JohnnyEnzyme

Hey folks-- I'm not feeling too well these days, so I wanted to release some of my notes & scans, just in case.

In this case, there was a fully-constructed page from Tintin and the Picaros, but it got cut for space considerations, as sometimes happens. What's particularly amazing in this case is that George Remi himself (Hergé), took the interviewer step-by-step through the process, in a commentary / supplementary book "Musée."

So I've been working on notes & translations from that book, and it's indeed pretty fascinating, but life is life. Let me just give you the full scans, if you're interested:

https://imgur.com/gallery/ANex7EE

Sorry folks, I'm not feeling that well (multiple health issues).

I'm really happy how this sub / community has come so far, much of the posts being aided and abetted by those of @[email protected] and @[email protected].

If you don't mind, for the time-being, I'll just come in once in a while with a fresh post.

Our specific sub is this:
https://lemm.ee/c/eurographicnovels

There is nobody better than my co-mod Nacktmull to carry on our community, but unfortunately, mod-powers are surprisingly-limited in basic-nature upon Lemmy, seemingly.

Regardless, could my co-mod "Nacktmull" please be elevated to the same level as my basic mod powers? Again-- I'm the creator of the community, and main content-contributor.

As I see it, he's a great, prolific artist, seen above with Le Cycle de Cyann.

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/bourgeon.htm

This is easily one of the greatest graphic novel series (3 tomes) I've ever read. It's by Lewis Trondheim, creator of the brilliant Donjon mega-series, plus Ralph Azham, McConey / Lapine, and countless others.

FIRST THOUGHTS: Maggy initially struck me as a likeable 'Bridget Jones'-type youngish woman, in many ways charmingly trying to figure out how best to apply her canny bag of talents to modern life. A talented ingenue, as it were? But good gracious-- the series is so much more than just that.

Our story begins with Maggy freshly hired, yet due to unexpected events, she swiftly goes from 'boring part-time secretary serving a boring PI' (i.e. a dick, a detective), all the way to finding herself deeply embroiled in a painful lottery-ticket-gone-wrong web of murder.

Who is Maggy, anyway? She's young, but canny, resourceful, cynically humorous. She's bold as brass, on the verge of going DOWN.. or NOT, really?

In strolls a new character:

Now we got two. Let's DO this.

Time to get these barstids!

Yeap... bit of an old spoiler, dammit.

Protect yourself, sure... unless someone 'protects themselves even better!'

Any last thoughts, my friend..?

For me, Maggy's such a fun, revelatory, multi-dimensional character, the likes of which we rarely ever see. And especially as a female character! I must say I'm deeply proud of Trondheim for realising this nuanced, realistic series... deeply-satisfying as it is.

CONCLUSIONS? This is an absolute masterclass of a 3-book crime-off-the-rails series. Please check it out if you can. And personally? What particularly impresses me is Trondheim's typically 'light-hearted touch' upon every component, from story to art. It is a level of 'loose mastery' I'm not sure I've ever seen before across comics.

Note: the idea of this blog / site / subr / community is to welcome a pleasant diversity of talents upon a 'Euro-style' expression of artistry and comics, specifically.

Now, here-- Riad Sattouf (creator of "The Arab of the Future"), little blond kid, is back in Syria, early 80's, I think it was?

The first Moebius pic I've ever posted here, haha.

One of the main reasons he's so memorable is because Williams designed a brilliant, treasure-hunt puzzle-book in 1979 that set the stage for geocaching today, not to mention a bunch of other types of 'hidden treasure-type' puzzles.

The ultra-famous picture-book of his was called Masquerade. Indeed, I had a copy as a kid, enjoyed the pics, but didn't have the slightest clue how to solve it. Actually, the 'solving' turned in to fiasco of sorts, which you can read plenty more about online...

So let's just do a bit more of Kit Williams' art:

A delightful mashup of design, puzzle, and symbolism; that's me loving it, yes!

It's from the embarrassing-as-hell album Tintin au Congo (1931 originally, 1946 in color).

The story of how Hergé evolved from 'know-nothing, Belgium insular' to 'evolving world man' is touched on pretty well in Ampton's articles, I think. [link]

EDIT: Despite my criticism above, what we're looking at here is in fact a nice example of polished LC (ligne claire), something which went on to define much of the artform and storytelling sense of BD for... well, it's coming up on 100yrs now. oO

Uderzo designed this Astérix poster for a comics festival in 2002, I think it was.

Some others did, too! Check out the fun: [link]

This shouldn't be too hard for Moeby fans. It's another self-portrait, late in Giraud's life, in which he depicts himself playfully assassinated by one of his major, early characters.

I love how he depicts the blood.

Looks a bit dangerous, but I guess they know what they're doing.