My wife is a Francophile. She started studying French when she was in high school. She lived in French-speaking Montreal on two different occasions just to improve her language skills. We’ve visited France several times and lived there for nearly a year back in 2001. She has a master’s degree and all but her dissertation for a PhD in French linguistics. She loves France, the French people, French food, French culture, French books, and French cinema. We’ve been married for nearly a quarter of a century. Her love of French culture has rubbed off on me.
Buy The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec Vol. 1The French love comic books, or bande dessinée as they call them. They have a long history of comics similar to those of the United States, yet very different. They generally come in hardback covers, not the cheap paperback style of American comics. But they do cover a wide range of topics and maturity levels. I have a wonderfully violent vampire comic I got while living over there (I don’t speak French, so I can’t actually read it, but I love the artwork). Some of their comics have made it to U.S. culture, such as Tintin, Asterix, and Lucky Luke. Even the Smurfs are French (well, technically Belgian, but the French-speaking part of that country and French language comics often work in tandem with that part of Belgium)/
I’ve been a casual comics reader for around 15 years. I’ve only recently started diving in with a passion. All of which makes this the perfect time for Fantagraphics’ collection of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec comics to land on my desk. Written by Jacques Tardi mostly in the 1970s-1980s (but continuing sporadically up until 2007, when the last book was published), the series is set just before (and then just after) World War I in Paris. Vol. 1 includes the first four books in the series: “Adèle and the Beast,” “The Demon of the Eiffel Tower,” “The Mad Scientist,” and “Mummies on Parade.” Interestingly, Adèle Blanc-Sec dies at the end of that last book. But never fear, she is resurrected in the next one, which takes place after World War I. Apparently, Tardi thought that the character simply wouldn’t work right existing during the war, so he found a way to skirt it entirely.
While these four tales tell four different stories, they all flow in and out on something like a continuum. Characters come and go in confusing ways. A villain will seemingly die in one story only to pop up alive in the next. There are a lot of characters, and it gets very confusing as to who is who. It doesn’t help that most of the men look alike – wearing similar coats and hats, and sporting similar mustaches. The plots are labyrinthine and complicated. I honestly didn’t know what was happening all of the time. Tardi seems to understand this, as several times in the middle of a story, he’ll have Adèle admit she doesn’t know what’s going on. Sometimes she’ll wonder aloud if the reader is faring any better. Then, at the end of each story, there will be a page or two where someone essentially sums up everything that has happened.
I am not by any means an expert on French comics, but I’ve heard that at the time Tardi was writing these early stories, many French comics had similarly complicated plots with endings that come out of nowhere. They say Tardi was satirizing the genre. That reminds me of how George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were inspired by similar movie serials from their youth to make the Indiana Jones films.
While I didn’t really understand large chunks of these stories, I still thoroughly enjoyed them. Adèle Blanc-Sec is a writer who constantly finds herself having strange adventures. Usually ones involving the occult, the supernatural, or elements of science fiction. She battles a demon cult, dinosaurs come to life, mad scientists, and more.
The artwork is wonderful. Tardi really brings to life early 20th-century Paris. The details are strong, and the pages are filled with Parisian architecture, back alleys, big museum spaces, underground catacombs, and so much more. The colors are bold with lots of big reds, blues, and blacks. I really didn’t understand what was happening half the time. A character would show up, and I wouldn’t remember who they were or whose side they were on. Sometimes it was difficult to tell which character was talking. But I never minded. The stories are so propulsive that it didn’t bother me that I wasn’t always sure why the action was happening. It was just fun living in this world, taking in this beautiful artwork.
Fantagraphics has done a terrific job with this volume. It is bound in a beautiful hardcover with large pages that fully let you admire Tardi’s glorious art. The text, while often confusing to understand, was never difficult to read, which is important to me as I’m getting older and wearing more and more powerful reading glasses.
I bought my wife a copy of one of the Adèle Blanc-Sec stories many years ago in the original language. I always admired the artwork but was sad I could never actually read it. This was especially true after the wonderful cinematic adaptation by Luc Besson came out. But now I have this fantastic, beautiful copy in English. What a treasure!
