Fantagraphic
This volume is a reprint of a comic work from the 1970s. Obviously French, this book tells a tale set in the late 1800s. It starts as a ship in the Arctic finds a frozen ghost ship high on a pillar of ice. As some of the crew and our protagonist, Jerome Plumier, explore the frozen ship, their original ship explodes, standing them in the frozen sea. But once rescued, Jerome Plumier happens into a plot of world destruction.
The art work in this book is fantastic. The black and white illustrations look almost like woodblock prints. The picture he made of the sailing ships seem quite realistic. And his architectural and seascapes are wonderful. However, his drawings of the people are cartoon type caricatures. This isn’t a bad thing because it reminds me of the works of Honoré Daumier.
However, the story is a little cheesy. Paying homage to Jules Verne and H.G. Welles, there is highly speculative notions of technology. It’s broken up into small chapters, each ending in a cliffhanger which gives it one of those Saturday Morning serials feel. But unlike comics today, this sometimes get a little too wordy. When people explain their plots, it’s just like a bad Bond villain making his speech just before his plans come unraveled.
One thing this book is missing is that I would of loved some more background information for this book. I wish the editors had written some sort of introduction to help place this in some sort of context. Who is Tardi? Why pick this book to reprint? What was its original audience? Sure, I could go to Google and find answers to my questions, but I think it would added more to this work by having a page telling the reader what they were holding and have a couple paragraph biography at the back.
Is this a great work? Not really. So it’s not a book every library should own. But the art will grab some people and there isn’t anything objectionable. So if a youngster were to find it, their parents shouldn’t be too upset.
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