Another brisk one this week, as various deadlines for other
things click together to form some kind of evil Voltron of deadline. Oh! And
Jessica Jones! I’ve seen two of them as of this particular deadline. So good,
eh??
By Fabien Vehlmann & Matthieu Bonhomme
Published By Cinebook
When last we saw Jean-Baptiste Poulain he was sailing away
from The Isle of Brac, having had some supernatural experiences and almost
unwittingly catching a murderer. The locals of Brac dubbed Poulain “The Marquis
of Anaon” – “Anaon” meaning “Lost Souls,” and in Poulain’s second adventure,
“The Black Virgin,” he’s accepted his role as a kind of ghost
detective/debunker, travelling from place to place to solve crimes of potentially
supernatural origin.
For the past two years, at Christmas, women have been
horribly murdered near the Shrine of The Black Virgin in rural Puy Marie. The shrine is of special significance to
local gypsies, so of course suspicions are cast their way and in particular
toward a lovely fortune teller. Poulain, struggling to ingratiate himself with
the locals, is not wanted by either the travelling gypsies or the townsfolk.
The superstitions of both sides swell and when another body is found, Poulain begins
to doubt his ability to uncover the murderer.
The wonderful thing about the Anaon books is just how
bumbling Poulain actually is as out slightly mystical, know it all crime
solver. Even here, having realised some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy by owning
the “role” of The Marquis of Anaon, he’s still far from becoming a brave and
heroic crusader. He screams when he’s frightened, vomits when he finds a
mutilated chicken placed in his bed as warning, can’t keep his pistol from
quivering when pointed at a potential threat. Getting by on an aura of near
mysticism that’s completely self-created, Poulain is in many ways as much of a
fraud as the charlatans he encounters as he digs deeper into the mystery.
However, all of these foibles actually make Poulain a far more human character
and in many ways even more relatable. His intent is good and just, his
open-mindedness in an era of bible-thumping and belief in curses is
commendable, his bumbling attempts at bravery made somehow even braver by the
fact that he can’t fight and scares easily. He pushes ever onward with minimal
help, into grave dangers he’s in no way ready to handle.
Bonhomme’s art is as gorgeous as ever. His bleak woods of
winter-dead trees, his snowfalls, his gypsy camps and frosted stonework impeccable
and atmospheric. Fond of framing
longshots with spindly branches and Mignola-esque trees in the foreground as
characters meet in the mid-ground, his staging is perfect, his layouts direct.
Vehlmann’s script is brisk, yet punctuated by entire pages of quiet moments,
allowing his artist to shine and his characters a moment to breathe.
Presented in oversize album format, “The Black Virgin” is a
beautiful comics package that foreshadows further development and even eventual
disaster for our fledgling hero. Cinebook touts itself as “The 9th Art
Publisher” and with comics as cinematic, compelling and visually lovely as The
Marquis of Anaon series, they’re backing up the boast.
WEBCOMIC OF THE WEEK : AGAINST THE FLOW
By Nick Sousanis
I’m halfway through Nick Sousanis’ Unflattening and unless
he totally screws up the back end it’s poised to be the most important example
of the medium produced this year. Described as “an insurrection against the
fixed viewpoint,” Sousanis masterfully utilises all the strengths of our
beloved artform to maximum effect in breaking down not only comics, but the
very nature of perception (and thus reality) in a blend of art, science and
philosophy. It’s a special book, one that will make your synapses crackle as
you turn the pages. Sadly, as Harvard University Press publishes it,
Unflattening is not available through Diamond Distributors meaning All Star
can’t get it for you. This sucks. Thankfully, however, you can get a taste of
what Sousanis is all about (his intricate, thoughtful utilisation of comics
space, his gift of transmuting scientific and philosophical thought into visual
art) in “Against The Flow,” a one-page webcomic found at the Boston Globe.
COUNTDOWN TO MOZ METAL: HEAVY METAL AUGUST 1978
What? This can’t be right! Censorship hits the offices of
Heavy Metal! So many letters from concerned moralists have been received that
overt (male) nudity and copulation is to be toned down as of this August ’78
issue. No more will the swinging dicks of Corben’s heroes be seen and letterer
extraordinaire John Workman has been told to shuffle word balloons around to
cover up some of the more risqué sexual activity.
A moment of silence, please.
…..
…..
…..
…..
Okay.
Anewly shackled Corben still belts out a typically lavish
chapter of “New Tales of the Arabian Nights” with Sindbad having to deal with a
(loincloth-wearing) demon who has made a vow not to harm Sindbad himself, but
has set his sights on Sindbad’s wife instead. Slightly clichéd heroics from Strnad’s
script here, but hey, at least there’s heroics. After last chapter I was
practically rooting for the demon…
Zha and Nicole Claveloux’s “Off-Season” debuts, a surreal
strip about two private detectives aboard an experimental train that
unexpectedly dissolves around them before they reach their seaside destination.
Finally meeting their client, a reedy young woman who does not reveal the
nature of her business with our detectives by chapter’s end, Claveloux’s fine
black and white cartooning with it’s odd, expressive characters and
thoughtfully curved architecture make for some perfectly dreamy atmospherics.
Moebius’ “Airtight Garage” continues on in all its oddness
and beauty, as does Gray Morrow’s “Orion,” Moench and Nino’s adaptation of
“More Than Human” and Druillet’s “Gail.”Chapter Three of Voss’ “Heilman” brings
to mind a lustier, even more unhinged version of Jim Starlin’s Warlock run in
it’s distortions of time and space, with Heilman resuming once more the
“eternal cycle of life and death” and coming up against a vessel that sucks in
the souls of the dead which he has to orgasm his way out of.
Finally, “Planet of Terror” by Caza and Paul Montellierre
deserves a special mention for its far-out, sensory overload graphics and
love-filled climax. A man presses a
strange button in his elevator and is subsequently blasted into the cosmos.
Finding himself a prisoner in an alien zoo, he is made to live in an apartment,
wear a suit, eat cereal and watch his “masters” on TV with their “disgusting
voices hollowingly babble vile incantations” (sic). Thankfully, respite from
this drudgery and banal horror comes in the form of love when our narrator
encounters a beautiful woman. This being a French comic, love and sex are the
answer to everything and in their union, man and woman are transported to a
psychedelic utopia of their very own. Kind of trite and obvious in a
Slaughterhouse Five goes The Fifth Element way, but, man, “Planet of Terror” is
just so beautiful to look at that it boosted my Hippy levels up 20% just
reading it.
COMICS VIDEO OF THE WEEK: ORBITAL COMICS PRESENTS: SOUTHERN BASTARDS DIRECTOR’S
COMMENTARY WITH JASON AARON & JASON LATOUR
Oh, this is fun.
London’s Orbital Comics are back with another of their
in-store Director’s Commentaries (last linked to in this column when Becky
Cloonan stopped by Orbital to discuss Gotham Academy). This time it’s the
Jasons, Aaron and Latour, hilariously and yet informatively and educationally
pulling Southern Bastards first story arc apart with the breezy chatter of two
very good friends.
See you next week. Love your comics.
Cameron Ashley spends a lot of time writing comics and other things you’ll likely never read. He’s the chief editor and co-publisher of Crime Factory (www.thecrimefactory.com). You can reach him @cjamesashley on Twitter.
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