Best Comics of 2016, No. 12: The Children of Captain Grant

I used to love those live action Disney movies when I was a wee tad. Now they seem a bit of a cornball, but they still stand up well for the most part. Many of them, like The Incredible Journey, The Miracle of the White Stallions and The Three Lives of Thomasina are about survival and search against impossible odds.

And thanks to Dell/Gold Key, a lot of them got their own comics too! Many were illustrated by Dan Speigle. I didn't realize it at the time, but his art influenced me almost as much as that of Curt Swan.
This book is an adaptation of a film of a Jules Verne novel, one of a very LONG series of adventure books he wrote. Though Disney played fast and loose with the novel, the resulting film (and comic, and I think there was a paperback novelization as well) was very engaging and exciting.
I had forgotten all about it, until I was reading the recent reprint of the French adaptation of the original novel, The Children of Captain Grant. As I was reading it, I found the pacing a bit off-putting, as it has that Victorian air about it that can slow the telling of a story in its deliberation. But I found the story itself oddly familiar. It wasn't until I did some background research for this piece that I made the connection back to this earlier adaptation from my childhood- a "well, duh!" moment.
I may have been misled by the subgenre in which the graphic novel is recast.
The story is retold using the furry motif.
All the characters are humanized animals- or if you prefer, anthropomorphized  humans. There's no real reason given for this. It's just assumed that that's the world in which these characters endure. The same as ours, except that everyone has fur, or feathers, or scales, or fins or some such.
Longtime readers will know of my affinity for such stories, both in consuming and in creating. From my early exposure to Barks' Duck books to my apprenticeship on Reed Waller's Omaha the Cat Dancer (a short chapter in my life that I never tire of bringing up), funny animals have been an integral part of my worlds. And I've seen all stripe (so to speak) of art in these books, ranging from the crude to the energetic and elegant (Katherine Collins' Neil the Horse comes to mind). There are some funny animal stories (to use Reed's preferred term) that take the art more seriously than others- the mechanical precision of Martin Wagner's Hepcats comes to mind here.
But I don't think I've ever seen as lushly painted a furry book as this, with the possible exceptions of Blacksad and the Grandville stories.
Every page explodes with meticulously controlled color. Landscapes, ships, architecture, different cultures, all exquisitely rendered.
Once again, I'll rely on the publisher (in this case, Super Genius) to provide a plot overview: "In this adaptation of the classic novel, the entire cast of characters has been transformed into anthropomorphic animal! It begins with a message-actually three water-damaged messages-found in a bottle removed from the belly of a shark. Written in three different languages the messages reveal that the long-missing Captain Grant was shipwrecked and is being held hostage. The only clue from the messages that might be of any help, will lead Lord Glenarvan and Captain Grant’s children on an adventure literally around the world!"
The story has the requisite elements: quirky characters, burgeoning romance, yearning for a lost parent, and so much adventure and derring-do you could plotz.
Though published in the US in 2016, this book was originally published in three volumes in France between 2009 and 2013. Its creator, Alexis Nesme, is well established as a children's comic illustrator in France. Here's an interview with him (in French- I can make out about half of it, not enough to provide an accurate translation, so I'll leave you to your own devices).

This book was a bit of a slog at times. My tolerance for quaint period writing is not high, so it took me a while to get through it. But that's a failing in me, not in the work. It was worth the effort. This book is exciting, lush and ultimately very satisfying.
Next: Best Comics No. 11, behind the scenes...

Best Comics of 2014, No. 4: Tooth & Claw

Grinding away at these, despite continuing to work 45-50 hour weeks while I do class prep. I love doing these pieces, but finding the time remains a challenge.
Today's entry is another fine work by Kurt Busiek, whose Astro City made the list previously. I also loved Arrowsmith, and would be tickled to see its return. At any point! Print it, I'll buy it!

Plot development woven with
magic action!

Tooth & Claw has been described by others as "Game of Thrones with animals". While that's a bit on the nose, Busiek does use the animal mythos to tell his tale. It's a world of magic, run by sentient and slightly anthropomorphized critters. The species tend to go with their character types. As a lover of bison, I was a bit saddened to see them portrayed as aggressive and warmongering, basically dumb working class stiffs.

An early Issue 1 page, using art and
design elements to advance story
and build character.

That aside, there are several traditions that come into play here. It relates peripherally to the Omaha the Cat Dancer school of funny animal comics, in which the characters are more human than animal and species is used a shorthand for character type, as noted above. Other significant offerings in this area include Bryan Talbot's Grandville series and the Blacksad series, both of which had new books out in 2014 as well. There's also the mythology of humanity being succeeded by sentient animals- not much of a spoiler, really. As soon as the Colloquy started talking about the mythical Great Champion, it was pretty obvious it would prove to be a human, despite the red herring at the end of Issue 1. But that was a great red herring! A fox astride a saddled cricket- brilliant!
Ahem. Past precedents for sentient animals surviving humanity's demise include Clifford Simak's CITY and the classic MGM Christmas cartoons Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men, the latter being the last MGM cartoon in CinemaScope. So it's not really a new concept, but the execution is fresh and uniformly professional. If it loads properly, here's the first of the two.

I've not seen Ben Dewey's art prior to this book, and the art integrates so cleanly with the text that I can't imagine a better fit. His work has verve and just the right amount of detail, plus plenty of the ornate flourishes that fantasy fans crave.

The revised cover for issue 1

The first Tooth & Claw trademark.
Butt floss riding up the tail? Really?

It needs to be noted that an unintentional trademark infringement required a title change to The Autumn Lands: Tooth & Claw. Two things come to mind.
1. Does this mean my copy of the first printing bearing the original title will be (gasp!) collectible? Oh, big whoop. Actually, I rather hope not. I've beat my copy up so much by repeated readings that it's worthless to anyone but me now.
2. Given the nature of the original work bearing said trademark, Busiek & co. are better off not having any association with it. I've included a cover of the earlier work bearing the title to prove my point.
All that said, Tooth & Claw remains a compelling story. Like the best of Busiek's work, it's rousing adventure coupled with smart, sensitive characterization and a storyline that, though walking a well-trod path, remains innovative and engaging, well worth the reader's effort.

Next: Best of 2014, No. 3, one that was left out.

Best comics of 2010: No. 1 (tie) : Blacksad

In 1990, I interned with Reed Waller on Omaha the Cat Dancer for six months.
Or as I put it these days, it was for about 5 minutes a hundred years ago.
It was one of the most catalytic (pun unintended) experiences of my life, both personally and professionally.
This experience, in tandem with my childhood of reading Barks Duck stories, before I had a clue who Barks was, and my 80s and 90s love of Don Rosa's work (note that my affections for these works continue to this day), has given me quite an affinity for the funny animal genre, despite it being a very loosely defined genre.
I mean really. Look at this Omaha image and this Duck image, and tell me where their commonalities lie, beyond the animal-as-person device.
Caveat: this work is not for the young in maturity. Adults only, please, in every sense. It involves people enjoying their bodies, and children can't see that until they're not children any more.  I think it's a little screwy, but that's the way we roll in this society.

Okay,the other similarity is solid storytelling. But that's as far as it goes.
Two points:
1. Waller and Worley did a more Barks-style funny animal story, the wonderful Speakingstone, which ran in two issues of Fantagraphic's Critters and was never completed.
2. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that this Omaha page is one of the ones I worked on. My work was inking heavy blacks in the background, in this case.
Ahem.
 In any event, as a result of the work of Barks and Rosa, Waller, Worley and Vance, Talifero, Freddy Milton, and so many more that don't come to mind as readily, the notion of humanized animals, or animals with human traits, has been a part of comics ever since there have been comics. What do you think Krazy and Ignatz are, after all?
A new character entered this delightful mix in the early 2000s, from Spanish creators published by the French company Dargaud. Writer Juan Díaz Canales and artist Juanjo Guarnido collaborated on the three graphic volumes of Blacksad. Sporadically printed in the US (the third book only recently appeared as part of this collection), they developed a reputation akin to Corto Maltese among devoted comics lover.
This year, Dark Horse published a goregeous volume of all three stories. That volume is my tie choice for Number One comic of the year 2010.

Another caveat: as always, these choices are based on personal criteria and quite arbitrary. If you have your own list, I welcome it!
Blacksad is a private detective. The story is set in 1950s America.

The level of detail is stunning and appropriate. The palette is precise and reinforces the mood, which ranges from gripping to hilarious to tragic.
In short, this work is beautiful in very sense, even when it's recounting ugly events.

 

The trappings of noir, or what the casual student thinks of as noir (I'm a bit more than casual, but still a student) are all here. The femmes fatale, the levels of fear, greed and corruption, the broken hearts, the sense of unrelenting desperation. There are also some odd male bonds- not so odd as in the classic Gilda, but Blacksad's repulsion/friendship with the reporter Weekly is a rather odd but serviceable bond.
Blacksad is very much a loner, though. His friendships are tenuous at best, and as in the final tale, Red Soul, making its first US appearance in this volume. This story deals with Communism, blacklisting, and unanticipated betrayals.

That's the final story in this volume. The first, Somewhere Within the Shadows, is an eloquent noir with the traditional trappings, skillfully handled. The middle story, Arctic Nation, plays up the animal aspect by using polar bears as white supremacists a la the KKK.

The use of the stylized snowflake as stand-in for the KKK cross is brilliant.
There's one aspect of noir that I question in this book.
Common wisdom on noir holds that there are no heroes, only villains, victims and survivors. And the character who has the best-defined moral code and lives up to it despite damning evidecne of the pointlessness of doing so is the closest we come to a hero.
Well, in reading this, I can't help thinking that Blacksad is a hero, and that's all there is to it.
So is it still noir? In most ways, yes. But no matter. It's a damn good comic, no matter how it's classified.
I'm pleased to note that the creators have two more volumes of bandes desinee coming out. Dark Horse, are you paying attention?

Tomorrow, the best comic of 2010. Ever.