slowly rolling euro comix thread 2006

http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/League/OtherLeagues/1910s/Shadowmen.jpg

It's a collection of essays about french pulp and adventure books from the 19th century, delving much deeper than the usual mentions of Verne and Dumas. It's also clearly written by Philiph José Farmer fans, as the book makes frequent mention of the Wold Newton incident and tries to tie the french pulp characters into similiar nets of connections. Tons and tons of fun. Anyway, they've released a second volume...

http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/League/OtherLeagues/1910s/Shadowmen2.jpg

And it's all about french adventure comics! Sadly not as good as the first one, as they shun all of the well known and comical stuff in favour of a lot of comics that just seem hopelessly derivative and exploitational to me. Still, there's bound to be a lot here that might appeal to "2000AD" fans, and it does also mention some more high profile stuff like "Barbarella" and "Zig & Puce".

Also, enjoying the Fantagraphics edition of David B's "Babel," even if it can't touch "Epileptic" or the stuff Kevin Huizenga is doing with the similar Igntaz format.

Just read all of Yves Chaland's Freddy Lombard books. "Tintin meets Ripley" would be the best description I can think of -- pretty great stuff.

Oh, you should definitely read the "Nikopol" trilogy the movie is based on - it's one of the best sci-fi comics ever. His latest trilogy doesn't seem quite as good (though he's only released only two parts of it), seems like he's taking himself a bit too seriously.

If you want to read some low-key Bilal stuff, I'd recommend the albums he's done with Pierre Christin. They're rather realistic and cold political thrillers, very different from Christin's Valerian stuff, but well-written anyway.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/2203342021.08._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1056545295_.jpg

...or Les Compagnons du Crépuscule by Bourgeon?

http://www.polytechnique.fr/eleves/binets/bd/conseils/01/aventure/compagnons/ville.jpg

Both are among my favourite fantasy comics, mainly because they're rather different from Elfquest style high fantasy, but I'm not sure if they're available in English.

http://www.ignatz.alojamentos7.com/todasascores/images/uploads/comesil.jpg

I'm a bit apathetic about M. Jean. I can see where it's going but I find the stories a bit insubstantial. Is there a particularly "definitive" one to read?

One thing I forgot to mention above is "Canardo", by Sokal. My mum had a lot of these lying around the house when I was a kid, and I was forbidden to peruse them, as they were very violent/creepy/sexual in nature. At about fourteen or so I finally got to give a look in, and they still freaked me out a bit. When I was in Paris last year I bought the first volume, "Le Chien Debout", and despite it being very light on Canardo himself (he almost adopts a Spiritesque McGuffin position), I was consistently amazed by how good it is. Real gritty noir stuff, with occasional acknowedlegements of the character's animal traits (the first volume has some very funny - in a grisly sort of way - scene where a dog runs towards its killer, knowing she's going to die, because she's been domesticated and can't help but come when she's called.) One moment I remember very vividly was in a volume where Canardo was solving a case on an about-to-disappear island, and one d00d gets shot. His last words are "maybe it isn't...that the sea is rising, but that the island...is sinking." Someone goes "what could he possibly have meant by that?", and Canardo answers "nothing, he was just trying to give his death some significance, since his life didn't have any". And he's *right*. That's "Canardo" in a nutshell.

A few years ago when there was this hype about some new noir comic with a panther or something as the lead character, I remember being annoyed that no one mentioned Sokal.

http://jrobinss.free.fr/BD/canardo.jpg

http://www.universkids.com/IMG/jpg/canardo.jpg

Oh, you should definitely read the "Nikopol" trilogy the movie is based on - it's one of the best sci-fi comics ever. His latest trilogy doesn't seem quite as good (though he's only released only two parts of it), seems like he's taking himself a bit too seriously.

Actually, that's the stuff I read and didn't much like! A lot of mitigating factors, of course: I already knew all the best bits of the story from the movie, I read it out of order (thus confusion), and the portuguese translations were absolutley fucking atrocious. I'll have to check out that Christin stuff - I like what I've read of "Valerian", despite the abscence of likeable characters.

I see at my local store that Lucky Luke has just been published into English again... wonder how long that'll last. Has anyone seen a translated Spirou, ever?

Wikipedia sez that only two translated volumes have ever been published, and they're out of print. This is just staggeringly wrong, I feel bad for you people that didn't get to grow up on "Spirou" :( The general number of BDs that have been translated into english is really bizarrely low, so yeah, chap, if you have the time and inclination to learn some french, go for it! My french is pretty lousy (despite seven years at sk00l studying up on it), but recently I've taken to reading french comix in the original with a dictionary by my side, and I was amazed at how little I had to use it, really - comics are pretty great for working up some ease with a language. Plus you'll get to understand Brel and Gainsbourg lyrics! Speaking of which...

http://gainsbarre.typepad.com/mon_weblog/images/gainsbourg_volutes.jpg

Another Paris purchase. Gainsbourg paid tribute to by Moebius, Didier Poli and Dupuy, amongst others. Nothing spectacular, but a nifty little artefact.

I always find it weird stuff like this gets translated to Finnish, but not English... To miss Spirou is to miss a big chunk of comic history.

http://www.krazykat.freeserve.co.uk/

Picked up the first volume, "Les Géants Petrifies" by Yoann and Vehlmann:

1-Underwater adventure, features the return of that yellow divecraft thing!
2-Rocks the socially relevant vibe like vintage Fournier. Big budget morally bankrupt explorers vs principled scientists FITE!
3-Fantasio chooses the wrong side of same FITE for most of the volume, and yet nobody makes a big deal out of it, no angsty "betrayed by my BEST FRIEND!" nonsense from Spirou.
4-General infatuation with SCIENCE and ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS gives feel of vintage Spirou adventure without coming off as self-conciously retro. Also reminded me of "Tintin" and Bark's adventure stuff at times.
5-I'm not too keen on the Spirou (horizontal lines on the cheeks = manga influence = :-/), but the Fantasio's really well done, looks a bit older and more desperate.
6-Non patronising approach to diferent cultures - hawt indonesian chick (admitidely a bit cheesecake) pwns everyone, modern LOTR infatuated maoris are there for comedy relief, but still respectfully handled.
7-Spip handled sparingly (par for the course with non-Marsupilami stories), but gets to pwn every now and then.
8-Cameos by the Count of Champignac and other scientists from the Spirouverse.
9-OMG H.P. LOVECRAFT REFERENCES IN A SPIROU COMIC!!!

Easily one of the best comics I've read this year.