European Graphic Novels+

This is the cover from Amazonia #3, which itself represents the third 'season' of Rodolphe & LEO's cool Kenya series. Each season runs five tomes, and I believe that Cinebook has translated the first three of these, so far.*

More at BDT:
https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-53487-BD-Amazonie-Kenya-Saison-3.html

* Oh dear, all those "threes" remind me of the STTNG episode in which the ship gets caught in a "cause and effect" loop. [video]

I was asked to present some Finnish graphic novels for this community, and I think I cant go amiss by starting with the "grand old man" of finnish graphic novels/fantasy comics, Petri Hiltunen.

1) Hiltunen has been active since the 1980's and is perhaps most known for his Praedor fantasy world and the graphic novels, novels and ttrpg set into it.

2) Also he has done some adaptations of historic characters and fiction, like adapting Shakespeares MacBeth and ancient greek historian Xenophons work Anabasis.

3) Another good example of his style is 'trollpunk' albums with Ontot Kukkulat (Hollow Hills) in the 90's and Troll Patrol (with Tuomas Myllylä) in the 2020's.

4) He has also done a lot of strip comics for Finnish newspapers, depicting the observations of wizard Väinämöinen (from our national epic Kalevala) about modern Finnish society.

He has also done many, many more albums on different subjects and historical periods.

I'm not sure how many of his albums have been translated, but I think you can find at least some of the Praedor's and MacBeth in english.

Sorry for the poor quality images. Finn's do a lot things well and in interesting ways, but marketing themselves is not one of them. That or my search engine voodoo was not good enough.

Hi, I'm writing this post to ask for Lemmites for their knoweledge about a graphic novel I'm looking for. I've read the GN over 20 years ago as a teen, so my recollections about it are vague, though I remember that it was great and I've been trying to find it for the last 10 years, every now and then.

Here's what I remember about it:

Art style:

• It might be originally French or Belgian, but I'm not 100% about that.

• I think it was black and white / inked, but again, not 100% about that.

• Fairly realistic style of illustration, but set in a fantasy world with fantastical designs.

• No idea about the release date, but I read it in the late 1990's/early 2000's. It was in english or finnish, though I'm almost 100% it was in english.

• For adults with graphic violence, nudity, sex, etc.

The World:

• A dark fantasy world with slavery, war, rape etc.

• Different races. The main character was of a hobbit like race, with big ears, if I recall correctly. There were also a race of hairy, troll-like creatures that were used as beasts of war. I think there also were some modern human like creatures.

• Many kinds of different fantastical beasts.

• I think there was a war or conflict raging between different evil coded factions, factions having different themes to them (I think).

The Story/scenes from it:

• Main character is thrust into the wider world unto a Heroes Journey, maybe due to a kidnapping of a loved one, but I think there were also some Jesus the Redeemer -like quality or theme to the ending of the story. I'm not sure about the last one.

• A scene where the main character meets a witch and the witch has him turned into a black african male muscle hunk, to fuck him.

• A scene where the main character is carried unto a court of some decadent ruler.

• A scene where the main character befriends one of the hairy war beasts by removing a collar from it.

• In the end, the world is destroyed due to a great cataclysm, but some races survive due to being underground. Later they emerge unto a changed world and its implied that they are the ancestors of Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalis.

I've tried using different search engines to find them, but havent had any luck. I'm fairly certain its not by Moebius or Jorodowsky, though I guess the setting is something what Jorodowsky could have written. Alef-Thau has been suggested to me earlier, but its not that. I just read it couple of days ago.

Please lemmites, you're my only hope.

Now Tintin, are you the dog or the Sun? You can't be both, so please decide! (and please stop laughing, everyone!)

So, the other day I went a-lookin' for more Tintin memes, and found a goodly lot! :D Here's the first group, and I'll getcha' back with the other group when the stars align again upon image uploading:

Beam me UP, professor?

Poster-swap

Lazy mofos

Rascar-crystal

Save yourself!

Ah, the Tintin bed!

The most significant one is Dad-bod Thoth, as I managed to track down the other eight images in that booklet, sourced to BDK. (check it out, Druillet fans!) The other reconstructed posts are my reviews of Alas and Esther Verkest, and I must admit, I enjoyed hosting the image content on Reddit itself. (thanks, spez 😊)

Enjoy.

Oh yeah, and as for my question to y'all, let me explain:

On my end, I'm not a huge fan of republishing fixed-up posts, as it 1) adds to the overall post bloat (Lemmy doesn't allow me to completely delete anything), but also 2) because it can break cross-links in some cases.

OTOH, the greater point is for this stuff to be seen and enjoyed, and with a relatively innocuous update like this, I would guess that many readers doing quick scroll-throughs would miss the good content, assuming they hadn't seen it before. Then again, maybe I'm wrong about that...

Any opinions?

To be honest, I'd wanted to just quickly upload one of Giancola's pieces matching a "Here at the End of All Things"* series I'd like to get started, more or less reflecting my current level of shock, deep sadness, and growing fear about what's currently happening in the States. Unfortunately, image uploads don't seem to be working here at the moment, so all that will have to wait for another day. :S

* the series is themed to Sam & Frodo resting 'pon the slopes of Mt. Doom, awaiting the lava flow, not realising that giant eagles are coming to rescue them [you know]

On the positive tip, I'm quite chuffed to have recently discovered Donato Giancola's art! If I understand correctly, he's first-gen Italian-American, here covering this ultra-famous British series by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Without further ado, here're the art pieces & interview:
https://donatoarts.com/interviews/tor2022

Now if you liked that, you might want to check out his other cool work, covering sci-fi, "empathetic robots," space, fantasy, historical realism, Game of Thrones, MTG, mythology and etc:

https://donatoarts.com/gallery

As I grapple with image-hosting issues, I noticed that Seth's Imgur-hosted review* is still up from over four years ago, so I figured I'd share, with his permission. For those unfamiliar with him, he's an amateur cartoonist and an amazingly dedicated reviewer. You can read more of his comics reviews here and there.

* Perhaps the lesson here is that when content is posted publicly to Imgur and receives upvotes, it's more likely not to be deleted. Hroom...

The Smell Of Starving Boys
by Loo Hui Phang and Frederik Peeters
112 pages
published by Self Made Hero
ISBN: 1910593400

Phang writes a surreal western right in line with Peeters' dreamy sensibilities. While it never quite coalesces into something perfectly explainable afterward, The Smell Of Starving Boys has enough points of interest along the way to satisfy many of its particular kind of audience.

In Texas, in the near aftermath of the Civil War, Oscar is a gay photographer taking a job in the wilds to avoid those he crossed both in terms of business ethics and social mores. Milton's not Milton's real name. And Stingley is a a Dave-Sims-esque utopian visionary whose vision will be built on the blood of aboriginals and women as he carves the frontier into a world that he prefers. Throw in a cadaverous bounty hunter, some exsanguinated horses, and a pile of honest-to-goodness magic and you've got a story deep in the Weird West tradition.

Peeters' artwork is stunning as usual, though the often barren landscapes give him fewer hooks on which to hang his hat. Phang's story is interesting but lurid. Maybe it's your bag and maybe not.

(some minor editing done on the text above)

Switzerland's Frederik Peeters is one of the great, modern BD creators for my money. This one-shot album feels totally native to him, so I was surprised to learn that he served only as the artist, and that Laotian-French Phang Loo Hui was in fact the script-writer. I'd never heard of her before, but she seems like an extremely talented writer, interested in bringing to light the stories of various historical figures.

As for the book, I consider it can't-miss if you're a Peeters fan. Sure, it's a bit surreal, and even confounding at times, but that's pretty much par for the course. It also kind of dances with significant issues (gay rights, aboriginal rights, man's exploitation of land & resources) but was consistently observational, and not overbearing in message.

Art-wise, I felt that Peeters' designs paired wonderfully with the American southwest setting, and that his colors have evolved considerably from his work on the masterpiece Aâma sci-fi series. Of course as usual for him (despite not being officially credited on writing), there was his wry, subtle observation of how people communicate... the little pauses and slight expressions that briefly flash across their faces... how their minds brush up against each other, so to speak, and how gentleness and savagery can intermix, just below the surface of demeanor.

I'm afraid those are some poor, bumbling words to describe how great Peeters is at capturing human psychology, but if you know, you know. He's in that 'Blutch**, Grégory Mardon, and Hugo Pratt' territory, as I see it. Creators like these are so impressive to me, as they significantly raise the ceiling of "comics," bringing them to the realm of noteworthy art and literature IMO.

** For those curious, I did a little review of Blutch's Modern Speed here, thankfully still available at the moment.

@[email protected]

I know it doesn’t help now but imgur cannot be counted on. Does your instance still not allow uploads? Maybe an alt for that?

Man, I love our instance. Traditionally I've not wanted to burden it by doubling it as an image-host, but then again, if the instance goes down, then this sub goes down, so... yeah. There's that.

Beyond that, there's indeed a cap of 500k here per image, whereas Imgur sits at ~1,000k, and sometimes that's a critical difference. Point is, I generally upload a set of images at a time, which (in this theoretical) would usually require me to parse the content across both lemm.ee and Imgur in order to fit all content (i.e. images over 500k), which... would tend to be an utter PITA when posting. So there's also that.

All that's on top of the fact that almost every post I make requires me to reformat the images, often leaning in to upscaling tools. Again, it gets to be a right PITA...

Mateys, I really do love chatterboxing BD, and would probably be posting multiple times per day if these issues weren't such a slog, on top of dealing with this cursed disease. (CFS/ME)

Anyway, let's see how I might be able to share from my Google Drive. For example, HERE is my Jim Benton collection, and below are some sharing possibilities:

Well, shut my mouth and spank my bottom! That seems to work, right? Can anyone else see that second cartoon?

On my end, working with just that one Google image URL, it's (fluff my goldurn life) this:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/fife/ALs6j_G0hInbbbFt18fl47EcXA0CQFjxRvaU1hsP0otgpBAuFhLbLdWN7omw6J0sROaSL8etgKmX-pt5rFvS-0-iZ8OVQKRwf1XadtXmTKgEFDhpZEMN26jkVUkR1C65YXh0kl-Nkm7KOD-30zhqEXk7c2hHXXiXTmrKJVIyFnYMQNNYXDB-R_ssaLbEqt_oyqwXtgJWkSsZyQGsUmSEZMH9qoHeQNnLWRpVVP_ggP1-viP4JjUgrJESgO__R0ALzj4eT4p6sLcXp8BoGnK0K7_zBiI3An6OTAnGGCYWFgEuX58YN8OB_jBFk9pUvSoBjO6EiM8sjNzHpQgvqLWo3rHKU9GOsLhEvqBi-IR5l-7khilP1s_MoPlcyVNulbTcB43QgHXCecORZabGDpKCO7Bu22pBgJ8b5Z1XZyn_HAj4r1w-AWggHZp1MQt0Wgb96XIkB9jbV3HE8ur-gYF0Nk__pw4Ph94dvgQykvmaufTYbkelaPbRL8DR8wyoaIZKcGhjedLQ9GpHtvheLF7khwge3tPhb_zPZW5X6acZ8eDMgQswg124CesJ0M9_a2wWtrBrDskWvCw9kHKyldg9UT8yJGkt1PTF12RXJR6nyX63P2u4x-lVJbMflzu6iRiJDhSFGYYgMtZjAvpnRTmKoDw9MyAyCFLyxPmC9ggZakA_8O0Vb9ZWpSpMTy8Uz9oVQueJBzEO2xbfj7iVetgGDP-m5-BUtHZuUUmHU3Z-XT_64_qTOL-opxoiFQLVoYJ-aTuMW7R4JUZfAL96HjJBslXFF-0FJiou_PImcMumMeo_KgNPX8solzof0Pix7w6OeDsk0WHAOvcA5Tbd6ywGIZ9CqrfRugl3SNgz4pDNeHxgKeWkB91pHtnQt_VahP2dL0VsBmH1rMFm1F-jncGwIWH8q20n-Kk0lwMjmf0nmHgme20F32YXxDDl37PLSjW6ahCGrtwniE05wDvC6-1p99D6c7uw1Dec9RKThF-Qc3dLzINz5J9CKbpp_fDCu4n2oDSOPdei_e8E9HKCm8lepyJzjdRTxRgU85zDZlAcZIKrmlZmrinBeB6_4zY26AT2ssT6JUAhNNKY4zjLcAda7oNzRLPdsUSmhMs67h5jZ0L7kcFecUSMPnLW_3MxqUSDvTXUzrNVerrZUY-2gcmwfWSWKdQQgYYABXrG2layv5Pc-swRHocJ7tjMTy6Hl293xvoL693Sz5Y3FT2QpZmalqkBUN5bfOASjKE7HAY6FHlTr6Lx_D_WONeApjHFucsaWYIIXyWrqay0gmL-7WonNgPlkMdpGpFwVfsTt8l_4LmX4iWzyXvhzlMuknIA09GNqiBLNk5VDDyU4dIwZmgWdWha0lwTlM_aIB3QZMoSTKVtFqiAwpRq2YK3ixDRl1sJI2NMv427jiNnsQCnaivB3qBk-sUJr5X1nFs0XwkNa_mIPBiD4XmKkMkO54vGI2-zpkjfBtB0P0b0CQXSTiKoF0qoR1af7WjZvLdTYYBrk4HEMJzsoPVtqDfNFZEVxj6qION-gWR7K13emSnUZS1POo41QOkJLmC7bl5rsLSJZ5sl10aSJU1tevZwy3wh4FuHHHZufD_8aRHfC0E5A1pEMA=w1162-h1040?auditContext=forDisplay

Bloody, flippen' hell, mate!!

Heh, let me try to explain: (*deep breath*)

!&@!$* Imgur just casually deleted all the pics which explained the post. (i.e, the twelve in the thumbnail above)

To be clear, the post in question was a review I made about a year ago, upon a wonderful, unique book by one of the greatest creative teams in modern BD for my money, i.e. Kerascoët.

Now, I always try to back up my post content locally, but I just can't find my Satania backup across hard-drive A or hard-drive B, daggit!

So "flippin' feckin" says I, but did anyone happen to see that post and save the images? If so, you would be my hero, because I'd love nothing better than to repost and improve that review. ❤️

Thanks if so, mateys.

He claims to be a cowboy:
https://lemm.ee/post/38133693
(be sure to click on the title, in which there's swimming!)

And lord-a-mighty, he's back for more!
https://lemm.ee/post/38531957
(be sure to click on the title, in which there's plastic surgery!)

EDITORS NOTE: Kinda just trying to see if our 'Henk' content is still standing. So far it looks like it...

Yup! In ten days, we'll have hit the year-and-six months stage of existence. Thanks indeed then to my co-mod Nacktmull for being there the whole way, bringing his friendship, valued perspective, and lots of cool Moeby content. Thanks also to our users who contribute some posts and many useful comments, helping to make the community much more than just 'Nacky and me.'

Now, I can't say this post is going to be entirely uplifting and happy, but let's start with the good news:

• In my recent "movie night" post, I forgot to add the cool Masters of Time film, so I've tracked down and added French, Castellano and Hungarian editions . All eight movies and shorts are currently free to watch online, the first two of which I haven't actually watched in full, so feel free to give me your reaction if you like!
• Moving on swiftly, I'd like to clarify something-- my health is pretty much winding down, and a big part of the reason I started this community (which I like to call "a sublemmy") is to get it up and running in a healthy way as an alt to r/bandedessinee, i.e. not a place pushed around by corporate greed and all that. Note: TBC*, I love both BD and the r/bandedessinee sub, hugely respect their mods, and as you can see, we crosslink each others' subs. <3
• Point is-- I've tried to really bust it for our sub, coming as close as I could to creating one post per day across our first year, and goodness gracious, with the help of Nacky and a couple others, we actually did! I'm really quite proud of that, frankly! Can you tell by my massive ego boost? :P
• And yet, my ultimate intention was always to persuade people who love BD (and Euro works) to post just enough to get a healthy community off the ground here. Even just as a start, you know? Welp, sadly or non-sadly, it seems like we've only made slight progress on that point. What to do, what to do...

Maties, Is there anything more I can do to help? I frankly don't know what else I can do to help grow us, but would welcome whatever thoughts & advice you might have.

• I'm afraid on top of that, there's also a huge downer to add, in that I discovered just yesterday that a load of earlier posts relying on Imgur content were seemingly randomly-wiped. (example: my beloved Satania review) Unfortunately, those posts quite obviously need the image content to make sense, and we're faced with... a rather large project in getting those posts restored, &*(@^!$
• TL;DR-- Imgur seems to mysteriously let some private stuff last over a decade, while eviscerating recent, community, upvoted posts. I just can't understand their logic, at present. At least, from a community-facing POV. (meanwhile, I can definitely understand it if it's just an internal, fluff-'em thing from their end)
• So yeah, I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do in terms of image-hosting at this point, but if you have any advice, feel free to check in here.
• TBC, I DO like posting here a couple times per week or more, and I don't think that will change, as long as I last. But that's putting us more in a "blog" situation, and frankly, I think we can do better than just that, maties.

* = TBC = "to be clear"

@[email protected]

Until a few moments ago, I had no idea this series existed, which in fact ran from 2000-2012, and is not to be confused with an earlier American version from the early 90's. This one seems to be heavily geared towards kids, but what I personally appreciate is the quality animation and background style. And yes, I'm a huge Jungle Book fan, even performing some of the songs on karaoke nights, animal sounds included. 😁

Here's the video, I believe from the second season, 2003...

Tumblr:
https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_spylefDYpE1ywj8jq.mp4

YT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfDpKLIyMfI

Note: I'm currently, heavily shut down in terms of my image uploads, so can only offer 'one-offs' for the time being.

So then, "Norspac" is an ingenious artist to me, and if there's one thing artists envy & admire about other artists, it's their talent and ingenuity, daggit!

I think my personal favorite of theirs is perhaps Doom Spider:
https://norspac.com/static/7b89ec3781edbefaa5a8a3d2fe6dcfa8/662c7/norspac_doom_spider_shopify.webp

Artist site: https://norspac.com/

Just a little test to see if image uploads are working today. (they are, yay!)

Ship of Fools is a pretty wacky series that I've only read a bit of so far. It seems to blend steampunk and medieval sensibilities with comical drama. I find the background art really nice, with the people and animals being a little over-caricatured for my taste, but hey... at 13 volumes it's obviously very successful in the BD-sphere(!)

Lots of samples to look at here:
https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-36-BD-Nef-des-fous.html

Who knows how long these will stay up, so catch 'em if you can...

• Fantastic Planet (1973) is a semi-legendary, standout French / Czech collaboration translated to English in this release. (see that WP link for more info) I just noticed it online thanks to the lovely Full Movies on Youtube sub-lemmy. [movie link]
• The Masters of Time (1982) is a film directed by René Laloux and designed by Mœbius. It's based on the 1958 science fiction novel L'Orphelin de Perdide ("The Lost Orphan") by Stefan Wul. [French version with Spanish subtitles on FB] [Hungarian version on YT]
• The Adventures of Prince Achmed is best-introduced via the older post here linked. "Achmed" is in fact the oldest surviving animated film ever, made in 1926 in Germany, and is wonderfully unique and worth at least a brief look due to its striking silhouette animation style.
• Fire & Ice was released in 1983 by the hugely inventive director Ralph Bakshi, who earlier had turned Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat stories in to a full movie. What makes F&I especially riveting is Bakshi's early rotoscoping process, later advanced by Richard Linklater to produce films like Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, the latter based on a Phil K. Dick novel. [YT link 1] [YT link 2]

• Korgoth of Barbaria is the most hilarious post-apoc work I've ever seen in my life, and a pilot which originally ran on Adult Swim. Take my word on this one-- it... is... killer. Features John DiMaggio, the voice of "Bender" from Futurama, and is co-created by Genndy Tartakovsky, the guy behind Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack and many others. Click that link to list the current places to watch, which should mostly be DailyMotion links. (similar to YT)

• Exordium, previously posted here (follow the link). A mere 8min in length, but an excellent, grim, apocalyptic, swords & sorcery-type piece, with some interesting philosophical connotations.

• Dinner for Few, a Greek-produced, 10min, thumpingly-good takedown of the vicious circle of runaway capitalism. Another must-watch piece in my book.

• Wallace and Gromit - sorry, folks, I don't have a specific piece picked out, but if you follow that link, you should see a bunch of samples of this utterly brill British series, using 'claymation' to produce a range of rather legendary shorts, and even a few full movies.

Anybody got anything else to add..?

The above creature is called a "caravelle," an immense, limbless, reptilian-like herbivore that floats freely in the atmosphere thanks to a bladder-like structure filled with helium, which the creature is somehow able to synthesize by consuming a particular type of algae. They also have sail-like mobile membranes which allow them to be easily propelled by the wind currents. (thanks, Fandom)

It also happens to remind me a lot of some of Vicente Segrelles' creatures from The Mercenary. (Nacktmull has uploaded half a dozen, there)

Artwork used for the covers of Aldebaran T5 and the "integral" editions.

LEO (or Léo) of course is Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira, born in Brasil, who lives and works in France. He's produced and/or collaborated on a fabulous range of sci-fi / mystery series, usually involving expeditions to far-flung star systems, as well as a few historical series, such as Trent, about a Canadian Mountie not named Dudley Do-Right (sample episode). (both massive personal favorites of mine) [LBK] [BDT]

Another caravelle, with objects for scale.

Finally, a "theodores," yet another creature from planet Aldebaran-4, which the series focuses on.

And now for something completely different. (or maybe just slightly different, but I accidentally bumped in to these while searching for some of the above)

It's a hapless creature under attack by "beachquills," inhabitants of Darwin IV, as seen in Discovery Channel's 2005 docu-movie Alien Planet.

Hidden about 30 centimeters beneath the soft soil of the littoral zone are rafts of these communal hunters. Often numbering in the scores, these dart-shaped creatures lie in wait for the unwary passerby to tread on the soil directly above them. --Fandom

...and colleagues, from the page Darwin IV species.

I haven't watched this movie yet, but so far it looks like a remarkably good match with LEO's expeditionary series, and not unlike Scavenger's Reign, perhaps.

Currently it looks like the movie is free to watch at the first and seventh links, here: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Alien+Planet%22+2005+film&udm=7

EDIT: Hmm, I appreciate the quality on the full film (7th link), but I prefer how the abridged version (1st link) gets right in to the mission and leaves out the talking heads.

I really enjoyed this wild, rollicking, satirical, controversial double-book ("La Grande Arnaque" / "The Big Hoax"), blazed ahead by it's Truman Capote-style narrator.

It's by the brilliant Argentinian team of writer Carlos Trillo and artist Domingo Mandrafina, with a third mystery person adding all the loverly new color, not previously seen in the original volumes!

So me, I'm trying to put some pages together upon this work to create a half-arsed mini-article, if I can manage it, haha. In the meantime, it seems like GoodReads kinda trashed this one:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3418641-la-grande-arnaque

As an art-fancier and someone who dabbles myself, I've always gotten a kick out of the creation process, from "thumbnail" to penciled page, to an inked page, and finally a fully-colorized one.

I spotted these two pages on Tumblr yesterday, I believe from the English-language volume Good Golly, Mr. Goof!

...and combined them in to the lead image at top. Color makes a world of difference, non??

Now I forget who posted them exactly (whups), but you can skim Tumblr's BD stream if you like. It's quite nice, featuring lots of stuff I haven't gotten to yet, plus a good amount of stuff I've never heard of.

Ah, and some previous examples of the page creation process below...

EDIT: Imgur currently screwing up the content of the next two, whilst preserving the third. 🙄

Béatrice Tillier:
https://lemm.ee/post/36811732

Tintin, the lost "Picaros" page:
https://lemm.ee/post/17935055

Kriss of Valnor: (haven't shared it here yet formally)
https://imgur.com/a/creation-process-of-la-montagne-de-temps-mountain-of-time-v7-of-kriss-of-valnor-from-world-of-thorgal-series-6BYBHWP

NOTE: Hey y'all-- I don't know how it is for you, but for me, any page that leads with an Imgur pic needs to be manually clicked to view, such as in the first two links just above. In other words, for me it won't show up as a thumbnail that can be 'popped open.'

My working theory is that the problem was introduced in Lemmy v. 0.19.7, which is what this instance is running. (you can check it at bottom of page)

Now maybe-possibly this is fixed in 0.19.8, but I'm not sure. If you can see the thumbnails yourself, could you reply with which Lemmy version your instance is running? Thanks! 😃

Carrying on from this earlier post, here's Ms. Bengalore the cat (and animal representative) doing the utterly unthinkable by confronting the castle's tyrant-ruler Silvio the bull in his headquarters, surrounded as he is by canines who'd love nothing better than to rip her throat out.

Note: I have one more 8-page sequence I've picked out to share, but it's unrelated, and I need to format it, too. So, enjoy this page for now:

Par for the course, the elites of this so-called 'socialist' community force the underlings to gather wood and work to expand the castle during winter, then use their wages (buttons) to pay for enough wood in order to avoid freezing during the night.

But, hark! The lower beasts, after much hardship and debate, have decided to try a different course. It took a lot for them to get there of course, but now they're ready to risk their lives and put their paws down for this step in revolution.

Welp, this has been a tremendous series so far, with the French-language issues still being published. If all goes well, they'll later get collected and translated in to the final book (four) in the series. Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention last time-- each ~22pp issue features a cover (or is it a back?) of a fictional gazette published by the ruling class. I find them super-clever. For example:

More covers and sample pages can be seen at BDT: (scroll down)
https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-60691-BD-Chateau-des-Animaux.html

I don't remember where I first discovered her art, but it was just about love at first sight. I posted the owl pic before at the loverly c/SuperbOwl, but I wanted to share a bit more of the goodness. So, let's go:

Among the Camellias

Barred Owl

Vasilisa Romanenko is a Connecticut-based illustrator, designer, and fine artist. She creates paintings and drawings inspired by botany, natural history, and textile design. Her artwork depicts the mystery, beauty, and fragility of nature through the use of botanical elements, intricate patterns, and vivid colors.

Elderberries

Aquatic Nocturne

Vasilisa sees her paintings as windows into a magical world, much like the one she enjoyed getting lost in as a child while reading fairy tales. She creates artwork using both traditional and digital mediums. Vasilisa graduated with a degree in Illustration from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Harvest Mice

Primavera

Much more goodness at her site:
https://www.vasilisaart.com/

EDIT: Problem with her website at the moment, so...

Etsy:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasilisaart/?etsrc=sdt

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/vasilisa.romanenko/?hl=en

More:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Vasilisa+Romanenko%22+%22art%22

https://warandpeas.com/2016/10/23/hacker-dog/

One of my favorite four-panels. Love War and Peas and their humour.

Bought two comics and framed them, this is one of them.

Oof, somehow I don't believe I've posted any of Jason's work here before, who is in fact 59yo John Arne Sæterøy from Norway, who lives in Montpellier, off The Mediterranean.

So what can I say about "Jason?" I find him a fascinating BD+ creator, one who started as a fairly traditional comics artist, but quickly developed a unique visual style featuring lean, upright pseudo-animal figures, universally drawn with rather hauntingly empty eyes and spare expressionism.

I find there's a strong minimalism to his disciplined art that inclines the reader to focus on the dialogue, plot, and thought experiments going on. For make no mistake-- Jason is all about dry wit, subtle satire, thoughtful pauses, understated surrealism, pure nonsense, and sly commentary on the human condition. Altogether, there's really nothing quite like it from what I've read in comics.

His recent 2022 book contains 12+ stories in which he really lets his experimentation fly, altho of course, always within his disciplined framework of art & narrative. Across his other books, he also tells more conventional stories that span the entire album, sometimes in collaboration.

Now, out of his two-dozen or so works, I've really only read ONE that dragged for me, i.e. the travelogue On the Camino, a non-fiction work about his frankly unremarkable days hiking a famous trail in Spain.

Below are a couple highlights from Upside Dawn stories that should give you a taste of his work:

These are from the chapter Woman, Man, Bird.

SPOILER ALERT: The setting is a blind dinner date, and I think it pretty clear it's about how we can so easily talk past each other, only superficially connecting. Jason sure has a load of fun with the premise, as all this stretches on for something like 14 gonzo pages(!) oO

These are from Perec, P.I.

SPOILER ALERT: The idea here is that the dialogue gets cut off in each panel, leaving the reader to imagine what's next. I thought it a really cool idea, altho it kind of blows up in the end, shifting to a different, less interesting premise.

This all brings to mind the idea that Jason, through these short stories, is often establishing narrative templates that (he or) other creators could possibly use and expand upon in their own works. In fact, I find there's something of a creative lineage here that flows somewhat from Yves Chaland's work on Freddy Lombard, such as Comet of Carthage, which might be said to flow somewhat from Pop Art legend Roy Lichtenstein's work.

Actually, I think there are other counterpart creators in the States who belong in such a discussion, such as Dan Clowes, Charles Burns, and others. They stand out to me because they allow a sort of wild, 'Indie / Alt' energy in their stuff, but tend to express it in a rather formal, flawlessly-clean style.

Anyway, let's wrap things up by taking a look at the full Seal VII story. AFAIK it borrows a premise from the 1957 Swedish movie, The Seventh Seal, which I haven't seen yet. This was really the first story in the UD book that I liked from beginning to end. See what you think:

-----> https://imgur.com/a/VZu1eC4 <-----

Anybody know anything about the 'Largo Winch' character? What media would you recommend? Also, is it pro-rich / pro-cop? My understanding is the guy inherits billions but he’s from the criminal classes and hates the upper-classes… not really sure what class message is being sent

https://lemm.ee/post/51033313

Okay, this isn't quite meant as a full overview of the series, but I will try to answer your Q's. NOTE: one of the pics is kinda spoiler-ish, so be aware:

I find LW to be a tremendously fun, interesting and thrilling series, altho NB-- that's as someone who doesn't have nearly the financial & big business education to critically evaluate the way in which the money and corporate matters unfold.

So, Largo is a young billionaire with an atypically strong drive to be directly involved in his businesses, and specifically to operate in a moral, highly principled manner. This seems like somewhat of an absurd, storybook premise, but it works splendidly, as it puts him in the position to be attacked, betrayed and sabotaged by any number of enemies, some of them within his own organisations(!)

Also, is it pro-rich / pro-cop?

Overall I think it tends to be fairly critical of the rich, as the series routinely presents wealthy players as being cutthroat and ruthless, altho generally-speaking, Largo's wealthy associates tend to be portrayed as mostly trustworthy and principled. As for cops, there's not much of any commentary, far as I recall. I'd say they're usually presented briefly as people just doing their jobs.

My understanding is the guy inherits billions but he’s from the criminal classes and hates the upper-classes… not really sure what class message is being sent

Yes, the origin story is rather interesting. A very rich relative who's dying of cancer discovers Largo to be a long-lost relative, and bequeaths him his fortune and businesses. This goes far I think to explain why Largo doesn't remotely have the 'spoiled heir' kind of personality, and is instead so very hands-on. Um, now I don't really remember him being a criminal of any significance, altho in some of his missions and quests, he probably does break some laws along the way... almost always in a good cause. I don't remember him particularly hating the upper classes either, altho it's true that their typical behavior often causes him hardships.

As for an overall message, I find that Largo's a bit like a Robin Hood / Bruce Wayne character, with a dash of the Count of Monte Cristo thrown in. For example, beyond striving to grow his empire, Largo's generally trying to use his wealth and power to make the world a better place, frequently clashing with rich, powerful figures who are plainly out to exploit the world for their own ends. In that sense I find the series again kind of story-bookish, as my suspicion is that virtually any corporation, no matter how benignly run, is probably a net negative in contributing to late-stage capitalism and the erosion of sustainable civilisation.

Still, regardless of how true that is, I find LW to be a gem of a series, and a rare one that takes big business scenarios most people wouldn't normally think would be very interesting, and turns them in to fascinating, edge-of-your seat thrillers. So, big, BIG thumbs up to this series from me. And btw-- I'm only familiar with the graphic novels, not the... TV series or movie which I recall being made at some point.

Btw, it's not really a surprise that the great Belgian writer Jean Van Hamme is behind this super-franchise, as he's also done stellar work on a number of other series, such as Thorgal and Lady S (my favorites), but also XIII, Chninkel, Wayne Shelton, Rani, and many others.

You can read more about the individual BD tomes at BDT:
https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-14-BD-Largo-Winch.html