European Graphic Novels++
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“BD” refers to Franco-Belgian comics, but let's open things up to include ALL Euro comics and GN's. Euro-style artistry from around the world is also welcome. ^^
-BD = "Bandes dessinées"
-BDT = Bedetheque
-GN = graphic novel
-LBK = Lambiek
-LC = "Ligne claire"
Please DO: 1) follow good 'netiquette' and 2) the rules of PieFed.Social when posting and commenting. As for extracts, they're fine, but don't link to pirated downloads. Moderation will be based on readers' willingness to follow the above guidelines.
The designated language here is English, with a traditional bias towards French. When posting foreign-language content, please DO include helpful context for English-speakers.
---> Here's the community F.A.Q, and our resource page <---
KEY SITES & COMMUNITIES:
- BD on Mastodon
- BD on Tumblr
- r/bandedessinee
- Heathcliff (w/o HC)
- Moomin Valley
- Seth's GN Recs
- Strange Planet
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
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[NOTE: "The Battle of Vicksburg, MS" was more-accurately described as a whole series of skirmishes & battles, ending with a notable siege.]
Oof, I guess this might make for an upsetting or somewhat controversial post, but I figured it best to stick to the facts rather than omit significant details. Or worse yet, try to whitewash the whole affair. Now, while it's true that the classic, Belgian-produced Les tuniques Bleues is 'merely a comic book series,' there's just no escaping that it directly depicts the outrageously awful American Civil War, even while portraying it in an innocent, cartoony way.
Bottom half of the page above. (source: Imgur)
So, yeah... across the past few centuries, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a more awful conflict than the ACW, unless it might be the two World Wars. It was fought over a dreadful premise-- that of the industrialised, generally Northern States & the Federal Government fighting to prevent a group of generally Southern States from breaking away, which they did expressly for the purposes of maintaining the practice of slavery, which of course was deeply integrated in to their culture and economies.
The first couple books. (source: BDT)
I think a big part of what made the whole affair so awful is that the US had still not abolished slavery by the war's start (~1860), whilst most other major nations had already done so years before... some as early as the 1500's. So the US was in an arguably terribly embarrassing global position at the time, especially being nominally the very first modern democracy, with some famous, documented statements loudly trumpeting the fundamental rights of man(!) <TUSDoI> <TUSBoR>
The two leads, Sgt. Chesterfield
and Cpl. Blutch. (source: WP)
Even worse, here you had a regional peoples across a network of States who were largely not embarrassed about slavery, who very much wanted to continue the practice as long as possible. Of course, publicly they tended to avoid saying that in a leading-cause sense, instead talking about "States Rights," which became something of their self-righteous, strangely-hollow battle cry. Dig slightly deeper in to most of their official grievance & separation documents, however, and it became very clear what they were actually after.
Another day, another battle (source: BDT)
Another dreadful, different aspect of the war is that it resulted in the highest number of casualties for any war involving the United States. It's estimated that 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers died in the conflict, surpassing the combined casualties of all other American wars, including both WW's. Much of those totals were specifically due to disease (such as terrible prison conditions, especially in the South), as well as new, deadlier weaponry combined with outdated military tactics, such as traditional, massed formations.
A T1 page (1972) vs. a T68 page (2024) page
As with most (or all?) civil wars, the conflict also tore the country apart, not just pitting family members, colleagues and dear friends against each other, but creating (or perhaps "highlighting") a deep, fundamental divide between various ideologies in The States, which arguably has been nothing but magnified over time, persisting and even thriving today, with misinformation all too common a thread.
Anyway, much more can and already has been said about the war itself, so let's move on to some specifics about what this series is actually like:
Crossing a ford. (source: "time-to-collect")
Well, I've read a couple albums now, and so far have found it more or less to be light adventure combined with silly humour. The pairing of Chesterfield & Blutch function as something of a classic, comedy duo formula, with the Sgt. in the 'stiff-but-responsible' role, and the Cpl. in the 'cowardly-but-unpredictably-creative' role. Likely, you can easily name half a dozen counterpart examples of your own across any number of genres, eh? I suppose my point here is that this is not a series about character development, but moreso about Vaudevillian-esque characters doing their thing amidst a stressful, super-dangerous conflict.
Now, as for the troubling background themes of the ACW, they're not tackled directly too much, rendering this fairly upper-middle-tier BD fare on the whole, I'd say. Somewhere in the ballpark of "Spirou," perhaps, with the characters being a little less memorable, and far less free-ranging. After all-- just about every setting in the series occurs in the Eastern and Midwest USA, during the tight, four-year timeframe of the civil war.
Remarkably, the series spans well over fifty years now in total publishing time, across a whopping 68 main books and ~10 tomes of special-content editions.
Right, so-- hopefully I'll have more later on specific Bluecoats adventures. And BTW, one last thing I wanted to do is to note some other titles people may want to check out:
Similar works. (source: Imgur)
BD has long tackled the ACW through both humor and gravitas. The Bluecoats is perhaps the flagship series; but less comedic works such as Mac Coy, Virginia, Le Chariot de Thespis* and La sale Guerre de Sécession explore more complex themes and perspectives, all while delivering strong visuals anchored in historical settings. --GPT with JE edits
Ooh, AND HEY-- this posting just so happens to mark the precise, two-year anniversary of this sub/community. It's not exactly what I'd intended to mark the occasion with, but ah well. :S More on the anniversary later!
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Here's a place to share some fun links, browser games, and chitchat about whatever...
LINKS:
- Play the randomly-generated Tintin quiz !
- Behold the amazing Floor796 animated character project. (see how many famous BD characters you can spot)
- Browse the utterly fascinating Marginalian blog, in which the author regularly takes deep dives in to the arts, literature, philosophy and so forth, tying everything together in delightful, thought-provoking, and uplifting ways.
- Play the quiz "Who are these ten classic characters just about to appear?" [ Answers ]
- Enter a trance-state via the ever-scrolling ZOOMQUILT and ZOOMQUILT2.
- It's free ANIMATED MOVIE NIGHT. (four films and five shorts) [NOTE: Some of the links there are to the matching lemm.ee posts, but I can't edit them from my new acct. A simple search will quickly turn them up, though.]
- Play thousands of your favorite old flash (and other browser games) via the amazing Flashpoint Project.
BROWSER GAMES: (I'll be adding pics and a table in future)
- ARMOR ALLEY, arguably the greatest side-scrolling helicopter game of all time.
- SOLITAIRE BATTLESHIPS, and ~40 other excellent puzzle games.
- KONKR, a simple but challenging series of tactical boardgame battles, something like RISK, but powered up with special forces.
- POLYTRACK, a fun, tough set of low-poly tracks to race through, directly inspired by TrackMania.
- PRINCE OF PERSIA, a browser version of this legendary classic. (Note that this version allows you to tweak time, health and level number right in the URL)
- Return of the SLIMEPIRES, a super-fun, totally original, zombie-themed platformer. [Note: there's a higher-res version here]
- ROGUE FABLE III, an excellent roguelike that only takes an hour or so to beat, featuring loads of interesting character classes. [WIKI]
- SABOTAGE, an hilarious but tough, top-down action game, loosely based on the early-80's classic Castle Wolfenstein, but with much smoother gameplay.
- SPELUNKY, hands-down the greatest roguelike platformer ever. Simple to get in to, but be warned that the learning curve is immense. Fortunately, there's a super-helpful WIKI.
- TOWER-SWAP, a tremendously fun, original, addictive mashup of the match-3 and tower defense genres, both of which I'm ordinarily kind of fatigued by.
Well, there's a reasonable start. Much more to add in coming weeks and months, and of course feel free to nominate your favorites. Or just to chat about whatever...
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On the nature of politeness, bureacracy and COMMUNITY NOTES (3 full pages from "Legionary")
(infosec.pub)
A few weeks back, I wrote a mini-article on r/BD about Goscinny's episodic series Iznogoud. After a good amount of feedback there, I wanted to update the article and post it here on EGN, but before doing so, figured it would be a good idea to read a couple classic Astérix albums so as to compare and contrast stylistic and other differences.
So then, the following is a fun little sequence that I guess we can all relate to. It's from the 10th album Astérix légionnaire, originally appearing in "Pilote" magazine, and later collected in to an album in 1967.
(zoom or right-click-open)
On the personal front, the past week has been a rather exhausting, sleep-deprived personal stretch, visiting with relatives and attending to medical issues, both. My effusive thanks to @cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com for helping with posting during that period! <3
Indeed, our two-year anniversary is coming up on Aug 1st, and I hope to get something together to mark that. Whoof, I guess we'll see...
Btw, on the personal front that directly relates to this sub-Pie/community: so far I've been laboring with a ~10yr-old PC running WinX, and with each passing month, it's been more and more like slogging through molasses (or treacle, for the UK). There's also the fact that M$ is evidently pulling support for Win10 in October.
So I finally... finally got myself a newer system. It's a Win11-installed, "Minis-Forum" UM760 slim PC, with a seemingly capable CPU (AMD Ryzen 5 7640HS I think), solid RAM (16GB DDR5), 1TB SSD, and built-in graphics card of Radeon 760M, all for about... $US300.
It's also HILARIOUSLY tiny, to the tune of... hmm, let's see... IMAGES: https://www.google.com/search?q=minisforum+computer+%22UM760%22+slim&udm=2
Two inches x five & 1/8" x 5". Which in metric that would be... 50.8mm x ~130mm x 127mm. So the size of a small postage stamp on steroids, I guess. 😂
GO, postage stamp, GO...!
And yet, this particular unit seems to earn pretty consistent, stellar views from all over the place. So what's the deal, mon? Where's the catch? Well, the most obvious critique seems to relate to the small number of ports and the limited expansion capability. *FAIR*
Anyway, this is getting a bit rambly here, so let's wrap it up: I still have ~two weeks to take this thing back, and I'm still working on getting it integrated properly, but one of the things I'm rather excited about is converting it to a dual-boot Linux machine, free from the M$ tyranny. And of course, it's going to be SOOOO much more powerful and pleasant to work with in terms of browsing, reading, and creating BD content. Which should directly relate to my ease-of-content contributions upon on our sub, believe it or not...
That said, if you have any concerns or doubts for me, moving on to this new, little postage stamp PC, please do speak up? 🤔
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As for the above, Mssr De MesMaeker is of course one of Spirou Magazine's most important clients, perpetually on the verge of signing lucrative contracts with office-boss Fantasio.
For those unfamiliar with this classic André Franquin series, it's a spinoff of Spirou et Fantasio, set in a cartoon depiction of the real-life Spirou offices in Brussels. The main character is "Gaston Lagaffe," a lazy, accident-prone, yet relentlessly inventive junior office worker who reports to Fantasio.
Unlike some of the longer narratives seen in S&F, this comic simply aims for light, familiar, amiable humor. It's not necessarily wickedly clever nor side-splitting, rather the pleasure mostly comes from seeing whatever lunatic scheme Gaston is working on, usually to someone's detriment.
Btw, these all come from Cinebook's Mind the Goof album, in which Gaston's name is translated to "Gomer Goof" for English-speaking audiences. To me that happens to sound ridiculous, but oh well.
Certainly, one of the first questions any reader will ask is: why the hell wasn't Gaston fired long, long ago? Or: is Fantasio the most patient, long-suffering boss in the world, with a natural immunity to cardiovascular events?
Gaston's *official* backstory is that one day he showed up in the mailroom, started working, and for whatever reasons got hired. But let's face it-- he's almost certainly a 'nepo-baby,' and the whole office is simply forced to put up with his antics, other than Miss Jeanne (seen above), who thinks he's a genius.
Haha. Gotta love it when the tables turn, as with these last two...
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Pretty wild panel I thought worth sharing! And from publisher Humanoids page:
Things are not going well for Commander Kaimann. Luz, the love of his life, is dead, his home of Tortuga destroyed, his crew ghostly apparitions, and his crocodilian mutation taking over more and more of his body -- Kaimann is fighting for his life on multiple fronts. Just when it seems like despair may overtake him, a chance encounter with a strange violin connects him to Aurora, a woman living in a future where she is staring down almost certain destruction...
With his passions renewed, Kaimann hatches a bold plan to find a cure for his mutation and a future with his newfound love. However, Kaimann’s past is catching up with him, and Aurora’s future. --[link]
More imagery here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Incal+Dying+Star&udm=2
Also worth mentioning is that I thought writer Dan Watters did a downright remarkable job emulating the style of Alejandro Jodorowsky. It's uncanny, really.
Oh, btw-- Humanoids claims that this book is in the works to become a film, overseen by Taika Waititi ("Thor: Ragnarok").
As a nice little bonus, the book included a two-page 'reading order' list of the various Incal works, which have built up in to quite the impressive collection over the years. I believe this brings us up to 2025's chronology:
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That's Enchanted Forest, above.
(zoom or right-click-open as needed)
Misty Moors
She's an independent artist, illustrator and photographer based in Finland.
The Night Garden
"I mostly make dream-like illustrations with fairytale, fantasy and nature themes. I work in a variety of styles that are based on various kinds of tools and techniques. I paint with watercolours or varied types of inks, and I draw with pens or coloured pencils."
Escape
"I mix traditional techniques a lot, and some of my works are partly digital. Even when I finish pieces in Photoshop, I like to do it by editing and combining drawings and textures that I’ve first created traditionally."
Valley at Full Moon
"Wild nature is definitely the most inspiring thing. Old-growth forests are an endless source of ideas, magic and peace of mind, and I try to visit the woods as often as possible. I also use my innate life as a fuel for my work – things like my dreams, memories, fears and hopes – but the way they sneak into my art tends to be subliminal, rather than intentional."
Wilderness
Full interview here:
https://blog.society6.com/now-view-ulla-thynell/
Swamp Tale
And her site:
https://ullathynell.com/
Note: slight edits above for brevity & clarity.
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The above image jumped out to me on Pinterest of all places, in which I was simply enjoying the pleasant "LC" style. (for anyone unsure about the meaning of "LC," please see sidebar)
But dad-gum it, looking a little closer, this seemed to be from the age-old The Spirit franchise. I mean, I thought that one had concluded long before creator Will Eisner's death, with it's classic run being from ~1940 to the early 50's, or so.
But, no... turns out that unlike some properties (such as Tintin), the Eisner estate evidently allowed The Spirit to be continued on in to modern times, with DC comics being the publisher behind this particular issue:
https://i.imgur.com/PRLjU4O.jpeg
What's interesting here is that our lead image is like an LC-styled version of the official cover, with significant little differences everywhere you look, and yet it *still* seems to be by the same artist, "Moritat," i.e. American Justin Norman clocking in with a Euro-style pen-name.
But let's backtrack a bit when it comes to my assertion that Europe 'loved' The Spirit. Like... why would that be, man? For example, from Lambiek:
In Europe, Eisner gained followers in the U.K. (Alan Moore, NG), The Netherlands (Stefan de Groot, Gleever, Erik Kriek, Minck Oosterveer, Peter Pontiac, Joost Swarte, Typex, Piet Wijn), Belgium (Steven De Rie), Germany (Flix), Switzerland (Zep) and Spain (Belatz, Julio Ribera).
Personally, I also have a folder of Spirit-style tributes from various BD authors, which I'd never quite thought to post before or put more thought in to, yet today's finding explains a lot to me, I think.
https://i.imgur.com/KVXfeSZ.jpeg
Now, the above is totally, classically Spirit to me, lol. That is-- physically, he's a big, strong, two-fisted action-hero, with a good, thinking mind, but Eisner was a downright genius at depicting what a miserable failure all that could add up to as an 'urban hero,' of sorts.
And that is perhaps part of the key, I suspect. I.e. the Europe of the 40's and 50's had no use for 'American superheroes' of the day, which I suppose would be totally invincible-types such as Captain Marvel and Superman, et al. I would guess (and I could be totally wrong), but fantasy heroics was relatively useless to Euro audiences, which cemented perhaps a kind of shift towards the 'amusing everyman,' such as Tintin, Spirou, and countless others who essentially had to navigate their way mainly via resourcefulness, cleverness, and so forth.
TBH, this is kind of a shitty post, in which I'm trying to cover two main topics, and neither of them very well. So for one thing, I'd say just go here for more on the genius of Eisner, and how he evolved comics storytelling in the overall sense:
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/e/eisner.htm
But here's one last little comment upon DC handling the Spirit franchise:
https://i.imgur.com/4yrp3mY.jpeg
Dang, I love that colorful, bright lettering! Oof... and I actually *did* read through the entire 20pp comic book, and found it some of the most miserable fare, ever. I.e., a two-fisted anachronism socking out dozens of gun-carrying gang-members, inspired by the rescue of 'the princess.'
Eh, que ridícula. Show me the money, Lebowski!
NOTE: the above post was written while conspicuously sleep-deprived, but what the hey... content is content, lol.
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This translates to "Dry Cleaning," and was published by Rue de Sèvres in 2022, a publisher I don't remember hearing about before.
https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-78913-BD-Nettoyage-a-sec.html
(zoom or right-click-open to expand these images)
Mertens is Flemish-Belgian, born in 1968, and seemingly worked in film most of his career, only turning to BD novels in 2019, doing this one and Béatrice so far, both as artist and writer.
As for the story, it's a classic slice-of-life look at François, an aging middle-aged man whose main ambition is to win the lottery, which would enable him to give his younger female friend and daughter the kind of life he feels they deserve. Meanwhile, he works a rather uncertain job as a delivery driver for a local dry cleaner. All in all, his is not *quite* a pathetic existence, but one can feel it inevitably slipping in that direction.
Perhaps the main theme here is actually "rain," and that's conveyed almost ceaselessly across almost every page. François is perpetually forgetting to bring his umbrella along, and therefore walks around across the entire story not unlike a drowned rat. Indeed, things take a turn for the tragic (amidst bitter irony) when it comes to his relationship with water.
But about the art-- I don't think I've ever seen rain in a city-scape portrayed with such lushness and power. Mertens very definitely takes some liberties with shading, lighting and coloring, and I'm pleased to say that he produces some of the most stunning BD art I've ever seen. Truly, this work can be thoroughly enjoyed in either the Dutch or French versions without needing to understand a single word. It really is that kind of wonderful.
If there's a weakness with this one, at ~140pp I feel that it probably could have been edited down a bit to tell the story a bit more efficiently and dramatically. But it's hard to care too much when the art is this incredible, and to be fair-- it's a strong story that feels reminiscent of classic Euro film.
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'Star-tantrum': legit critique, or maybe a bit of both..? (three pages from Ava Gardner's trip to Rio, ~1954)
(infosec.pub)
Just finished this one, and found it a fine album, indeed. It's by consistently-excellent artist Ana Miralles and writer Emilio Ruiz.
https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-90856-BD-Ava.html
For me, it was a pretty fascinating little 'time-capsule look' in to the life a major Hollywood star (Ava Gardner), her notably iconoclastic nature, the social norms of the 50's, an obsessive overload of fans, the shamelessly aggressive press, and of course, a brief snapshot of Rio de Janeiro, itself.
https://i.imgur.com/CYtD7t5.jpeg
The unstated joke above is that Ava's agent Dave is thoroughly in to men, which works rather perfectly in the long run, as just-about any hombre swinging a 'third leg' is trying to make a play for her, somehow, some way. XD
https://i.imgur.com/7ZJ2eTG.jpeg
Okay, Ava scared me a bit right at the end, lol.
https://i.imgur.com/2jgBOyW.jpeg
(no idea how long these images will last given Imgur's hugely flaky nature, but what the heck, let's do FULL DETAIL with these)
Whups, oh yeah-- my main point here was actually that I LOVED how well Miralles both depicted and handled the night-life imagery of Rio in a realistic sense. I don't quite have words for it at the moment, but... I find there's a sort of 'clarity' there, if that makes sense.
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THROYA HANDS INNA AIR LIKYA JUST DON'T CARE, from Alix Garin's superb "Impénétrable." (5 pages total, plus notes)
(infosec.pub)
https://www.bedetheque.com/BD-Impenetrable-503154.html
This image hit me fairly early-on as I was reading what I would later realise was a super-wonderful BD. But why this particular pic? Welp, because I absolutely LOVE it when comics artists find ways to reduce image detail in order to convey a clear message.
And meanwhile, as the reader, there's really nothing to complain about! Everything makes sense, and there's really no particularly good reason to add extra detail, at least as I see it.
Eh, here's the full page, anyway, in which both the author and subject Alix Garin are livin' it up in a Berlin nightclub:
https://i.imgur.com/eBdWFql.jpeg
Anyway, BDT has this to say about the album: (with a little translation help from some idiot)
]> In a deeply intimate and moving narrative, Alix Garin tells us about her liberating journey through the meandering, baffling nature of sexual disorders. About the struggle to regain possession of one's body and sexual desire. It is in fact a highly-moving quest for healing, emancipation and love.
]> ]> Through ups and downs, failures and victories, Alix explores the depths of her own psyche, the links between the physical and the mind, and the complexity of sexuality.
Anyway, more later on this magnificent, significant work, but here's a few more 'nightlife Berlin-style' pages I thought you might like. I know I did: :D
https://imgur.com/a/alix-enjoying-berlin-nightlife-from-superb-gn-bd-imp-n-trable-2024-jOj3luS
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