slowly slowly rolling 2007 eurocomix thread

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The moomins book is out!

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Thursday, 4 January 2007 02:09 (eighteen years ago)

The first volume of "Klezmer" was pretty fun, but to be honest I was more impressed by the essay at the back of it than the comic part.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Thursday, 4 January 2007 11:40 (eighteen years ago)

Just finished the Moomin book. The art is rather lovely! One thing that's confusing to me, having grown up on American newspaper comics, is how the stories are laid out in daily strip format but don't have the usual gags or punchlines. Did this strip ever run in the US? It's way too picaresque and whimsical to imagine it did.

― ng-unit (ng-unit), Thursday, 4 January 2007 13:52 (eighteen years ago)

I thought it had quite a lot of gags! Well the strip I've read (the Riviera one, which was reprinted in a book a few years back - I have the new collection but haven't read it yet).

There's as much of a continuing story tradition in newspaper strips as a gag-a-day one anyway, surely?

Dunno if it ran in the US.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 4 January 2007 14:19 (eighteen years ago)

Ah, the Riviera one is the 3rd of 4 stories in this book. Easily my favorite; certainly the most accessible.

― ng-unit (ng-unit), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:47 (eighteen years ago)

Moomins = lovely. Though I kept being brought up short by disparities between the books and the comics, given that I'd read they were all supposed to fit together. But then I realised I was worrying about Moomin continuity, which is really not the point.

― James Morrison (JRSM), Thursday, 4 January 2007 22:50 (eighteen years ago)

IT IS THE POINT.

Stinky is Snufkin's clone grandchild.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 4 January 2007 23:45 (eighteen years ago)

I may be drunk.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 4 January 2007 23:45 (eighteen years ago)

Better to read the Moomin comics first or the books?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 6 January 2007 09:14 (eighteen years ago)

I'm only a few pages into the comic, but I'd say go with the books, which are really special in a unique, magical sort of way, while the comic is just very well made bonkers social satire, still great but not as peerless as the books.

And start with "Comet In Moominland", the first volume - everyone always says it's the weakest, but I got it first and was blown away by it.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Saturday, 6 January 2007 12:13 (eighteen years ago)

But I have Moominland Midwinter. I just wasn't quite able to get into it the first time I tried. But I only got a few pages in, so another running start should do the trick.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 6 January 2007 18:47 (eighteen years ago)

If the Moomin book starts at the very beginning, when Tove was still handling the strip, things'll only get better once Lars Janson kicks in: there's the constant running joke about Moomins making moonshine in the forest, the infamous LSD episode, the satire of sixties/early seventies social phenomena (hippies, communists, anarchists, you name it)... It's true that comic strip is a different creature compared to the books: it's much wilder and less contemplative, but personally I like it just as much - if not more - than the books.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 09:22 (eighteen years ago)

Hmm, I see that the book is titled "The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip", I hope they're not gonna print the Tove strips only. Though printing the whole series would be quite an investment, in Finland it's collected in 12 or more large books.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 09:30 (eighteen years ago)

About the lack of gags: one thing I like about the comic is that, compared to most other humour strips the story arcs are really long and interesting, so they don't necessarily need a gag per strip.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 09:37 (eighteen years ago)

yes, they're stopping when Lars takes over fully.

― nu-mongrel (kit brash), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 20:09 (eighteen years ago)

Really? That's a real pity, especially if the reason for that is some sort of "auteurism". The Lars strips are, as I said, even better than the Tove ones, and he was already scripting the series for the last two years Tove draw it.

Maybe one day, if I have the time, I could try to scan and translate the story where Moomins take LSD (or "LBJ", as it is cleverly disguised in the comic) for you, it's a classic.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 21:31 (eighteen years ago)

If you want to start with the books, 'Comet in Moominland' introduces lots of the supporting characters for the first time, while 'Finn Family Moomintroll' has them all in situ, bit is pretty much self-contained. And great. Or 'Moominsummer Madness', where everybody lives on a theatre floating on floodwaters while putting on Shakespeare.

Man, Tove really was cool, wasn't she?

― James Morrison (JRSM), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 22:59 (eighteen years ago)

I imagine that if the series goes well, then they might announce a Complete Lars Jansson Moomin - but they've got, what five years committed to already before they'd get that far, so you can see the value in both waiting to make a decision and having the chance for a second round of launch publicity. (Like Fantagraphics intending to go back and do the first ten years of Thimble Theatre after the more sellable second decade… if they weren't going to be scooped on that.)

― nu-mongrel (kit brash), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 00:08 (eighteen years ago)

the lars lsd strip as tuomas describes it always sounds kind of awful to me -- so plz do scan it in, and prove my doubts wrong!

read books in this order:

comet
finn
summer
winter
toffle
M M & little M
exploits
tales
sea
november

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 00:17 (eighteen years ago)

The episode is actually quite funny, and anyway it's a part of a larger, rather charming story where the Moomins win a trip to holiday resort called "Torrelorca". I think part of the charm of the whole strip is how it makes gentle fun of different sorts of sixties/seventies subcultures and youth movements (such as hippies in the case of the LSD story) without being hostile towards them, as some other older commentators (both Tove and Lars were middle-aged by then) were.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 07:26 (eighteen years ago)

scan it scan it scan it

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 12:11 (eighteen years ago)

Okay, but it'll take a while, I'll have to dig for the older Moomin collections in the library, the episode is censored in the newer editions.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 13:04 (eighteen years ago)

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8130/salazartw5.jpg

"Salazar - Agora, Na Hora Da Sua Morte". This was a big hit here in Portugal this past year, getting far more mainstream media attention than comics usually do, perhaps because of the subject matter. It's a sort of impressionistic account of the life of Portugal's very own fascist dictator, who ruled from the early 30's up to the late 60's; his succesor maintained the regime until 1974 - very funny stuff, Salazar was a very uncharacteristic tyrant (austere, melancholic, a bit pathetic - he enjoyed adopting the role of the weary father of the household, his favourite phrase was "if you knew how hard it is to rule, you'd be happier about serving"), and the book is very good at capturing the greyness of his life, with lots of in-jokes (there's a continuing chair motif, referencing the fact that Salazar died after falling from one - not the most dramatic demise.)

I imagine the storyline is of limited interest to people unfamiliar with the background, and for that same reason I'm not holding my breath that it'll get translated/exported (though you never know!) But if you happen to vacation in Portugal anytime soon and if you like slightly McKean-esque art, do give it a go.

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4163/salazar2lm7.jpg

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Saturday, 13 January 2007 13:18 (eighteen years ago)

OK, I'm sold on the artwork.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 13 January 2007 22:54 (eighteen years ago)

three months pass...

http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qe4dxxqUL._SS400_.jpg

"Largo Winch", this thing is apparently at volume 15 but I've never paid attention before (I'm not actually very knowledgeable about eurocomix at all, tbh.) A pure-hearted orphan who ends up in charge of a multi-million dollar corporation in the USA, except he does stuff HIS WAY! Very campy/trashy fun, main character has a suporting cast consisting of a bumbling best friend and a pimpalicious asian-american lesbian pilot what gets all the hot gurls. It seems to me like it's sort of not able to make up its mind on whether it wants to be an adult comic or a kid's comic tho, there's plenty of pretty graphic violence and (alas less graphic) lezzing up but at the same time it has little boxes informing us that Peking is the same place as Beijing and a rather ludicrous page of expoistion on "what is taoism?" But I like it, it's a nice breezy adventure in the Tintin/Spirou mode.

Apparently it's a big deal, btw, with a TV series done and a movie in the works. Wikipedia link = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largo_Winch

― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 6 May 2007 18:48 (eighteen years ago)

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