{"id":4555,"date":"2010-01-30T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=4555"},"modified":"2010-01-28T17:12:21","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:12:21","slug":"aquablue-aquablue-the-blue-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2010\/01\/30\/aquablue-aquablue-the-blue-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Aquablue & Aquablue: the Blue Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>
\nBy Cailleteau<\/strong> & Vatine<\/strong>; translated by Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier (Dark Horse)
\nISBNs: 978-1-87857-400-8 and 1-87857-404-3<\/p>\n

I’m tempted to file these little crackers under \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unfinished business\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as these slim translated French albums feature the first two instalments of a classy, stylish science fiction saga that sadly hit a reef before its conclusion, despite being one of the most long-lived and impressive epics from a country that seems to specialize in successfully exporting edgy, clever comic fantasies.<\/p>\n

In Aquablue <\/strong>the Starliner Silver Star is lost due to a meteor strike and in the rush to the life pods a baby is left behind. Rescued by a robot the boy is reared in space until, eight years later, he finds a planet. The world only has 3% landmass, but is inhabited by a primitive, amiable race of humanoids, and incredibly huge marine species.<\/p>\n

In ten years the boy grows to manhood and as Tumu-Nao<\/em>, becomes a valued member of the tribe. He is even betrothed to the chief’s daughter, Mi-Nuee<\/em>, and the natives believe him blessed by their god, a gigantic whale-like creature called Uruk-Uru<\/em>. Unfortunately Nao’s idyllic life forever alters when an Earth survey ship lands and Terran Ethnologist Maurice Dupre discovers that the young man is Wilfred Morgenstern: lost heir to Earth’s greatest financial empire, the United Energy Consortium.<\/p>\n

However, that Consortium has already enacted a shady deal to turn Aquablue into a vast hyper-station, which will result in the watery globe becoming a gigantic ice-ball, and they certainly don’t need a naive boss who has gone native to queer their big score. Nao’s own aunt puts out a hit on the rediscovered heir, but nobody realises that his connection to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gods\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Aquablue is real and shockingly powerful\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The Blue Planet<\/strong> finds Nao returning to Earth not so much to claim his birthright as to safeguard his adopted homeworld from human incursion. While he is away the Consortium has resorted to the same tactics European imperialists used as they absorbed indigenous Earth cultures – destroying them with free booze and cheap baubles.<\/p>\n

Noa’s father-in-law organizes a resistance movement, fleeing with the entire tribe to the polar regions, but on Earth Nao\/Wilfred is having trouble resisting the allure of technological civilisation, until Mi-Nuee, who had stowed away on a starship, rises like a gleaming message from Uruk-Uru out of the Ocean swell. With the help of Dupre they return in time for the final battle against the Consortium forces that have hunted the natives into the frozen wastelands\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

And that was that.<\/p>\n

Thierry Cailleteau & Olivier Vatine first teamed to produce the outlandishly comedic Adventures of Fred and Bob<\/strong> but really hit their peak on these superb eco-thrillers, based tellingly on the colonial outrages of Western Civilisation: especially in their treatment of Polynesian cultures. The series continued for another nine volumes with artists Ciro Tota and St\u00c3\u00a9phane Brangier replacing Vatine from the fifth book, moving beyond the original storyline into fascinating areas of conservation and space opera!<\/p>\n

Although these slender pearls are worth a look just for the superb quality of art and narrative I’m plugging them here in the greedy hope that with so much European material finally crossing the channel into English, somebody will pick up and complete the translation of this delicious adventure series. Cross your fingers\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 1988, 1990 Guy Delcourt Productions. English translation \u00c2\u00a9 1989, 1990 Dark Horse Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Cailleteau & Vatine; translated by Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier (Dark Horse) ISBNs: 978-1-87857-400-8 and 1-87857-404-3 I’m tempted to file these little crackers under \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unfinished business\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as these slim translated French albums feature the first two instalments of a classy, stylish science fiction saga that sadly hit a reef before its conclusion, despite being one … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Aquablue & Aquablue: the Blue Planet”<\/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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[63,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-european-classics","category-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-1bt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555","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=4555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}