The Forbidden Planet International Blog

Blake & Mortimer Volume 15: The Secret of the Swordfish Part  1 – The Incredible Chase

By Edgar P. Jacobs

Cinebook

“In a past almost, but not entirely, like ours, the world lives in dread of a new power, an empire centred in Tibet and led by a megalomaniac. When the inevitable attack comes, it destroys all opposition, and capital cities across the planet are left burning. But, in Great Britain, Professor Mortimer, inventor of a mysterious weapon named the Swordfish, and his friend and protector Captain Blake, have escaped the destruction, and must make their way to a secret base…“

The fifteenth Cinebook volume of Jacobs’ classic takes us right back to where it all began, with the very first Blake & Mortimer volume, published in 1950. And frankly, it shows. Not just in the uncomfortable racial profiling with the whole “Yellow Empire” thing, but in the strange pacing and distinctly post-war optimism of having any chance of surviving WWIII.

However, despite several problems with the book that really hampered my reading, there’s definitely something really thrilling and rather shocking in this first Blake and Mortimer.

I say shocking because nothing can really prepare you for just how quickly and brutally Jacobs drops you into the alternate history of this post-WWII world of Blake & Mortimer. We’re actually entering the narrative some way in, with the cold war fully in effect, although not one involving Russia, instead the East is a tyrant running an empire from Tibet, aided by B&M’s nemesis Olrik.

But you’re told that by Mortimer onpage 6:

Which rather forces me to criticise before praising. This sort of thing really puts me off Jacobs’ B&M, the huge dialogue exposition is one problem, the overdoing the captions to the same end is another. And the third is the problem of developing the plot as a series of this happened, then this happened, then this happened things and connecting the events with a sequence of coincidences and accidents.

I know it’s all part of the nostalgic charm of B&M and these tales particularly come from a far slower time, but this really does affect my enjoyment.

The thing is, following that page of text with Mortimer delivering the whole background to the political climate of this alternate post-war world, there’s actually a particularly intense and thrilling section which takes us from cold war to new world order in just 8 pages. It’s completely unexpected, fast, furious, and decidedly brutal; by page 8 the world is at war, page 9 sees the machines of death flying across the globe and nuclear strikes have devastated Moscow, Calcutta, Hankou and Rome, by page 10 Paris, Berlin, Paris and London are destroyed, and by page 13 we have a new world order in place:

Personally I’d be a little more upset than “How dreadful!”.

But again, that slight understatement is typical of the tone here. Jacobs sets everything up beautifully in these early pages, really creates a sense of desperation, a world in ruins, the only hope seemingly with B&M and the mysterious Swordfish weapon they’re just days away from prototyping. And following the devastation both men are hunted across Europe and Asia, by plane, by foot, by truck, by armoured car, shot down, captured, freed, escape, more allies, hijack a plane, shot down again… all a bit breathless really.

But somewhere along the line it goes from desperation and despair with a small band responsible for saving the world to two gents having a jolly good feast in the wreckage of their enemy’s plane. All a bit incongruous really, as if Jacobs has forgotten just how important their mission is, or just how bad the situation is. Again, probably overthinking this, and I know it’s probably one of those things to simply put down to the particular age and style of the strip, and no doubt B&M fans will want my head for this. But it’s a big part of what I came away from the book with.

However despite all that stuff, that start still impresses, as do the frequent action sequences throughout the book, especially airborne stuff, with Jacobs genuinely delivering some stunning artwork, something that looks futuristic (for the time), fast paced, and above all, thrilling. I’ve had a troubled relationship with B&M thus far, why should these early strips be anything different.

However, let’s finish on a high, and one of those great aerial scenes:

(Jaime Hernandez getting ready for showtime, pic by Woodrow Phoenix)

Top UK creator Woodrow Phoenix kindly drops us a line to let us know that his Comica conversation with the great Jaime Hernandez which took place last month is now online. The nice folk at Culturethèque, the online side of the Institut Francais in the UK, have put a good quality recording of it on their site. You need to register to hear it in full, but that is free and I should remind you that registering with them also lets you access a range of Francophone culture and literary works, including comics titles online, so well worth it.

(Jaime talking to Woodrow on stage, photo by Bridget Hannigan)

It’s always a good week when the New Comic Book Day releases include work from Jeffrey Brown…

Fresh-baked and on the racks this very day, A Matter of Life from Top Shelf. I want it. You want it. We shall have it. Oh yes, we shall…

How lovely is this very short animation from Maciek Janicki? Paper City is a brief animated film following a car driving around a landscape from which a whole city erupts in paper sculpture form as the car passes, then folds itself away again afterwards. Short but gorgeous work.

Paper City from Maciek Janicki on Vimeo.

We’ve teamed up with Disney UK to offer two lucky Forbidden Planet blog readers tickets to attend the official FDA Multimedia Screening of The Lone Ranger in London on July 10th- a whole month ahead of the movie’s official release on August 9th!

One of the most seminal heroes of pop culture, we can’t wait to see The Lone Ranger reimagined by the Gore Verbinski and Jerry Bruckheimer-led team behind Pirates of the Caribbean. Check out the trailer above, which pretty much guarantees the domino-masked Ranger Reid (Armie Hammer) and comrade Tonto (Johnny Depp) will be having their most action-packed adventure of all time.

To be in with a chance of winning a ticket for yourself and a friend, email competitions@forbiddenplanet.co.uk with your answer to the following question along with your address and contact details:

What is the name of the Lone Ranger’s iconic white stallion?

The competition closes on the 26^th June 2013, when we’ll be picking two lucky winners at random. So get your answers in as quick as a silver bullet. There’s a clue there, by the way.

We’ll see you at the movies. Hi-Ho, Silver, away! That’s another clue, by the way.
Terms & Conditions

• Entrants must be over 18 years of age
• Prize consists of tickets to the screening only.
• Winners agree to be interviewed by Forbidden Planet International.
• Either Forbidden Planet International or Disney may change the terms of the prize draw at any point due to circumstances outside of their control.
• Travel and accommodation is not included so please make sure you are available to travel to central London on the screening date

Drowntown
Robbie Morrison, Jim Murray
Jonathan Cape

Part pulp noir, part sci-fi, featuring a hard and hulking PI, big guns, beautiful girls, sleek, sexy aquabikes, anthropomorphology,and much more, Drowntown could very easily have gone very wrong. I’m sure to some people that line of description will sound pretty wrong in itself. In this first of 3 volumes, Morrison takes an all hands to deck approach, giving the audience the full hand of players involved, the elements in place -and it works.

The setting is London futureopolis, but not quite as envisioned. The long-predicted climatic changes have boomed into effect, leaving the world and the capital submerged in water, making roads and cars obsolete, and forcing  the wealthy to retreat to their literal towers to escape from rising waters and the unseemly results of ever increasing human/animal genetic DNA splicing. Money, as ever, lies in patents, properties, politics and weaponry.

Morrison gives us a fantastic opening- our, um, hero in danger. Done many a time before yes, but done again here with verve and wit that makes it fresh once more. Up to his neck in mud and water, with guns of various sizes pointed at him, we get the seen-it-all-before, wise-cracking internal monologue of the rather bummy, but richly christened PI, Leo Noriet. As a reader you recognise and side with him instantly- the tough, dubious but ultimately good guy, here in the guise of a looming bearded, Hawaiian shirt wearing frame- less the dashing, loveable rogue, and more the affable, funny guy.  Saved at the last minute by a  human-hyena hybrid of indeterminate will and purpose, Leo is soon reminded of that old addage; nothing comes for free. His mysterious saviour turns out to be in the employ of one Alexandra Bastet, underworld figure,  African leader, object of the West; suspicion and greed.

While Alexandra has risen swiftly to power, she remembers nothing from the first 19 years of her life or how she came to find herself in Africa, other than that when she was ‘found’ she spoke with a London accent. Naturally keen to find out what has passed before her enemies do, she hires Leo to find out exactly who she is. Meanwhile, another lady of mysterious origin, bike courier, Gina Cassel finds herself catching the eye of heir-with-a-heart,Vincent Drakenberg, whose father’s company aims to control the weather, humans, hybrids, DNA patents- pretty much everything. And all these erstwhile people, it would appear, are linked in some way; the questions of how and why remain elusive.

As I said, Morrison chucks in a whole load of players, but never veers off track; hooking and maintaining the reader’s interest, setting up shop- introducing the various characters, getting plot-lines rolling in a healthy manner, dropping clues, hints, but not giving too much away just yet either. He’s aided and abetted in large part by Jim Murray’s sublime artwork: the way he draws the water is insane: green and murky, with thickness and dirt and heaving swells of movement that you can see. I would really have liked to see more of the world Morrison and Murray have created here, simply because what we do get looks amazing and I’m curious and eager to it built upon. A little more focus and inclusion in terms of the physical effects, changes and minutiae of having a semi-drowned world would be fantastic and hopefully will be expanded on in the upcoming books.

I loved Drowntown, and yes, it ticks a multitude of my ‘narrative favourites’ boxes: crime/mystery/sci-fi/interesting worldscape/anthropomorphic characters, but I wouldn’t have loved it if  it was bad, if those things were all jumbled together in a incomprehensible mess. Morrison’s plucking of tropes and scenarios from various genres, mixed with strong original elements really make this a super read; he uses humour, in particular, with finesse, balancing it perfectly- Noiret’s interactions with the rat community serve as the undisputed highlights of the book.

There are a few quibbles that niggle here and there; the characterisation and relationship of Vincent the rich heir and Gina the poor good-hearted biker girl is in danger of being sketchily superficial- she, at least, is saved by a sudden and truly unexpected turn of events towards the end ,but it is difficult to muster any enthusiasm or empathy for him. It could simply be that at this stage their arc requires introduction and nothing greater, but it feels inadequate. Which brings me to my next point-  I don’t know how long it takes Jim Murray to produce this art, but at 48 pages long, and one would imagine 2 volumes of similar length to come, I can’t help but feel the whole narrative would have served as a meatier, more fulfilling experience, had it been served as one, especially when you take into account this cant be read as a stand alone book. Of course, part of that is also due to the fact that Drowntown is so good I wished it was longer and I wished those second and third volumes were in my hands now.

Drowntown reaches high and achieves much of it, comedy, adventure,  intrigue, entertainment and sumptuous art- I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything else quite like it for a while.

The announcement of a new issue of the Slovenian periodical, Stripburger, should be welcome news for all lovers of alternative or experimental comics.  This, the sixty-first issue was published last month, and contains no less than thirty three pages in colour.

(above, work from Jason, below: a sample of Martin Ernsten’s contribution to the latest Stripburger)

The main reason for this is a quite extensive view on Norwegian comics, with contributions by Jason, Bendik Kaltenborn, Lars Fiske, Kristoffer Kjølberg, Christopher Nielsen, Anna Fiske, Inga H. Sætre, Sindre W. Goksøyr and Martin Ernstsen and an essay by Erle Marie Sørheim.  There’s also work from Slovenia (Martin Ramoveš and David Krančan) and from the UK (Alex Potts).

(some of Alex Potts’ Stripburger work)

The more than exquisite cover for this issue, featuring what looks like a Vampire smurf, is by Bendik Kaltenborn. You can get your Stripburger fill (in English) for a mere 6 Euros (more or less, depending on where you live) from their website or via e-mail to core (at)mail(dot)ljudmila(dot)org.

This August sees the Dublin Zine Fair, which has been going since 2011,  returns on August 17th and 18th at The Exchange, Temple Bar, Dublin.  (via Irish Comic News)

(a pic from one of the previous Dublin Zine Fairs, borrowed from the official site)

Exit is a very amusing short animated film from a group of six students at the One Academy in Malaysia: Mike, a grumpy, middle aged office worker descends into the gloomy, seemingly deserted underground car park at the end of the day, but when he tries to pay his ticket at the automated machine he discovers he may not be as alone as he thought:

Exit from Rebel Banana on Vimeo.

The Man Who Laughs

Adapted from the novel by Victor Hugo, written by David Hine and illustrated by Mark Stafford

SelfMadeHero

SelfMadeHero certainly have a thing for a good adaptation, have done from the outset, when the company made its debut with the Manga Shakespeare line. Since then we’ve had excellent Holmes adaptations from Edginton and Culbard, Lovecraftian nightmares from Culbard solo, and flights of extravagant ridiculous fantasy in Rob Davis’ Don Quixote.

The Man Who Laughs is right up with the best of them, an classy adaptation that approaches the original text unafraid and with a willingness to take harsh action to clean up a text David Hine calls rambling and full of turgid passages.

The Man Who Laughs really does deliver an adaptation of a difficult novel, it cuts everything back, isolating the very best parts, and delivers a deceptively simple Shakespearean melodrama, part doomed love story, part simple morality tale of the nature of true inner beauty and part clever invective fueled political rant against a world of social injustice, where the rich and privileged few rule the masses with such disdain and heartless lack of care.

The Man Who Laughs is young Gwynplaine, brutally abducted and mutilated when a mere babe on the orders of a king threatened by the baby’s noble lineage, a grotesque smile etched with blood and sinew across his face. The imagery so intense and immediate that it’s no wonder a young Jerry Robinson based his Joker on Hugo’s idea. The smile is forever fixed, and Gwynplaine’s tragic fate is similarly fixed, no matter what he does. And yes, it’s another metaphor for injustice and socio-political unfairneess as Hugo mercilessly bludgeons the reader once more.

We first encounter Gwynplaine as he’s refused passage abound a ship. Lost and cold he wanders through the snow, coming upon a baby swaddled in his mother’s frozen arms, milk frozen upon her breast. This is beautiful, blind Dea, the girl, later the woman to whom Gwynplaine would find true happiness, if only he could.

But tragedy is always waiting, events set in motion from the very first pages, a letter in a bottle cast overboard from that ship that refused Gwynplaine passage, the secrets contained in that letter destined to destroy the lives of all they touch.

Taken in by kindly Ursus, quack doctor and sometime showman, Gwynplaine and Dea grow into adults, happy in their lot as they travel England as a troupe of theatrical players eventually rolling into London where all manner of coincidences and calamities will befall them all, as various strands of the tale come together.

This is a tale of riches, of Lords and Ladies, crown and republic, coming in the years following Cromwell, where the reinstated elite are cruel and blind to the struggles of their people, playing with lives to stave off boredom. One particular Lord, bastard son of a Republican peer, and his intended wife, Duchess Josiana, will prove the disastrous undoing of Gwynplaine, as they set in motion events destined to bring tragedy down on everyone.

Mark Stafford’s art wasn’t new to me, but who knew it could be turned so effectively to grotesque politics and heartfelt love story so easily? His work previously has a cartoonish bent, but here we have beauty and majesty from the outset, albeit beauty and majesty covered in dirt and shit-stained, just as any good historical adaptation should be. The first few pages, as the boy Gwynplaine struggles through the snow really stayed with me, the poor thing, trying so hard just to survive, always and forever doomed…. the image of Gwynplaine struggling onwards, snow blanketing everything…. beautiful:

The pacing of the tale is near perfect, the only problematic moments those where Hine had to deliver a huge chunk of history in a short space of time, names and dates, and relationships coming too thick and fast to work.

But it’s a minor flaw, necessary almost, and doesn’t spoil the flow of the twin threads of love and tragedy, personal and political, that leads to a final third where everything comes together, a jigsaw of devious machinations and barely considered cruelty fitting near perfectly, the finale in the House Of Lords powerful and desperate in equal measure:

The figure of Gwynplaine stood alone in the aftermath of his speech is almost too much to bear. And then the comedown, the real tragedy as Gwynplaine reunites with his adopted father and his love, that takes your heart and tears it to shreds.

The Man Who Laughs succeeds at all it attempts to be, creating a clear tale of personal love and tragedy whilst exposing the evils and injustices at the dark heart of the British legal and political system. Sadly, it’s as damning and pertinent now in this great graphic novel as it was when first written.