I read some comics over the last week or so.
Mafalda used to run in the papers when I was a child, but I’m not quite sure whether I remember liking it or not. I like the artwork, but I think I found the humour to be rather annoying?
But I really liked Mafalda now — it’s funny and endearing.
The translation here, though, isn’t very good. I mean, there’s tons of puns in Mafalda and those are just a pain to translate, but frequently the strips (in English form) are more “eh? eh?” than “heh heh”, and I think that’s down to the translation.
It’s also a bit confusing that there’s not a hint of explanation of what we’re reading. I mean, I hate introductions and all of that jazz, so I’m happy that they let the work speak for itself, but there’s not even a date anywhere in the book — and that’s pretty important, since Quino speaks a lot about current affairs. But I’m guessing this book reprints work from about… 1966?
A new batch of minis from Kuš. I didn’t find this batch as strong as usual.
This one was overly didactic.
I liked this one.
And this one was funny.
And I have no idea what was going on in this one.
I read another Corto Maltese album in French (because reading works translated into French is easier than reading works written in French).
I’m not sure the colour palette chosen for this is totally successful — there’s a whole lot of beige and tans and not much else. I mean, I’ve got these comics in black and white, too, so that’s why I bought these French editions in colour.
In any case, these stories (there’s five more 20 page stories in this album) are still a delight to read. They’ve got such a mood going on.
Tegnehanne has done these books for a while now — they’re strongly autobiographical ones, and the worry is, of course, that she’d run out of stuff to write about.
Have no fear! This is as good as anything she’s done before — it’s funny and heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.
She depicts her neighbours in rather, er, frank terms…
… so if these bits are true (and they certainly feel that way), I’m wondering whether there were strained relationships in the ‘hood after this was published.
I’ve been diligent with my French and read four issues of the Spirou magazine.
How current affairs-ey! Kid Paddle’s family takes in a Ukrainian refugee (from Chernobyl). (It turns out (on subsequent pages) that everything isn’t fun about a nuclear disaster anyway.)
Of the new serials, The School For Bad Parents has promise — very funny, but is he going to run out of ideas?
I love the Seccotine serialisation.
And of course, Les Fabrices are always hilarious.
And there aren’t too many series like the above (which I just find to be pretty dull), so this was a good batch of Spirous.
Galago is a long-running Swedish anthology. Lots of good stuff, but these two stood out:
This reminds me a bit of Lynda Barry’s late-80s artwork? And that’s high praise indeed.
This is very 2026, on the other hand, but also good.
Yes, I read some Marvel comics, too.
Planet She-Hulk is the worst of the bunch.
Venom (written by Al Ewing) is the best.
And some Image/Dark Horse/IDW books.
James Stokoe is insane (complimentary).
And so is Jake Smith (ditto).
Oh, and that’s it? I guess so.