Fourth Wife. Enlisting faithful pals Vic & Pol (plus the latter’s recently migrated 16th century Flanders-born fiancée Mieke) and cherished comrade Monya – from AD 3872 and possessing a time machine (see The Time Spiral),Yoko and Lin Po ready a factfinding/rescue mission and set out for “the 49th day after the Lantern Festival in the 61st year of the Song Dynasty” (March 29th 1021 CE for short) to thwart fate, cheat history and save a tragic child…

Of course, history is a deceiving liar, and the team are soon embroiled in complex local politics, armed revolt and assassination plots, with their well-intentioned but reality-risking meddling actually shaping the official (but erroneous) account they had studied in the 20th century whilst revealing – and concealing – the truth of the affair. As benevolent Imperial Counsellor Lord Chou and peasant boy Yu war with rioting peasants, bandits, river pirates and corrupt overlord Prince Wang, to save obnoxious brat Xin Yi, everyone seeks to exploit or scapegoat the Fourth Wife for personal advantage, before the crisis erupts into open warfare when Wang attempts to use a black powder and his diabolical mirror weapon to end the conflict and remove potential hostile witnesses. Thankfully, Yoko has a “dragon” of her own and the savage rebellion is quashed in record time and with the happiest ending fate will permit…

As always, the most potent asset of this historical drama is its astonishingly authentic settings, as ever benefitting from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail. The Celestial Boat is a sweeping tale of passion, deception, good intentions and indomitable human spirit: a tense yet action-packed thriller, taut and compelling, and absolutely appealing as much to fans of blockbuster fantasy epics as spectacle-starved comic addicts.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1998 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation © 2026 Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1895 French comics star Alain Saint-Ogan (Zig et Puce, Mitou et Toti, Prosper l’ours, Monsieur Poche, Touitoui) was born, sharing birthdays with Belgian maestro Maurice Tillieux (Gil Jourdan, Félix, Marc Lebut, Tif et Tondu, Hultrasson, Yoko Tsuno, Jess Long) in 1921; artist Mark Bagley, (Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, New Warriors, Thunderbolts, Venom, Carnage) & writer Paul Dini (Zatanna, Harley Quinn, Jungle Belle, Detective Comics The Batman Adventures, Superman Adventures, Batman: Harley and Ivy, Shazam! The Power of Hope, Krypto the Superdog) both born in 1957 and scripter Dan Jolley (Aliens, Terminator, Micronauts, Purgatori) in 1971.

Posted on

The Marquis of Anaon volume 5: The Chamber of Cheops


By Vehlmann & Bonhomme: coloured by Delf and translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-295-9 (PB Album) 978-1-84918-725-1 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

In 1972 Fabien Vehlmann entered the world in Mont-de-Marsan. Raised in Savoie, he studied business management before taking a job with a theatre group. His prodigious canon of pro comics work began in 1998 and soon earned him the soubriquet of “Goscinny of the 21st Century”. In 1996, after entering a writing contest in Le Journal de Spirou, Fabien caught the comics bug and two years later – with illustrative collaborator Denis Bodart – produced mordantly quirky, sophisticated portmanteau period crime comedy Green Manor. From there his triumphs grew to include – amongst many others – Célestin Speculoos for Circus, Nicotine Goudron for L’Écho des Savanes and especially album series Jolies Ténèbres/Beautiful Darkness, Seuls/Alone and a superb stint on global property Spirou and Fantasio…

Scion of an artistic family, Matthieu Bonhomme received his degree in Applied Arts in 1992, before learning the comics trade working in the atelier of western & historical strip specialist Christian Rossi. Spanning 2002-2008, Le Marquis d’Anaon was Bonhomme’s first regular series, after which he began writing as well as illustrating a variety of tales, from L’Age de Raison, Le Voyage d’Esteban, The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke and so much more.

Now, where were we? Imagine The X-Files set in the Age of Enlightenment (circa 1720), played as a solo piece by a young French protagonist reluctantly growing into and accepting the role of crusading troubleshooter. With potent overtones of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Fall of the House of Usher and similar gothic romances, it all began in 2001’s L’Isle de Brac: first of 5 albums tracing the development of a true champion against darkness and human venality.

Under-employed, middle-class merchant’s son, scholar and pragmatic philosopher Jean-Baptiste Poulain is an ardent disciple of Cartesian logic and former medical student. Well educated but impoverished, he accepted a post to tutor the son of the mysterious Baron of Brac. It was a career decision that shaped the rest of his life…

On a windswept, storm-battered, extremely isolated island off the Brittany Coast, Poulain experienced fear and outrage, superstition and suspicion before ultimately exposing the appalling secret of the island overlord his serfs called “the Ogre”, bringing justice and finality to all concerned. In the aftermath, Poulain left, but could never outrun the obnoxious title the islanders bestowed upon him in their Bretagne argot: Le Marquis d’Anaon – “the Marquis of Lost Souls”…

Two years later Poulain caught a supposedly demonic but actually faith-based serial killer (The Black Virgin), and after that saved Europe from plague (La Providence) and France and the neighbouring Duchy of Savoy from a nigh-demonic cryptid (The Beast)… all without proper recompense or even some career-enhancing renown…

With this final tale (thus far) the much maligned misanthrope begins a passage of personal growth and fundamental change after he and four other complete strangers jointly inherit the vast fortune of fur trader and eccentric dilettante scholar Umberto Leone. He was – according to the protectorate’s French Consul De Trezancour – eaten by three crocodiles in Egypt…

In Paris, at the reading of the will, Poulain is gripped with doubts and suspicions over the ridiculous situation and overly specific cause of death. He compulsively ponders what really happened and why his apparently quick-tempered and obsessive benefactor was even in Cairo in the first place… especially after viewing radical renovations his departed patron had made to his lavish Parisian apartments immediately before his final visit to the Land of the Pharaohs…

Being rich now, finding out is simple and the Marquis of Anaon takes ship for Cairo, where he sees a thriving, energetic but completely alien culture and is met by unctuous, thoroughly unpleasant fixer/agent Charles Ruffin. In a sprawling city ancient beyond belief but plagued by external conquest and endemic factionalism, it soon becomes clear that his guide and escort is there to steer, manage and spy upon Umberto’s heir for exceedingly greedy and dangerous coffee trader and merchant prince Delambre… who also believes Poulain knows more than he’s letting on…

Stationed in Leone’s former dwelling, with Ruffin’s thugs ceaselessly watching, the inheritor soon learns from Leone’s “Negress” Diénéba, (a live-in “service” included as part of the welcome package, but one that the Marqius immediately places under his complete protection) that everyone knew Leone was searching the Great Pyramid of Cheops for something utterly extraordinary. They all – westerners and Egyptians alike – still believe it is physical treasure, but as Poulain proceeds in his investigations and ruminations he meets fringe scientist Richardson and realises that what Leone discovered was far more profound, spectacular and even perilously miraculous…

Further adding to the tensions is a febrile political situation, with the largely immune but always interfering French merchant class gleefully stirring unrest among the Egyptians and allowing roaming militias of Janissary “peacekeepers” to beat, plunder and bully at will, just as long as the pleasures and profits keep rolling in. When Poulain’s researches bring him close to Leone’s dream, he is confronted , challenged by and ultimately adopted by one faction – led by cleric Sheikh Luqman – and becomes an unwilling but grateful disciple of the sage. With his own people and the gold-crazed Janissaries seeking his blood, he finds love and solace with Diénéba, and they voyage to the pyramid. In the long hidden Chamber of Cheops Poulain barely survives the true secret of the edifice and uncovers a second astounding fact that could get him killed… but not like Leone was supposed to have been…

Then after dealing with Delambre it’s a frantic rush to get out of Egypt for the impassioned couple, with a promise of greater magic – and hardship – to come…

This deviously swingeing attack on colonialism and ignorantly fabled “mysteries of the Dark Continent” arrives as another tautly authentic, compellingly scripted saga from Vehlmann, vividly visualised via Bonhomme’s densely informative but never obtrusive illustrated realism. It adds a gripping, utterly enthralling tale of romance and discovery to the canon of a truly superior man’s war against the inherent iniquities of human behaviour. Once again the unsuspected miracles of the natural world and shocking potential of humanity’s creative spark are lensed through the drives and obsessions of an individual at the forefront of  religion’s retreat and birth of rationalism, and the result is pure entertainment gold.

This evolution of a self-doubting quester barely holding at bay the notion that all his schooling is pointless and without worth in a world too big for humanity and just one aspect of a universe beyond any one’s grasp is utterly compulsive entertainment, making The Marquis of Anaon’s mystery milestones a joy no thinking fear fan should miss.
Original edition © Dargaud Paris 2008 by Vehlmann & Bonhomme. All rights reserved. English translations © 2016 by Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1914, Canadian Joe Shuster was born. Three years later British cartoonist Reg Smythe (Andy Capp) followed, as did strip writer (Tank McNamara) turned film critic Jeff Millar in1942. That same year Argentinian art wizard José Antonio Muñoz AKA “Muñoz” (Alack Sinner, Joe’s Bar, Sophie, Billie Holiday) was born, with painter Bob Larkin (Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu, Marvel Preview, Planet of the Apes, Savage Sword of Conan, Doc Savage) arriving in 1949; artist Howard Porter (Justice League, Trials of Shazam!, The Flash) in 1969 and Simone Bianchi (Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight, Original Sin) in1972.

In 1951, creator Dudley Fisher (Myrtle) died as did the stounding Jean-Michel Charlier (Redbeard, Buck Danny, Blueberry, Valhardi, Tanguy et Laverdure) in1989; cartoonist Doug Marlette (Kudzu) in 2007 and Indian artist and humourist Mangesh Tendulkar (Sunday Mood) in 2017.

Posted on

The Detection Club parts 1 & 2


By Jean Harambat, coloured by Jean-Jacques Rouger translated by Allison M. Charette (Europe Comics)
eISBN: 979-1-032809-95-2 (part 1), 979-1-032809-96-9 (part 2)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic and literary effect.

Apparently, everybody loves mystery to chew on. With that in mind, here’s a brace of superb cartoon conundrums from the continent, based on an unlikely but actual historical convocation.

As seen on Wikipedia, – The Detection Club was a literary society of British crime writers, founded in 1930, with the likes of G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie as early Presidents. In 1936, American émigré John Dickson Carr became the first non-Brit elected to the august body; and probably pretty snarky elitist gathering.

They did stuff, wrote stories, held events and upheld (Ronald) Knox’s Commandments which detailed the proper rules of mystery writing. The group is the basis of later media McGuffin’s such as Batman’s Mystery Analysts of Gotham City and every bunch of screen authors matched against evil geniuses everywhere…

I’m pretty sure the story here collected in two volumes by award-winning cartoonist, screenwriter, graphic novelist, historian, philosopher and journalist Jean Harambat (Les Invisibles, Ulysses, the Songs of Return, Operation Copperhead) is apocryphal, but you never know…

Originally released in 2019, our case du jour opens in a prologue, with the reciting of those Knox commandments and the confirmation of Mr. Dixon Carr at a slap-up feed at London hostelry Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese – a pub that doesn’t seem to mind the odd celebratory gunshot…

Present are President Chesterton, Dixon Carr, Christie, Sayers, Baroness Emma Orczy, Major A.E.W. Mason and Monsignor Ronald Knox himself, and – as the posh repast winds down – proceedings are somewhat disturbed by the arrival of a flying, talking robotic bird bearing a strange invitation…

Eccentric man of means Mr. Roderick Ghyll wishes the company of the sagacious society at his extraordinary domicile on April 1st. Briarcliff House is situated on a private island where Ghyll wishes to celebrate the future through his latest contrivance, therefore promising “challenges”, “enchantments” and “the renaissance of crime fiction”…

Chapter I opens with the scribes and scribblers approaching ‘An Island in Cornwall’ and still heatedly debating the motives of the mystery man. Ghyll greets them effusively before zooming off in a bizarre electric unicycle leaving them to make their way to his palatial manse: a gleaming tribute to sleek, tripped down modernism – if not actual futurism…

Apart from the domestic staff chef Alphonse, maid Madeline, implacable (not to say positively “inscrutable”) Asian manservant Fu, and stepdaughter Millicent, the only other human present is technical assistant Dr. Zumtod and Ghyll’s haughty beautiful wife Honoria. A future generation would call her a “trophy”…

The old plutocrat is a deeply unpleasant and smugly overbearing host who boasts of one more personage that the sharp-minded, brain-testing authors must meet. With smugness and great ceremony he introduces Eric: a mechanical man with more than human insight who can outwit any mortal and easily determine the culprit in any tale they might concoct…

Although challenged with the details of a string of classic novels – which Eric easily and correctly concludes with the name of the perpetrators – the writers remain insulted and unconvinced. Dixon Carr even oversteps the bounds of polite decency by probing the automaton in search of a pre-prepped dwarf or amputee and the display is halted for dinner where Ghyll continues to advocate a world filled with his “metal friends”…

The evening wears on with the usual social distractions balanced by heated argument on many topics sparked by Eric’s existence and the magnate’s pronunciations that art and literature must make way for a machine-run world. At last, the affair breaks up with the guests retiring to their assigned rooms in a state of high dudgeon…

That all ends in esteemed literary tradition, with screams and the writers breaking into Ghyll’s savagely disarrayed bedroom to discover electronic Eric inert in a chair and clear evidence of ‘The Billionaire Out the Window’. Far below, a dressing gown sinks beneath choppy waves and subsequent frantic searches result in no sign of their host…

Well-versed if not actually experienced in investigation, the writers set about interviewing the staff and then the residents. Zumtod then suggests the painfully obvious: turning Eric loose on the problem. The response is as rapid as the answer is shocking…

While waiting for the outer world to re-establish contact with the isolated isle, “Queen of Crime” Christie bonds with the presumed widow and probes the step-daughter, whilst Chesterton continues to scour the entire vicinity. He’s suspicious of everything – including whether there has been any crime at all – and rapidly unearths many unsuspected secrets even as each writer cleaves to their particular speciality, makes their own assessment and forms a personal hypothesis.

…And then a body washes ashore…

The Detection Club’s second volume begins with third chapter ‘Seven Amateur Detectives’ and an armada of late-arriving constabulary. Led by Inspector Widgeon they proceed to interview the drawing room sleuths. Mounting tensions, contrary theories and wounded pride quickly drive all concerned into fractious conflict, even as potential heir Millicent’s banished and outcast twin Watkyn re-emerges. Has he only returned because of his despised step-father’s demise or was he actually back just before it happened?

Events seemingly come to a head when Christie expounds her latest theory and provokes a minor hostage crisis until the villain is apprehended through unlikely team work. As the constabulary step in with the handcuffs however, new evidence emerges that sets the cogitators back on the murder-trail… until straightforward ratiocination leads one author to the only possible solution…

Wry, witty, and decidedly well-plotted, with smart characterisations and devastatingly sharp, catty dialogue (kudos to translator Allison M. Charette), this lively, lovely lark is also charmingly limned: a grand and glorious tribute to days gone by and superb stylists who tested our wits and expanded our entertainment horizons. This is a tale no whimsy-inclined crime fan can afford to miss.
© 2020 – DARGUAD – HARAMBAT. All rights reserved.

Today in 1911, Canuck-by-migration Ed Furness (Freelance, Commander Steel, “Canadian Whites publications” era) was born, followed by Dick Tracy collaborator Mike Curtis in 1953; Matt Feazell (Amazing Cynicalman) in 1955 and original Men in Black artist Sandy Carruthers arrived in 1962.

On this date we lost Chester Gould (Dick Tracy) in 1985 and Italian megastar artist Ferdinando Tacconi (Journey into Space and Jeff Hawke in Junior Express, Sciuscià, Susanna, Gli Aristocratici, Uomini senza gloria, L’uomo di Rangoon, Nick Raider, Dylan Dog) in 2006. Pioneering Filipino artist Tony DeZuñiga (Black Orchid, Outlaw, Jonah Hex, practically every character at DC & Marvel) died in 2012.

After 1269 weekly issues UK girls comic Mandy folded today in 1991. It had debuted on 21st January 1967.

Posted on

SAM volume 1: After Man


By Richard Marazano & Shang Xiao, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-218-8 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Robots are a beloved theme of fiction, and many stories seem to work on the dichotomy of their innately innocent yet potentially deadly double nature. Channelling elements of A Boy and His Dog via Terminator, here’s one that’s a cut above from French polymath (artist, critic, historian, astrophysicist, politician, comics author) Richard Marazano (The Chimpanzee Complex; Cuervos; Zarathustra and more) with Chinese artist/illustrator/animator Shang Xiao (Midsummer Park).

Told over four volumes, Après l’Homme details a heady tale of trust and survival between apparent natural enemies…

It’s just been the End of the World as We Know It, and in the scattered, shattered rubble of our technological triumphs, gangs of desperate kids forage for food, vitamins and ordnance to help them fend off the autonomous robots that have all but eradicated biological life.

Terse flashbacks disclose the armed rebellion of the mechanised realm and how the mostly subterranean youngsters still alive scavenge and scrounge with roaming mechs hunting them day and night. Tensions are high and emotions fraught, so if someone is a little bit different, negligent or disobedient – like incurable dreamer Ian – it’s a problem for everybody…

Ella looks out for him as much as possible but Ian is destined for doom unless he shapes up. Sadly, he instead takes a step in the other direction after one particular dusk raid to the surface sees Ian instants from annihilation when cornered by a towering killer robot.

Thankfully Russ disables it with his bazooka, but just for a moment there, Ian was sure he had experienced an emotional connection with the droid. It was like it chose not to kill him…

Increasingly obsessed, Ian cannot let the notion go and eventually breaks security to sneak out and examine the remains. They will be easy to find, with the letters SAM boldly painted on the bodywork…

When he comes back, it’s all Ella can do to stop the others killing him. Ultimately, though, tempers subside, but Ian has not learned his lesson. After sharing his earliest memories of his father, fleeing and the lucky escape that saved him, the troubled boy seems to buckle down to the basics of survival, but he’s still gripped by crazy notions, such as abandoning their tunnels and heading out to the fabled suburbs…

With defiance growing and rebellion brewing, the kids head out on another daylight hunt, but again Ian goes looking for “his” robot. Ella catches him and starts yelling, but they are both targeted by a roving mech… and inexplicably saved by another killer machine: SAM!

The victorious horror is badly damaged and as Ella watches in horror, Ian starts to fix it…

When the others find them, more arguing results in Ian getting a deadline: if he can’t make SAM fully operable in two days, he must let them destroy it. The frantic boy strives for the entire time – and succeeds – only to pass out at the end. When he wakes and races to the site, the robot is gone. Bereft and furious, Ian allows Ella to drag him away, but both are unaware that coldly-calculating optic systems are watching them from hiding…

Beguiling and powerfully engaging, this vivid take on an much-explored plot is surprisingly compelling and promises a big payoff in volumes to come.
© Dargaud Paris 2011 by Marazano & Shang. All rights reserved. English translation © 2014 Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1923, illustrator and cover painter Earl Norem (Savage Sword of Conan, Silver Surfer, Six Million Dollar Man, Planet of the Apes) was born, with French pioneer Claire Bretécher (Agrippine, Cellulite, Les Frustrés) arriving in 1940, American mangaka Ben Dunn (Ninja High School, Warrior Nun Areala) in 1964 and Shawn Martinborough (AngelTown, Thief of Thieves, Luke Cage Noir) in 1972.

Posted on

Max and Moritz – translated from the German by Mark Ledsom


By Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch translated /adapted by Mark Ledsom (Puskin Children’s)
ISBN: 978-1-78269-254-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Do you remember when exhausted adults would say something – such as a favoured book – was just “for the children”?

For over a century today’s subject was the quintessential tome those grownups were talking about, but just like so many beloved bygone fairy tales, it probably should not have been. Its well-meaning creator was a gentle, witty family guy whose carefully crafted child’s amusement (along with successive pictorial essays and yarns) become a cornerstone of comics development, as well as one of the earliest and most popular graphic narratives of all time…

Naturally, as child-rearing fashions and notions evolved over decades, so too did the go-to exemplars and visually-aided fairy tale-fuelled social primers that helped form succeeding generation. Nevertheless, when you go back and actually read those old reliable kindergarten standbys, you might be able to grasp why so much of our history turned out the way it did…

Joking aside, so much of traditional western childhood behaviour-shaping salutary fare is Germanic in origins but creepy as £@$#!*! As a staunch pedagogue (no, go look that up before you make a fool of yourself) of Teutonic origins I cannot express how inversely proud that makes me feel…

Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch was born in Wiedensahl, Germany today in 1832. The eldest of seven surviving children, he led a remarkable, eventful but ultimately tragic life. At his prime, despite poor health he became a successful and acclaimed artist and writer, professional painter and poet, sought after humourist and pioneer of comic strips and children’s publishing…

In an era of burgeoning literacy and ironclad views on morality and propriety, books made to traumatise kids into being good began with Heinrich Hoffman’s 1845 release Struwwelpeter and could be found in most middle class homes across the western world. Thus as part of a welter of articles and commentaries churned out at a time of financial need, jobbing writer/artist Busch added his own with the October 1865 launch of Max und Moritz – Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen.

It should have been released through Ludwig Richter Press – a producer of children’s books and “Christian Devotional Literature” – but when they rejected it, the manuscript passed to the artist’s previous publisher Kaspar Braun. A slow seller, Max and Moritz – A Story of Seven Boyish Pranks picked up traction in 1868 with a second edition, and by Busch’s death in 1908 had sold nearly 450,000 copies. It wasn’t hurt by teachers attacking it, declaring it “frivolous and an undesirable influence on the moral development of young people.”

None of his later comics prototypes were as successful. At the time of Busch’s death it was translated into English, Danish, Hebrew, Japanese, Polish, Hungarian, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Latin and Walloonian, but also banned in many countries or barred to readers under 18. By 1997, there were another 281 dialect and language translations available.

Beautifully illustrated and a hugely popular yet controversial addition to the genre of cautionary tales for the instruction and correction of wayward youth, this edition enjoys a careful and liberal re-translation by Mark Ledsom. However, like most kids’ stories from the latter centuries of the last millennium it comes with terrifying warnings, admonitory notes and a moral message baked in (on this occasion, quite literally).

Rendered in stunning pen-& ink linework and described in snappy rhyming couplets we meet a pair of ghastly oiks very reminiscent of Young Tory hopefuls in the ‘Introduction’ prior to the jolly japesters launching their ‘First Prank’ against Old Widow Palmer and her poor poultry…

The ‘Second Prank’ expands the lads’ animal cruelty into framing the widow’s dog for theft before a ‘Third Prank’ targets and endangers harmless tailor Mr. Bock whilst teacher Lampel is nigh assassinated in the ‘Fourth Prank’…

The terrorism encompasses Grandpa Fritz in the ‘Fifth Prank’ as the twisted tots unleash insect hell, after which the ‘Sixth Prank’ sees them burgle, vandalise and pay a stiff price for breaking into the Bakery, before reaping what they sowed after targeting a farmer in their ‘Final Prank’. With justice ferociously served, all that’s left is a sinister summing up, courtesy of a relatively recondite ‘Conclusion’…

Also included here for scholars and show-offs is a foreign language addition of ‘Max und Moritz (Original German Text)’ as well as a fulsome ‘Translator’s Note’ from Ledsom. Noteworthy, remarkable, influential and rather hard to take for many modern readers, Max and Moritz marked a key point in the development of comics… and quite possibly passed a minor Rubicon in human taste. If you need to see how we got here, this is definitely the place to start…

Although the book is in public domain now this version enjoys some proprietary rights.
English translation © 2019 Mark Ledson. All rights reserved.

Today in 1832, German picture story pioneer Wilhelm Busch was born, as was cartoonist Billy De Beck (Barney Google) in 1890; David Breger (Mr Breger, Private Breger, G.I. Joe) in 1908; and Britain’s legendary Denis McLoughin (Roy Carson, Swift Morgan, Buffalo Bill) in 1918 and Argentine line wizard Alberto Breccia (Mort Cinder) one year later.

Good penmanship is crucial in our game but isn’t always apparent, which is why we’re wishing all-star Jerry Grandenetti a posthumous “happy birthday” for today in either 1925 or 1927. Ten years later, unsung giant Tom Sutton (Vampirella, Captain Marvel, Not Brand Echh, Werewolf by Night, Planet of the Apes, The Hacker Files) arrived, complemented by Sara Pichelli (Spider-Man, X-Men, Girl Comics) in 1983.

Ed Dodd’s Mark Trail launched today in 1946, as did UK comic Terrific in 1967 but the date also marks the loss of internationally-acclaimed illustrator Alberto Giolitti (Star Trek, Turok, King Kong, Tarzan, Cisco Kid, Lone Ranger, Cinque anni dopo, Tex Willer ) in 1993; Brant (Wizard of Id) Parker in 2007 and Marty Greim (Thunderbunny, The Shield, Black Terror, Atomic Mouse, Disney characters) in 2017.

Posted on

Love Me Please – The Story of Janis Joplin (1943-1970)


By Nicolas Finet, Christopher & Degreff: translated by Montana Kane (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-681122-76-2 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-681122-77-9

Gosh, aren’t real people interesting… especially in comics?

The list of people who lived hard, died young and changed the world is small but still, somehow, painfully overcrowded. Possibly the most tragic, influential, yet these days largely unknown was a born rule-breaking rebel who defied all conventions to become almost inevitably THE icon of doomed youth-with-big-dreams everywhere…

Author, filmmaker, journalist, publisher, educator and music documentarian Nicolas Finet has worked in comics for more than three decades – generating a bucketload of reference works like Mississippi Ramblin’ and Forever Woodstock. His collaborator on that last one was veteran author, journalist and illustrator Christopher (The Long and Winding Road; many other music-centred tomes and adaptor of the wonderful Bob Dylan). Their compelling treatise on misunderstood and self-destructive Janis – just like her music, poetry and art – is something to experience, not read about, but I’ll do my best to convince you anyway…

After a quick dip into early life and influences, the story proper opens in Texas in 1947 as ‘Forget Port Arthur’ zeroes in on key childhood traumas and revelations around the homelife and schooling of little Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19th 1943 – October 4th 1970) at the start of the most culturally chaotic and transformative period in American history…

Brilliant, multi-talented, sexually ambiguous, starved for love and desperately directionless, her metamorphosis through Blues music mirrors that of many contemporaries (a fair few of whom comprise the infamous “27 Club” of stars who died young). However, as this book shows, although something indefinable was always just out of Joplin’s reach, her response was never to passively accept or ever surrender…

Barely surviving her wildly rebellious teen years, an uncomfortable educational life, brief brush with conventional conformity and near-fatal counter-culture encounter in San Francisco – as all detailed in ‘The Temptation of Disaster’ – her meteoric rise in the era of flower power, liberal love and drug experimentation and record company exploitation lead to her return to sunny California and triumphant breakthrough in 1966, all carried along by ‘Spells and Charms’…

Stardom with hot band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and a host of legendary encounters affording even greater personal dissipation, makes wild child into living myth at Monterey and other landmarks of the Summer of Love, before success and acceptance prove to be her darkest nightmare in ‘Lost and Distraught’…

Global stardom and media glorification are balanced by heartbreak, betrayal and too many brushes with death. As Woodstock confirms her status and talent to the world, the landscape inside her head turns against Janis. Endless exhausting tours and brief amorous encounters further destabilise the girl within and the end – when it comes – is no surprise to anyone…

With a moving Preface from comics legend and childhood friend Gilbert Shelton, a huge, star-studded Character Gallery and suggested Further Reading and Viewing, this forthright, no-nonsense, extremely imaginative interpretation of the too-short flowering of “the Rose” offers insight but never judgement into a quintessentially complex, contradictory and uncompromised life…

NBM’s library of graphic biographies are swiftly becoming the crucial guide to the key figures of modern history and popular culture. If you haven’t found the answers you’re seeking yet, then you’re clearly not looking in the right place. Just remember that, as you gear up for what might well be the last Christmas you’ll spend with loved ones…
© Hatchette Livre (Marabout) 2020. © 2021 NBM for the English translation. All rights reserved.

Most NBM books are also available in digital formats. For more information and other great reads see NBM.

Today in 1931 comics changed forever with the first published episode of Chester Gould’s detective innovation. We last saw his impact in The Dick Tracy Casebook – Favourite Adventures 1931-1990 but there are loads and they’re all great. The same holds true for Walt Kelly’s scathing, sweetly savage political satire which debuted today in 1948. If you’re as yet unconverted why not check out Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comics Strips volume 1 – Through the Wild Blue Wonder?

Posted on

The Order of the Black Dragon – a Bob Wilson Adventure


By Griffo & Marcus (Deligne)
ISBN: 978-2-87135-023-1 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Here’s another oddity from the experimental 1980s when many European publishing houses had a concerted go at cracking the highly resistant US comic book market. The Bob Wilson in question is not the revered nigh-sainted Arsenal and England goalkeeper, nor the character in the old Fatal Fury videogame, but rather a traditional two-fisted adventurer/Soldier of Fortune of the sort that fed so much popular fiction of the last century and a half…

Back in 1982 the series debuted in Le Journal Illustré le plus Grand du Monde as ‘L’Ordre du Dragon Noir’, written by “Marcus” (nom de plume of relative mystery-man Danny de Laet) and drawn by the esteemed Werner “Griffo” Goelen, whose other works include Modeste et Pompon, S.O.S. Bonheur, Munro and – with Jean Dufaux – Béatifica Blues, Samba Bugatti and Giacomo C, amongst so many others, all of which really should be available in a language I’m actually conversant with or fluent in.

Bob Wilson is a period thriller, with this volume, set during the days of US Prohibition, following him and his pal Dashiel Hammett as they battle Chinatown Tongs to thwart the plans of insidious oriental mastermind Black Dragon, prior to our hero tracking the eponymous fiend all the way back to his lair in civil war-torn China.

Wilson can count on the support of a grand line of brothers-in-arms as his protracted war takes him across the globe alongside such historical figures as Aristotle Onassis, John Flanders (one of many pen-names for Belgian writer Jean Ray) and Chiang Kai-shek, as well as the odd fictional character like Buddy Longway – a Western hero very popular au continent…

It’s an infectious blend of all-action, grittily excessive adult pulp fiction, highly cinematic, fabulously exotic and very, very stylish in the manner those darned Europeans made all their own for the longest time. I would dearly love to see some publisher give this franchise another go in these days of digital accessibility and global, not national, market-places…
© 1885 Editions Michel Deligne S.A. and Griffo & Marcus. All rights reserved.

Posted on

The Marquis of Anaon volume 4: The Beast


By Vehlmann & Bonhomme: coloured by Delf and translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-278-2 (PB Album/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content employed for dramatic effect.

In 1972 Fabien Vehlmann entered the world in Mont-de-Marsan. Raised in Savoie, he grew up to study business management before taking a job with a theatre group. His prodigious canon of pro comics work began in 1998 and soon earned him the soubriquet of “Goscinny of the 21st Century”. In 1996, after entering a writing contest in Le Journal de Spirou, he caught the comics bug and two years later – with illustrative collaborator Denis Bodart – crafted mordantly quirky, sophisticated portmanteau period crime comedy Green Manor. From there his triumphs grew to include amongst many others Célestin Speculoos for Circus, Nicotine Goudron in L’Écho des Savanes and a noteworthy stint on major property Spirou and Fantasio…

Scion of an artistic family, Matthieu Bonhomme received his degree in Applied Arts in 1992, before learning the comics trade working in the atelier of western & historical strip specialist Christian Rossi. Published between 2002 and 2008, Le Marquis d’Anaon was Bonhomme’s first regular series, after which he began writing as well as illustrating a variety of tales, from L’Age de Raison, Le Voyage d’Esteban, The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke and much more.

Now, where were we? Imagine The X-Files unfolding in Age of Enlightenment Europe (circa 1720-1730), but played as a solo piece by a young hero reluctantly growing to accept the role of crusading troubleshooter.

With potent overtones of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Fall of the House of Usher and similar gothic romances, it all began in 2001’s L’Isle de Brac: first of 5 albums (available in English-language/digital formats) tracing the development of a true champion of humanity against darkness and venality.

Under-employed middle class merchant’s son Jean-Baptiste Poulain is a scholar, pragmatic philosopher, ardent disciple of Cartesian logic and former medical student. Smart and well educated but impoverished, he accepted a post to tutor the son of the mysterious Baron of Brac. It was a career decision that reshaped the course of his life…

On the storm-battered, isolated island off the Brittany Coast, Poulain experienced fear and outrage, superstition and suspicion before ultimately exposing the appalling secret of the island overlord serfs called “the Ogre”, and bringing justice, finality and closure to all concerned. In the bitter aftermath, Poulain left, but could never outrun the obnoxious title the islanders bestowed upon him in their Bretagne argot: Le Marquis d’Anaon – “the Marquis of Lost Souls”…

Two years later Poulain caught a presumed demonic (but actually faith-based) serial killer (The Black Virgin) before tackling ship-borne plague that demanded the most draconian treatment to save all Europe from annihilation (The Providence) – all without recompense or even enhanced renown or esteem…

La Bête tackles a most traditional challenge from the unknown, as still-struggling, nigh-starveling Poulain is convinced by his beloved cousin Xavier to assist and consult for a company of French Dragoons. A monster is ravaging mountain villages along the border with the Kingdom of Savoy and these doughty non-nonsense warriors have been sent to sort it out.

Their initial scepticism rapidly adjusts to the repeated scenes of carnage and consumption, and Poulain is impressed by the way they can reconstruct events from observing the scattered, battered remains. The accounts of panicked surviving villagers are unreliable, and as the company tracks the animal ever higher into mountainous snowlines, their suppositions begin to affect the soldiers, Soon they too are debating the existence of giant bears and werewolves…

What they do indisputably know is that it’s huge, attacks at dusk, kills wantonly and is unnaturally choosy in what it then eats. One survivor claims it has bulging red, almost human eyes…

After just missing it again Captain Xavier is officially stymied when it crosses into Savoy, before opting to surrender his commission and uniform – but not his gun, shot and powder – to pursue it without creating a diplomatic incident. His most devoted men are just as determined and follow without regimental colours, whilst actual civilian Poulain cannot abandon his hunt for what seems to be malignant proof of supernatural forces…

Sadly, monsters are not the only peril and a clash with smugglers soon makes the hunters into fugitives, allowing Xavier to complete Jean-Baptiste’s schooling by teaching him to shoot…

It’s a wise and fortunate tactic as attrition by weather, environment and the ever-taunting, never seen but constantly heard monster winnows the comrades down to a weary handful. At last a scrap of useful information comes to them in an alpine village where the dwindling populace know well the haunts and tactics of what they call “the Shadow Beast”…

Armed with knowledge, Poulain and Xavier follow the horror higher and higher into its mountain top lair and final battle is joined with truly terrible costs to all…

This gritty derivation of the tales of grendel, krakens and dragons comes to us as another tautly authentic compellingly scripted saga from Vehlmann, depicted via Bonhomme’s densely informative but never obtrusive illustrated realism. As such, it adds a moody, ingenious, utterly enthralling tale of primal endurance to the literary legacy of Man against Monster, perfectly poised on the cusp of societal change from an era of superstition, class separation, burgeoning natural wonder, to one where reason should be ascendant and belief must be verified.

This chilling conundrum of a self-doubting quester barely holding at bay the crippling notion that all his knowledge might be trumped one night by the ever-lurking unknown is utterly compulsive entertainment, making the travails of The Marquis of Anaon mystery milestones no thinking fear fan should miss, and exploits deserving a much greater audience.
Original edition © Dargaud Paris 2006 by Vehlmann & Bonhomme. All rights reserved. English translations © 2016 by Cinebook Ltd.