the ‘musician’ looking closely like Jules-de-chez-Smith
Oh wow, that's gotta be him! Oh dear, does that mean he's a spy, too? lol
Damn, Franka is such a cutie and so strong and dominant at the same time!
I do tend to prefer female leads, I think because their stories tend to be more interesting, less gimmicky, and more 'telling of the human condition.' OTOH, I'm also a sucker for beautiful babes, and Franka is a nice compromise I think because she lets me be a horny teenager at one level, but also someone kind of awestruck by how clever and powerful she is as a character. So... yeah, lol, I agree!
So, Animah is maybe the best example so far after Rix, who Franka does have plenty of sex with (mostly implied, but still). I haven't read any Incal in a long time. :S
Btw, I just found out that in a later album Rix betrays Franka, and deus ex machina, is indeed promptly killed off, seemingly confirming my thoughts in the post. It can work for stuff like Franka and The Incal, but would be a disaster in other works.
I guess Stel and Atana is a little more iffy for me. That was one of the first Moeby stories I ever read, and I distinctly remember the male (Stel?) becoming obsessed with Atana and chasing her away. I guess in a later volume she finally accepted him, but then it was revealed that the whole sequence was merely a dream-fantasy, right?
I still refuse to consider that episode canon and I never will!
Haha, I can understand that. Personally I'm a bit torn, as I've always liked Le Retour de Martin Guerre and other imposter stories / films, but I guess I see yours and others' point that there was simply too much of Skinner's backstory to simply throw it all away like that, yup.
Ah, Warhammer? I had no idea!
Honestly, BD has been a huge motivator for me continuing to work on my French. The DuoLingo app isn't perfect, but it's helped me a lot, especially when combined with Google Translate and a couple other resources.
Out of the examples here, Nävis' son Yanno is the humanoid with the 'black eye':
Cool, thanks for that link! It seems there's a point being made there that somewhat echoes one of my own, in that while the two leads are affectionate, the albums themselves don't seem to devote too much time & space (haha) to them being romantic or outright sleeping together. That seems to reinforce the idea that such things might be at odds with the overall aim & philosophy of the series. *shrug*
In any case, Laureline was conceived from the beginning as a main character, right? So what I'm curious about is when a successful series later adds a main character via the mechanism of a love interest.
Smurfette from Les Schtroumpfs is sort of a sideways example, but in her case she was moreso just a main character being added that wasn't the GF of anyone in particular.
Or if you remove the romance angle, then the biggest examples I can think of right now would be the Tintin series adding Haddock and then Calculus. Altho they obviously worked out beautifully, there was always the chance that readers wouldn't appreciate them, requiring Hergé to 'fade them out' one way or another.
I feel like there's got to be an example when things like that don't work out, but I think it also goes to show why so many series have been cautious about that kind of thing.
EDIT: Oh wow, I just double-checked and realised that Laureline was not originally a colleague of Valérian, but rather a peasant girl from 11th-century France who joined up with him in the debut album Bad Dreams. So she technically was added to the series, but since we're talking the very first album... hmmm. :S
EDIT2: Ooh, I just thought of another candidate! That would be Nävis from Sillage (Wake in English) hooking up with a Human-like male and producing a son ("Yanno") who later joins her in the adventures.
Ugh. As an active French-learner, I just give up:
https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-say-what-the-fuck-or-wtf-in-French
&^!@$
Was that an attempt to say "what's this shit?" perchance...?
Hmm, I was kinda puzzling over what you meant by "political," then it hit me that maybe you meant the landslide of crazy alter-egos that showed up later in the book!
Then it hit me again that the book was published in 1974, when I seem to recall a major, popular psychological effort to break down one's being in to different aspects, like "id," "ego," and "superego."
Holy shizzle, author Nicole was swinging at some major, respected piñatas right there! XD
Yet if the urge strikes me, can I just make posts? is there a certain format I should adhere to? Do we consider English comics also as part of this?
Sure, feel free to post when the mood hits you. You don't have to follow my format. I think the sidebar lays out everything you need to know, but there are also some posting tips in the FAQ. I personally consider the UK part of the the overall "Euro" experience, so please fire away with Moore or other Brits.
Altho yes, I know what you mean about certain UK creators straddling continents as it were. Bryan Talbot and Pat Mills come to mind...
Same as with food, American culture is one of rapid growth and excess, whereas Europeans, especially in the south, tend to go a bit slower, with a bit more respect for tradition.
That seems pretty apt. America has arguably been a sort of pyramid scheme since its founding, with the territories and vast natural resources of the area encouraging some of the worst sorts of oversight, lawlessness and mismanagement across multiple levels.
But as for comics, American stuff tends to be too performative for me. It doesn't tell the truth nor relate to me nearly as much as Euro stuff does.
TBF this blog is playing a big part in that return.
Cool! It does seem like a "blog" at times, altho eventually I'm hoping it turns in to a healthy community with multiple people contributing.
Thanks also for the opinions and recommendation. Good comments are also a form of valued contribution. :-)
It was designed by mad genius François Boucq, perhaps best known for co-creating the thinking person's Wild-West series Bouncer, with plenty of other awards and creations under his belt.
Here's the map location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/HMgmb8qGHjUunAYJA
And an alternate view:
What can I say? Goscinny is the man. He's one of the pivotal figures in BD, whose life got cut short vastly too soon.
I understand this lovely mural is part of Angoulême's series of frescos dedicated to him and other BD figures & themes. <3
The Black Axe is a six-issue mini-series set in the Mouse Guard universe, and this is the original art used for the cover of issue #4. I'm sharing it because I found the art heavily ligne claire-inspired, plus.. yeah! I simply love the piece.
But more than just that, I found The Black Axe a wonderful series as a whole, which shares elements of style, narrative, plotting and tragedy with classics such as Beowulf and Túrin's Tale (from Tolkien's Silmarillion).
Here's three sample pages from this same issue: (click or zoom to expand)
I'll have to write a proper review of the Mouse Guard series at a later date, but for now, I can certainly recommend this particular mini-series as a great introduction, more focused and less full of characters and subplots than the other series.
Following is the cover version of the art:
And more general Mouse Guard samples HERE.
It's from album #19, Au bord du Grand Rien (At the Edge of the Great Void).
Interestingly, the original art by Jean-Claude Mézières (downloadable here in high-res), was estimated at €25,000 - 30,000 at auction, and sold for €31,200 two years ago!
More details at the link above.
These first two are from the book A Land Called Tarot. It's a wordless set of stories inspired by cards, characters and motifs from the venerable tarot deck of cards. The characters are drawn in an anime style (shades of Studio Ghibli), while the backgrounds & settings remind me a lot of Moebius. The stories are fluffily light and whimsical, and for me they're really about looking at the pleasant artwork and imagining what might be happening. Some readers will really enjoy that, and some will miss the lack of a more concrete story.
These next two are from some kind of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" project Bertrand was doing for Nickelodeon. I liked the fact that they're the exact same view, but captured during different time frames, making for a cool 'flip-card' effect.
More art by Bertrand HERE.
This is a fun series I've been reading recently. A pirate captain's lady love was tortured and killed physically, but due to sorcerous machinations, her spirit is able to hang on... barely. Hannibal must soon find a fabled artifact in order to fully restore her, else she's a goner. Unfortunately, some dangerous, undead witches are also after the treasure, and are quite content with wiping our antiheroes out in the process.
I thought this was a well-realised tale, regardless of the mashup of paranormal angles, and overall a bit in the style of Belladonna (reviewed previously). This one feels slightly more contrived in places, but it moves with a purpose, and features gorgeous art. It's certainly one of the better pirate-themed series I've read, bringing some unusual new wrinkles in to the genre. Written by Jean-Luc Istin, with Sandrine Cordurié inking Créty's pencils.
Couldn't find the creator, sorry. If anyone figures that out, leave a comment and I'll add the credit, thanks.
https://aethernaut.thecomicseries.com/comics/
It's hard to describe this series, but I guess we could go with: 'a coming-of-age adventure set in a 17th-century steampunk world.' It's been running for 12 years now, yet I almost feel as if it's just started to get rolling, which is maybe a tribute to the quality world-building.
On the surface, we have a dashing young protagonist trying to advance his fortunes, yet this series is just as much about the world itself, its cultures, wrangling political factions, unusual races (both humanoid and animal), and of course, a trickster-fool as a side character, getting our guy in and out of jams on a regular basis.
Mariah Kaercher (TCG): Browsing through Æthernaut, I got a Charles Dickens meets Pirates of the Caribbean space-adventure vibe. What inspired you to write this web comic?
Neal Skorpen: The world and main characters of Æthernaut were inspired by weird post-medieval art: engravings and drawings that have a dreamlike feel because linear perspective wasn’t quite figured out. The clothes are bizarre and awkward compared to the more familiar costumes of the deep Middle Ages or the 17th and 18th centuries. The first draft of the story was modeled on Gulliver’s Travels; four voyages to strange places, each one a metaphorical attack on one social injustice or another. In the years between making the first draft and beginning the current version, I’ve become less of a believer in such direct political satire, at least in my own practice. To a certain extent I can probably never get away from injecting social commentary, but a good story needs to be driven by the characters, so that’s become my focus.
Interview concludes here.
Ooh, ooh, here's a bonus: (it's the Kidman / McGregor poster)
I have a feeling this is AI-generated, to be honest. I first found it on a German site IIRC, but couldn't find any significant matches apart from that.
I'll try to avoid posting AI art in future, but I have to admit... some of it is pretty flippin' impressive!
EDIT: No, I guess I'll post more AI art in future, based on the positive response and discussion below. I'm frankly a little torn, but I'll abide.
Millidge is a British cartoonist best known for his series "Strangehaven."
Subject matter aside, I love the striking nature of this piece... the disciplined light & shadow interplay, limited palette, and the piercing, mysterious look of the masked woman.
An unlettered version of the piece is here, which might do with some sharpening and cropping.
It's the german-accented french that's confusing both me and google-translate: