{"id":13328,"date":"2015-04-04T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-04-04T08:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=13328"},"modified":"2015-04-03T17:08:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T17:08:46","slug":"melusine-volume-1-hocus-pocus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2015\/04\/04\/melusine-volume-1-hocus-pocus\/","title":{"rendered":"Melusine volume 1: Hocus Pocus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"
\nBy <\/strong>Clarke<\/strong> (Fr\u00c3\u00a9d\u00c3\u00a9ric Seron) & <\/strong>Gilson<\/strong>, coloured by <\/strong>Cerise<\/strong> and translated by <\/strong>Erica Jeffrey<\/strong> (Cinebook)
\nISBN: 978-1-905460-20-5<\/p>\n

Teen witches have a long and distinguished pedigree in fiction and one of the most engaging of all first appeared in venerable Belgian magazine Spirou<\/strong><\/em><\/strong> in 1992. M\u00c3\u00a9lusine<\/strong><\/em> is actually a sprightly 119 years old and spends her days working as an au pair in a vast monster-packed chateau whilst studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ School\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The feature ranges from one-page gag strips on supernatural themes to short tales detailing her rather fraught life, the impossibly demanding master and mistress of the castle and her large circle of peculiar family and friends.<\/p>\n

Collected editions began appearing in 1995, with the 18th<\/sup> published in 2010. Four of those have thus far made it into English translations thanks to the fine folk at Cinebook.<\/p>\n

The strip was devised by writer Fran\u00c3\u00a7ois Gilson (Rebecca<\/strong><\/em>, Cactus Club<\/strong><\/em>, Garage Isidore<\/strong><\/em>) and top flight cartoon humorist Fr\u00c3\u00a9d\u00c3\u00a9ric Seron, AKA Clarke whose numerous features for all-ages Spirou<\/strong><\/em><\/strong> and the acerbic adult humour publication Fluide Glacial<\/strong><\/em> include Rebecca<\/strong><\/em>, Les Cambrioleurs<\/em>, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continue…<\/em> and Le Miracle de la Vie<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters<\/strong><\/em><\/strong> and as Bluttwurst Les Enqu\u00c3\u00aates de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>, Ch\u00c3\u00a2teau Montrachet<\/em>, Mister President<\/em> and P.38 et Bas Nylo<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is sublimely funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical and genre pieces such as Cosa Nostra<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>, Les Histoires de France<\/em>, Luna Almaden<\/em> and Nocturnes<\/strong><\/em><\/strong> and apparently is free from the curse of having to sleep\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Hocus Pocus<\/strong> was the seventh M\u00c3\u00a9lusine<\/strong><\/em> album, originally released in 2000, and offers a fine place for newcomers to start as the majority of the content is one or two page gags which – like a young, hot Broom Hilda<\/strong> – make play with fairy tale and horror film conventions and themes.<\/p>\n

When brittle, moody Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle, or ducking cat-eating monster Winston<\/em> and frisky vampire The Count<\/em>, she’s avoiding the attentions of horny peasants, practising her spells or consoling dreadfully unskilled classmate Cancrelune<\/em>. Her boyfriend is a werewolf so she only sees him a couple of nights a month\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Her days of toil are occasionally spiced up with and put in perspective by sports days such as blindfolded broom-flying contests and there’s always dowager Aunt Adrezelle<\/em> who is eager and happy to share the wisdom of her so-many centuries\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

After a splendid succession of quick-fire japes and jests, things take on a touch of continuity and even tension when scandalous cousin Melisande<\/em> pops in for an extended visit.<\/p>\n

Spurning the dark, dread and sinisterly sober side of the clan, Melisande became a Fairy Godmother<\/em>; all sparkles, fairy-cakes, pink bunnies and love. She’s simplicity, sweetness and light itself in every aspect, so what’s not to loathe\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6?<\/p>\n

No sooner does the twinkling twit start to grow on everybody however than she falls victim to one of The Count’s periodic bite-fests and slowly metamorphoses into a true witches’ witch: skin-tight black leather, batwings and ready for wicked transformations and sorcery duels at the drop of a pointed hat\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The situation comes to a head and the cauldron boils over in the eponymous extra-long episode ‘Hocus Pocus’<\/em> as Melusine and Melisande finally face off to decide which witch is worst\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Clever, wry, sly, fast-paced and uproariously funny, this compendium of arcane antics is a great taste of the magic of European comics and a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Original edition \u00c2\u00a9 Dupuis, 2000 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2007 \u00c2\u00a9 Cinebook Ltd.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Clarke (Fr\u00c3\u00a9d\u00c3\u00a9ric Seron) & Gilson, coloured by Cerise and translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook) ISBN: 978-1-905460-20-5 Teen witches have a long and distinguished pedigree in fiction and one of the most engaging of all first appeared in venerable Belgian magazine Spirou in 1992. M\u00c3\u00a9lusine is actually a sprightly 119 years old and spends her … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Melusine volume 1: Hocus Pocus”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[113,63,102,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-european-classics","category-fantasy","category-older-kids"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-3sY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}