Posts Tagged dark horse

Book Of The Month – June 2011

 Blacksad

Written by Juan Diaz Canales

Illustrated by Juanjo Guarnido

Dark Horse

 Last week when I reviewed Liar’s Kiss for the Top Shelf selection for the month of May, something happened to me; I was bitten by the Noir bug. Now this type of bug isn’t your typical damsel in distress, nor is it lethal, but upon being bitten you will find yourself craving more and more noir stories, whatever medium be damned. That bite definitely influenced my selection this month.

Blacksad isn’t anything new to you if you live in Europe. It was originally a graphic album made for the French comics market by two Spanish creators, and later collected by Dark Horse for the comic fans over here in the states to enjoy. It follows a run-of-the-mill detective, John Blacksad, as he rights wrongs and solves mysterious in 1950-60’s America, in three different stories collected in this volume. So how does this standout from the other pulps and noirs? Simple; anthropomorphic characters with the species based on their personalities. Blacksad is a black cat who always seems to land on his feet, and is very stealthy when he needs to be. A lot of the police are some sort of breed of K9, and the shadier characters and lowlifes tend to be reptiles or other sorts of vermin. Remember those old Disney cartoons, whether it be Ducktales or Rescue Rangers? Same sort of style we enjoy here, only think of this world as a lot more grittier and adult than what you remember. There are certain situations that are rather explicit at times, but don’t let that turn you away; nothing feels forced, it all flows very naturally.

In the first story, Somewhere Within The Shadows, Blacksad investigates the murder of an old flame who he used to be very intimate with. We discover the culprit is a few million dollars above his and the authorities pay-bracket, so John has to get his paws a little dirty to make sure justice has been served, caution to the wind. This first arc really helps introduce us to this world, and has us begging for more by the last page.

The second story, Artic Nation, is my personal favorite. It deals with racial segregation in the 1950’s between the black and white animals. The white supremacist casting is spot-on, and makes it feel that much more real and enticing. Blacksad has been hired to find a kidnapped little girl, with the local white authorities being his number one suspects. What follows is betrayal, deceit, and a whole lot of twists and turns that keep you guessing until the very end.

The final story of this collection, Red Soul, focuses on the Red Scare of the 1960’s, with the famous witch hunts for communist sympathizers. When Blacksad discovers one of his old teacher / mentors is swept-up with the wrong crowd, he feels it necessary to become his guardian angel. A good thing too, because someone puts out a hit on his old friend, and the shocking reason of why causes Blacksad to question everything he thought he knew about him.

The art by Juanjo Guarnido is just absolutely gorgeous to look at. The man used to work in a few different animated Disney projects, so he obviously knows how to create anthropomorphic characters that feel so natural and relatable. His watercolor work really progresses each story, and is just mind-boggling to try and calculate how long each page must have took him to produce.

As for Juan Diaz Canales, the man obviously lives, breathes, and eats noir on an everyday basis to bring us such wonderfully suspenseful stories. To have a post-WWII era as the background for each story really brings a sense of nostalgia to the reader, despite what generation they might be apart of. We learned of these events throughout history class, so to see a different interpretation of each time period is something very special.

If you’re a fan of Parker by Cooke or the criminal Criminal by Brubaker & Phillips, do yourself a favor and add this to your Noir section on your comics shelf. It’s a natural fit, and you’ll find yourself wanting to learn French just so you can see what happens in the yet-to-be-released volume four.

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