Lucky Luke - Billy the Kid

Everyone’s heard of Asterix, and most likely Tintin, but for most people that’s a far as it goes when it comes to knowledge on Franco-Belgian comics.  It seems strange that Lucky Luke has somehow slipped under the radar in English speaking territories.  It enjoys phenomenal success around the rest of the world, pulling in the kinds of sales figures that only the top manga artists could hope to measure up against (how does 300 million sound?), and while there have been sporadic attempts over the years to get Lucky Luke printed in English it’s only relatively recently that Cinebook have made some real headway into the 75+ volume catalogue.

For those new to the character, Lucky Luke is ‘The man who shoots faster than his own shadow’.  A quick-draw deadeye of a cowboy who can easily outshoot anyone, he travels on his trusty steed, Jolly Jumper, and travels from place to place righting the wrongs of thieves, bandits and anyone else up to no good.

‘Billy the Kid’ is originally the 20^th Lucky Luke album from 1962, skipping the comic’s formative years and heading right into the classic stuff from when creator Morris was collaborating with René Goscinny (a name that might ring bells as the writer of Asterix).  Lucky Luke comics are stand-alone affairs however so any concerns about losing the chronology aren’t necessary.  As for the plot Billy the Kid has his entire home town cowering in fear at his gunmanship.  Everyone is too intimidated to press charges against him and he can essentially do as he likes and enforce his own sensibilities on the people.  The arrival of Lucky Luke in town upsets the balance as he doesn’t bow to Kid’s intimidation, and will plainly scold the misbehaviour like the child he is.

Events unfold and escalate as the gap between Luke and  The Kid widens, but the tone is ever light and it’s pretty clear no one’s really going to get hurt.  Instead of escalations in aggression, it’s creativity and clever mind games that win the day.  Light entertainment in hand with friendly artwork equals a work that virtually anyone could read and enjoy.  Its decades of success aren’t unjustified, and if Lucky Luke had been available to me as a child I’d definitely already have a bunch of them.  I’ve got some catching up to do…

The Chimpanzee Complex - Paradox

The Apollo 11 was a spaceflight that first allowed man to walk on the moon, a fact that has been disputed amongst conspiracy theorists virtually every day since. Chimpanzee Complex doesn’t question whether man made it there or not but instead poses to the reader that perhaps not everything that happened on the moon’s surface matches the history books.

Set in the not-too-distant future of 2035, an unknown object crashes into the Indian Ocean. The American military rushes to secure the item only to discover it is a fragment of Apollo 11 and contains two living beings claiming to be none other than Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Having just had her mission to Mars cancelled, Helen Freeman is summoned to try and discover the truth to this new situation. Who are these individuals, and who was it that came to Earth in the original landing? With nary a chance to check in on her wanting daughter (as the father’s since done a runner), Helen is off on a lunar mission to find out exactly what happened in 1969.

Chimpanzee Complex is a sci-fi that provides an intriguing mystery with very few clues as to its true nature. We don’t know if we’re headed for a scenario involving aliens, time-travel, parallel worlds or something else entirely. There’s a lot to think about as the plot thickens nicely throughout the volume with a rapid succession of twists that really set you up nicely for the next book. The added layer of Helen’s fractured relationship with her daughter is not immediately relevant to the proceedings, but I assume future volumes will see their relationship develop further.

The artwork is well-developed with a grim colour selection that depicts quite a bleak world despite using settings such as sunny Florida. Perspectives and ‘camera’ angles prove to be a real selling point with the backgrounds and spacecraft being particularly impressive. The characters themselves are highly realistic and softly toned, although personally I felt a few of the expressions looked a little stilted at key moments. It’s very much got an accomplished filmic that I hope it will grow even stronger as the series progresses.

For those curious to the book’s title, the only explanation we are given is about a psychological condition observed from chimpanzees being forcibly put through scientific testing. As with many of the features displayed in this volume, it could either be a clue or a complete misdirection. For now though the concept is interesting and event are leading into interesting areas. This promises to be a rewarding read.

Darwin's Diaries - The Eye of the Celts

For a while now Cinebook has been forging its own path as a publisher of translated French and Belgian comics in English-speaking territories, and has rapidly gained a solid reputation for its wide range of quality titles. While much of it output has consisted of classic titles for an audience who never had a chance to read them before (much in a similar way to how English-speaking audiences are only now really discovering Osamu Tezuka’s manga), it’s good to see them also putting out more recent titles such as Darwin’s Diaries.

It’s the mid-Victorian era and an unknown something in the night is out tearing people to shreds. With a rising number of incidents and only a handful of witnesses, the rumours start to fly. Having published his work On the Origin of Species the previous year, Darwin’s is called in by the prime minister to determine what unidentified creature is committing these violent atrocities. As if his theory of evolution wasn’t already controversial enough, dabbling in potential areas of folklore and myth threaten to jeopardise his scientific legitimacy and social standing.

It’s an interesting concept to take a popular scientific theory and make a horror story out of it. Depicting a dark and truly grim England with a dingy palette and grisly violence, Darwin’s Diaries is less a world of scientific discovery than it is a broken one. Darwin himself gets into drunken fights and sets about screwing whores once he’s out of sight of his wife and kids. Whether it’s a commentary on a man defying the teachings of his world, or just an attempt to ensnare its readers into its flawed protagonist, there are a lot of ingredients thrown into this comic for the reader to take as the mystery continues to deepen and intrigue. To be honest I could’ve done without the misjudged attempts feminism, presented in form of Darwin’s smirkingly patronising sidekick, but otherwise this is a solid mystery story that is high on gore and low on answers. Basically everything I need to be interested in reading the next volume!