{"id":26185,"date":"2022-07-20T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T08:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=26185"},"modified":"2022-07-18T14:21:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T14:21:19","slug":"miss-dont-touch-me-volumes-1-and-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2022\/07\/20\/miss-dont-touch-me-volumes-1-and-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Miss Don\u2019t Touch Me volumes 1 and 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy Hubert<\/strong> & Kerasco\u00ebt<\/strong>, translated by Joe Johnson<\/strong> (NBM)
\nISBN: 978-1-56163-544-3 (TPB) & 978-1-56163-592-4 (TPB)<\/p>\n

Hubert Boulard was a French comics writer and colourist who died suddenly on February 12th<\/sup> 2020. He is criminally unknown in the English-speaking world.<\/p>\n

\u201cHubert\u201d was born on January 21st<\/sup> 1971, and after graduating in 1994 from the \u00c9cole r\u00e9gionale des beaux-arts d’Angers, began his comics career as an artist for seasoned pros such as \u00c9ric Ormond, Yoann, \u00c9ric Corberyan, Paul Gillon and others. He started writing strips for others in 2002, with Legs de l’alchimiste<\/em><\/strong> limned by Herve Tanquerelle, followed up with Yeaux Verts<\/em><\/strong> for long-term collaborator Zanzim.<\/p>\n

He produced another 14 separate series – many of them internationally award winning like Les Ogres-Dieux<\/em><\/strong> and Monsieur d\u00e9sire?<\/em><\/strong> – and in 2013 contributed to collective graphic tract Les Gens normaux, paroles lesbiennes gay bi trans<\/em><\/strong>: released to coincide with France\u2019s national debate on legalizing same sex marriage.<\/p>\n

His final book was with artist Zanzim. Peau d’homme<\/em><\/strong><\/a> – a comedy exploring gender and sexuality at the height of an era of medieval religious intolerance and social stratification – was posthumously published in June 2020\u2026 and is as yet unavailable in English translation.<\/p>\n

Debuting in 2006, Miss Pas Touche<\/em><\/strong> was Hubert\u2019s third scripting venture and remains arguably his most successful. It was originally released as four volumes in France, which – when translated by NBM – were delivered as two deliciously wicked tomes\u2026<\/p>\n

This slim, sleek initial translated tome offers a superb period murder mystery from visual creators probably best known in the English speaking world as contributors to Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim\u2019s Dungeon<\/strong> series of interlinked fantasy books.<\/p>\n

Here, Paris at the end of the 19th<\/sup> century is plagued by its very own Jack the Ripper – a knife-wielding maniac dubbed \u201cthe Butcher of the Dances\u201d because he picks his victims from lower class girls frequenting suburban Tea-dances where the young people gather\u2026<\/p>\n

Blanche<\/em> is a maid in a fine socially prestigious house: pious, repressed and solitary, unlike her sister Agatha<\/em> – also a maid in the same residence – who is fun-loving and vivacious. They share the attic room at the top of the house where one night, Blanche accidentally sees \u201cthe Butcher\u201d at his bloody work through a crack in the wall.<\/p>\n

He sees her too, and some nights later she finds Agatha dead, as if by her own hand. Blanche knows what must have really happened\u2026<\/p>\n

Anxious to avoid scandal, the mistress of the house dismisses Blanche, who is forced to fend for herself on inhospitable streets. Through a combination of detective enquiry and sheer luck, she finds a lead to the killer and secures a position in The Pompadour, the most exclusive brothel in the city. By catering to a rich and powerful elite, here she will find the Butcher and exact her revenge\u2026<\/p>\n

Originally published in France as La Vierge du Bordel<\/strong><\/em> and Du Sang sur le Mains<\/strong><\/em>, this witty, and hugely engaging crime conundrum cleverly peels back its layered secrets as our star finds a way to turn her steadfast virginal state and overwhelming frustration to her advantage amidst the decadent rich and sexually bored of Paris. Maintaining her virtue against all odds, Blanche discovers the other side to a world she previously despised, while valiantly achieving her goal, even though it threatens to topple two empires!<\/p>\n

Feeling very much like a cheeky grown-up version of Frances Hodgson Burnett\u2019s 1905 novel A Little Princess, <\/strong>this saucy confection from writer\/colourist Hubert is delightfully realized with great panache by the Kerasco\u00ebt to the delight of a wide variety of grown-up readers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Miss Don\u2019t Touch Me volume 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s return to the eclectic world of the French demi-Monde<\/em> – in the oddly inappropriate guise of formerly naive and still virginal ex-housemaid Blanche, who one night espied a psychopathic murderer at work. Intent on silencing the pesky witness, \u201cthe Butcher of the Dances\u201d mistakenly killed Blanche\u2019s sister Agatha<\/em> in her stead, before the surviving sibling was unceremoniously sacked by her employers to avoid scandal.<\/p>\n

Thrown onto the streets of fin de si\u00e8cle<\/em> Paris, our pious innocent found refuge and unique employment within the plush corridors of the city\u2019s most exclusive and lavishly opulent bordello. Fiercely hanging on to her virtue against all odds, Blanche became Miss Don\u2019t Touch Me: a spirited – and energetic – proponent of the \u201cEnglish Method\u201d – specifically, an excessively enthusiastic flagellating dominatrix, beating the dickens out of men who delighted in enduring exquisite pain and exorbitant expense. The first volume ended with justice for both Blanche and the Butcher but her adventures were not over\u2026<\/p>\n

This delightfully audacious and risqu\u00e9 sequel opens with Blanche – virtue still notoriously and profitably intact – as the Pompadour\u2019s most popular attraction, even though the magnificent edifice is undergoing an expensive and disruptive refit.<\/p>\n

However, she is deeply unhappy with her life and tries to flee, buy and even blackmail herself out of her onerous contract. She is soon made brutally aware of how business is really done in the twilight world of the courtesan-for-hire\u2026<\/p>\n

Utterly trapped, Blanche loses all hope, even while becoming gradually enamoured of Apollo-like young dandy Antoine<\/em>: one of the wealthiest men in the country and a man apparently content to simply talk with her. Complications mount when her unscrupulous, conniving mother returns to Paris and begins to avail herself of the surviving daughter\u2019s guilt-fuelled generosity and social contacts\u2026<\/p>\n

Blanche\u2019s velvet-gloved imprisonment seems set to end when her bonny bon vivant boy begins to talk of marriage, but just as suddenly, her life at the brothel begins to radically unravel. Obviously the aristocrat\u2019s dowager mother has no stomach for the match, but social humiliation is not the same as the malicious lies, assaults, attacks and even attempted poisoning Blanche experiences.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the genteel dominatrix\u2019s mother seems to hold a hidden secret concerning Antoine\u2019s family and, if they are to be wed, why doesn\u2019t the prospective groom want his bride-to-be to give up her day – or more accurately – evening job?<\/p>\n

Originally published in France as Le Prince Charmant<\/strong><\/em> and Jusqu<\/strong><\/em>\u2019\u00e0 ce que la Mort Nous <\/strong><\/em>s<\/strong><\/em>\u00e9pare<\/em><\/strong>, this enticing, knowing and hugely enthralling tale trumps the inspired murder-mystery of the introductory volume with a turbulent period melodrama of guerrilla Class Warfare that promises tragic and shocking consequences, especially after Antoine abruptly vanishes and the apparently benevolent brain surgeon Professor Muniz<\/em> begins his terrifying work\u2026<\/p>\n

A compelling saga stuffed with secrets, this engagingly sophisticated confection from writer\/colourist Hubert, illustrated with irrepressible panache by Kerasco\u00ebt (married artistic collaborators Marie Pommepuy & S\u00e9bastien Cosset) will further delight the wide variety of grown-up readers who made the first book such a popular and critical success.
\n\u00a9 2007 Dargaud by Kerascoet & Hubert. All Rights Reserved. English Translation \u00a9 2007, 2008, 2010 NBM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Hubert & Kerasco\u00ebt, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM) ISBN: 978-1-56163-544-3 (TPB) & 978-1-56163-592-4 (TPB) Hubert Boulard was a French comics writer and colourist who died suddenly on February 12th 2020. He is criminally unknown in the English-speaking world. \u201cHubert\u201d was born on January 21st 1971, and after graduating in 1994 from the \u00c9cole r\u00e9gionale … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Miss Don\u2019t Touch Me volumes 1 and 2”<\/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":[75,63,215,105,111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-comics","category-european-classics","category-lgbtqia","category-mature-reading","category-satirepolitics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-6Ol","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26185","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=26185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26188,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26185\/revisions\/26188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}