Here’s some comics I’ve read over the past fortnight… Mostly French(ish) comics, eh? Didn’t really plan that.
So as usual, a couple of issues of Spirou.
I really like the Imbroglio météo series. It fun and fresh, but in a very classic way.
In a more classic/classic way, we have the Lewis Trondheim-written Spirou serial — that’s being serialised one page per issue, which is quite unusual. But it’s a good series, so…
This is a Pif Gadget special. I think my subscription has fortunately run out…
… because this just isn’t very good, is it? I mean, it’s a reprint of a totally ancient series for small children…
… but I just kinda found it a bit lame, even as these things go.
The next four albums were all picked up a the local used comic book store, and I’m starting to see a theme in the stack of French comics they have: Virtually all of them are from 1980, so I guess that means that somebody spent a year in France in 1980 and bought many, many contemporary albums there. And now, 46 years later, what usually happens with these collections has happened…
The author of Brunelle et Colin is unknown to me, but the artwork is by Bourgeon, who would later become a big star.
The artwork here is pretty attractive, even though it’s often very hard to tell the difference between the characters — especially when everybody is wearing hats, and in the snow (it snows for most of the pages). I kinda think Bourgeon took some shortcuts, eh? But it’s fine — it’s a pretty entertaining book.
This, however, is by somebody I’m totally unfamiliar with — Michel Crespin. Looking at his bibliography, it looks like he never had a breakout series, but this is apparently part of his most long-running one, and it’s just six albums.
But it’s a really intriguing book. It’s very 70s, and the influences are very obvious. Looks very good.
And it’s so odd! I had to read it twice just to see whether I misunderstood it all the first time around, and I don’t think I did? I think there’s some supernatural thing going on amidst the more normal post-apocalyptic scenario thingies…
I’ll be on the lookout for more Crespin things.
This one I’ve read many times before (in translation), and it’s a stone cold classic of 70s French comics.
Goetzinger’s artwork is very attractive.
Christin’s text, though… he’s very… er… he lays it on thick, and his more poetic phrasing is just beyond my very humble French abilities. So it took me several days to get through this one.
But it’s good! Very very 70s, which is always a plus.
Here’s another one that’s totally unknown to me — Bucqouy and Tito, and the confusing “Jaunes” in the title is the surname of the guy you see there, and he’s a cop. So I wondered whether “Jaunes” was a common surname in France, but of course it isn’t. “Yellows”? It has such negative connotations that I thought it was going to be about a cowardly, corrupt cop…
… but it’s not at all. Instead it’s this guy getting involved with some supernatural stuff in the countryside!?
I’m probably missing a reference. Happens a lot.
It’s very enjoyable, even if the plot is the plot that 90% of French time travel books have.
(The text here has a peculiarity — every speech bubble (and caption) is surrounded by short little dashes that I first interpreted as being quote signs. But then there’s often three of them? So they’re periods? So every balloon is “.. tu es comme le torrent…” which is, I guess, a choice. In addition, much of the text is in that past construction that I’m just not used to reading — “il fut”, “elle vit” — and I spend most of the time just trying to work out what verb it’s supposed to be…)
I guess what I’m saying is that I probably should just read all French comics from the 70s that exist?
BUT THIS ISN”T FRENCH!!!
I’ve never read Suicide Squad before…
… and this turns out to be a not idea place to start reading.
This 600 page volume reprints about ten issues of Suicide Squad, and then the rest of the pages (i.e., the majority) are from other, related series. It’s a bit confusing what they’ve included — some are very straightforward, like when a two-part story starts in Suicide Squad and is then finished in, say, Checkmate. But then there’s issues of other comics that just have a panel mentioning a Suicide Squad character, and then that’s included.
Very odd. It reminds me of some comics torrents out there — “”The Super Duper Complete Wonder Woman Collection”” that some nerd has put together — and then if there’s a panel of somebody thinking, like, “huh, I wonder what Wonder Woman is doing” — then they include the entire twelve issue mini series where that happens.
What I’m saying is that this book is a bit too complete. And I wonder what they’re going to do if they ever reprint, say, Checkmate — are they going to include a whole bunch of Suicide Squad issues in that collection, too?
ANYWAY! I was really surprised by how entertaining these comics are.
Luke McDonnell’s artwork does absolutely nothing for me, but Ostrander’s writing is consistently amusing and intriguing.
If I had to nitpick this collection, it’s just that over-complete thing — there’s some plot strands from the main Suicide Squad book that “take” forever to resolve because there’s so many other things we’re reading inbetween. So I got a bit impatient with that.
But that’s a pretty irrelevant nitpick. I’ll be picking up the previous collection for sure (which should perhaps make things a bit less confusing), and I think there’s a new collection arriving soon? I’ll be getting that, too.
And that’s it.