{"id":14190,"date":"2015-10-30T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T08:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=14190"},"modified":"2015-10-28T10:40:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T10:40:29","slug":"the-rugger-boys-volume-1-why-are-we-here-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2015\/10\/30\/the-rugger-boys-volume-1-why-are-we-here-again\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rugger Boys volume 1: Why Are We Here Again?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy B\u00c3\u00a9ka<\/strong> & Poupard<\/strong> with colour work by Sylvain Frecon<\/strong> & Murielle Rousseau<\/strong>, translated by Luke Spear<\/strong> (Cinebook)
\nISBN: 978-1-905460-33-5<\/p>\n

Human beings – and apparently a huge variety of our pets and animal housemates – seem obsessed with and are delighted by chasing balls about. So much so that we\/they even apply a range of convoluted sets of rules to the sheer exhilaration of the process, just to make things more difficult and artificially extend proceedings.<\/p>\n

We call it sport and when it’s not hugely thrilling and deadly serious it can be hilariously funny\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Comics over the decades and throughout the world have often mined our obsession with assorted games for secondary entertainment value and this Cinebook compilation gathers a fine bunch of strips starring a dedicated amateur team of French gladiators all painfully enamoured of the manly (and British-originated) ball-based pastime called Rugby\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Les Rugbymen<\/em>: <\/strong>was created in 2005 by writing partnership Bertrand Escaich & Caroline Roque under their collaborative nom de plume B\u00c3\u00a9ka (Studio Danse<\/em>, Les Fonctionnaires<\/em>) in conjunction with self-taught illustrator Alexandre Mermin, who generally labours under the pseudonym Poupard (Chez Gaspard<\/em>, Les Brumes du Miroboland<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The resulting flurry of short sharp gags and yarns have filled an even dozen albums thus far. There’s even a junior league spin-off which began in 2010 entitled Les Petits Rugbymen<\/strong><\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

On n’est pas venus pour \u00c3\u00aatre l\u00c3\u00a0!<\/strong><\/em> was the third Euro-volume but the first to be translated by Cinebook – probably because it features a brief sporting tour of England – and perfectly encapsulates the passion, toil and sheer testosterone-idiocy which can warp normally rational folk.<\/p>\n

Our stars are a few dedicated souls faithfully enjoying the trials of club rugby (and that’s Rugby Union, right?) as played by the stalwarts of fictional south-western French town side Paillar Athletic Club<\/em>, affectionately known to their frankly obsessive fans as The PAC…<\/em><\/p>\n

As seen on the introductory page, the usual suspects generally manifest as intellectually compromised Hooker Lightbulb<\/em>, Herculean Prop Fatneck<\/em>, 2nd<\/sup> Row star The Anaesthetist<\/em>, dashing sex-crazed Back Romeo<\/em> and Scrumhalf\/Captain The Grumpster<\/em>, all regularly adored and vilified by The Coach<\/em> who never lets his speech defect get in the way of a good insult to the dozy slackerrrs\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

All you need to know is that these guys are bold, sturdy and love to eat and drink as much as they do smashing each other into the mud\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The exploits are generally delivered as single page sequences, lavishly, lovingly and outrageously illustrated and jam-packed with snippets of off-kilter slapstick to supplement the main gag and the material. Content is almost everything you’d expect from such a fixture: big beefy blokes in very small towels, lots of booze-fuelled gaffes, eating eccentricities, knob jokes and the mutual sportsmanlike skulduggery which permeates all games Real Men compete in\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

However also on display are a profusion of smartly-planned running gags and little comedic gems such as the well-meaning meatheads’ ongoing efforts to help Lightbulb find \u00e2\u20ac\u0153love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, Romeo’s constant comeuppances from husbands, boyfriends and employers unhappy with his off-pitch conquests and The Coach’s eternal battle to whip his band of idiots into a team he can be proud of\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

As previously mentioned, this collection also contains a wry, preconception\/prejudice-confirming international excursion when The PAC accept an offer to play a friendly match against British college side Camford<\/em>. As well as a chance to pummel the despised English, there’s the promise of seeing a Six Nations match to offset the unbearable pain of living on the foreigners’ appalling food and pathetic beer\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Fast, furiously funny and splendidly boisterous, these are the kind of cartoon antics that might even inspire dedicated couch-potatoes to get out of the house – unless they order books and dinner online\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 BAMBOO EDITION, 2006 by B\u00c3\u00a9ka & Poupard. All rights reserved. English translation \u00c2\u00a9 2007 Cinebook Ltd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By B\u00c3\u00a9ka & Poupard with colour work by Sylvain Frecon & Murielle Rousseau, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook) ISBN: 978-1-905460-33-5 Human beings – and apparently a huge variety of our pets and animal housemates – seem obsessed with and are delighted by chasing balls about. So much so that we\/they even apply a range of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Rugger Boys volume 1: Why Are We Here Again?”<\/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":[113,63,210],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-european-classics","category-sport"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-3GS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14190","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=14190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}