JohnnyEnzyme

It's one of LEO und friends' shorter series, clocking in at two cycles and 7 books total. The basic premise involves a post-apoc civilisation, one in which white people interestingly find themselves in the minority, with darker-skinned people running the show for the most part.

https://www.bedetheque.com/media/Planches/PlancheS_35328.jpg

Police inspector Romane, one of our two leads, is a skinny white gal, not taken very seriously by her colleagues, yet she's got a great nose for sniffing out inconvenient facts. She's assigned work with Ibrahim, a Middle-Eastern colonel in the UN Forces. Later, they and their little team go up against almost impossible odds against a giant, multinational corporation whose aim in this case is the conduct of genetic experiments designed to produce human-cetacean hybrids, specifically in order to better take advantage of Earth's rising sea levels.

https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-35328-BD-Mermaid-Project.html

In fact I'm re-reading cycle two right now, called Mutations, in which Romane & her now-boyfriend 'Brahim' have predictably been screwed over by governmental-corporate interests as the two-book series opens, stripped of their jobs and titles until the ~~morons~~ er, powers that be gain a clue, and bring them back on board to address a new threat... one in which an outside agency is using weapons and mind-control to attack the various fishing vessels largely sustaining what's left of humanity.

Er, I'll be honest... the whole reason for this post originated from the fact that I found the doggos' facial expressions in panel 1 so dang amusing, as compared to the overall gravity of the situation. XD

Seriously, though-- this is quite a solid series, containing lots of thought-provoking fare. Biggest nitpick is that it didn't quite have the stupendous windup in tome 7 that I was emotionally hoping for, but... life's like that, sometimes, mais non?

Just to be clear-- if you're not interested in issues such as sustainability, animal rights, the defeat of fascism and so forth, this series might just be a 'dud' for you.

It's professor Calculus' space ship from Destination Moon of course, from the Tintin series.

The rocket is so iconic of Tintin that I find it easily over-represented at times, but this one stopped me in my tracks, as I'd never seen a photo-realistic attempt before; especially a night-view. Just a slight bit of upscaling added, and Robert's your avuncular figure.*

* (Bob's your uncle)

Day view.

I thought this all might be AI at first, but thankfully, I'm not acting the goat this time.

In fact it's professional animator Erik Wernquist's work, with more here:
https://erikwernquist.com/work

And one more boffo piece I stumbled upon... I believe this one by someone named Anton Hebert Baron.

To zoom-in on desktop, right-click open:

Gina Lollobrigida, from Fanfan la tulipe (1952)

Leslie Nielsen, perhaps from around the late 50's

Norma Shearer, Canadian-American
actress and feminist pioneer

John Wayne, Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland,
from Reap the Wild Wind (1942)

Harold Peckridge (1906-1989)
(no idea who that is, but I'm thinking he'd be a lovely fit
as one of the professors from Tintin's Shooting Star)

Marlon Brando, presumably from
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Claudia Cardinale

"Blanche Neige fêtera ses 80 printemps cette année"
I think that says "Snow White is ~~80~~ 88 springs old this year"

More coming...
https://www.bedetheque.com/auteur-6045-BD-Jung-Etienne.html

I can't remember if this fits in to the classic Den series, but my digital library has it, so I'll be giving it a whirl, soon. In any case, TCJ (The Comics Journal) has a solid article on this book(s), including more sample art, like this one:

And the rest:
https://www.tcj.com/reviews/murky-world/

Corben of course was an honorary member of the 'Euro art club.' Moebius for example was gaga about his work. My Denz part III intro is still alive on Imgur, for those curious:

https://lemm.ee/post/11235458

How I adore this series, by Pénélope Bagieu:
https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-18832-BD-Josephine-Bagieu.html

It's such a catty take-down of all our little interpersonal, social tricks, with Josephine being my absolute heroine (and center of the hurricane) upon this madness. Anyway, here's slide two:

Now me, I barely watched "Desperate Housewives," but could this be kinda-sort of the like?

This of course is a Euro adaptation of one of the great Conan tales, here reconstructed by Régis Hautière & Didier Cassegrain, and indeed, part of an excellent series:

https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-60536-BD-Conan-le-Cimmerien.html

In Red Nails, Conan and Valeria happen to bump in to each other whilst fleeing a dinosaur-predator. They're not exactly fond of each other due to past history, but they're forced to form a truce, so as to escape... well, being dinner.

Unfortunately, the only real place to flee is an abandoned... castle, or palace... weirdly without windows, or any sort of 'usual' architecture.

It gets much, much crazier from here, and is absolutely worth a read, via this particular BD, or via [the source].

Red Nails was Howard's last Conan tale, before tragedy cut short his life at only 29yo. Like most of his Conan (and other) work, it's very dark-pulpish, aspects of which the various comic adaptations only occasionally capture, IME.

Once again, I'm still lingering on Cape Horn, this time on book two:

In the meantime, I'm still grappling hard to understand the relevant context and history of this particular region (Tierra del Fuego, set in the late 1800's), as well as the various individuals the 4-tome series tracks in this chaotic, frontier environment. Anyway, let's start with something pleasant:

It's a young French officer serving with one of the local small navies (Chilean or Argentinian, I can't remember) writing to his sweetheart. The words to me are almost secondary to the way the panels are pleasantly, skillfully laid out:

As a chronic fan of 'show me, don't tell,' I really like the way these panels communicate his sweetie's letter sparsely, mixed with getting a sense of the local flavor.

Ruh-roh, but now enters the sinister Kruger (see the map diagram last post for more on how he absconded with his buddies' gold), who we now learn has even more of a darker backstory.

Poor Ernesto...

I can tell you, however, that Kruger will eventually pay for this humilation.

You see... that 'she' was in fact Ernesto's wife, who he'd previously reformed and pledged his devotion to. Yikes.

https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-12686-BD-Cap-Horn.html

This is so clever and impressive to me, even if it's a bit scholarly in form, I suppose. It's from the opening pages of In the Cormorants' Wake, T2 from Cape Horn. The point is that you can completely miss T1, yet still get everything you need to make the backstory work in T2.

It's just brill, at least for the likes of me, anyway.

Btw, I added some colors to help make the notes clearer, themed to Roy G. Biv, a tremendous son-of-a-gun if there ever was one. :P

https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-12686-BD-Cap-Horn.html

I.e., seemingly another fruitful Franco-Italian combination upon BD. ^^

In any case, I'm just getting in to this series, so let's see what happens...

Now, I haven't read this one recently, but hopefully you'll allow me the brazen chutzpah to share some thoughts and pics, right here. (I mean, it was already on my list, and I just figured-- let's get to it, matey)

Anyway, for me, Gemma Bovery was hugely significant to me around 2yrs ago, when it re-lit my fire to learn français, once and for all. Since then, by hook or by crook, I've genuinely worked much harder both via the DuoLingo app, as well as across my attempts to read French BD in general, getting me to about the mid-A2 level now in French, perhaps? (oof, it's a process, anyway)

Okay, what I find immediately, *highly* unique here is the way in which this BD combines both text and illustrative passages. I mean... sure, you can see this across many (or most?) children's books, but these days? It's more like... 'coucou, not how we do things in comics et BD!' XD

And of course, as English-speakers, we get these little bits of easy French words and phrases to discover across these comics. Not sure about you, matey, but it just really WORKS over here, I think, perhaps, maybe.

Without diving too absurdly deeply, there's a love-triangle working here, or quadrangle, or maybe just a bunch of unfortunates converging upon devastating topic of choice? :S

But the main thing, really? It's all about Joubert's (the baker) fascination with Gemma suffering across a bad marriage, her terrible taste in men, and just rotten, lousy work, at the end of days.

Now me-- I'm used to judging these works (heaven help my idiot opinion), upon a gathering of things, let's say, but this is one of those that, to me, examines some rather deep workings of a woman's soul, as seen from an immediate distance.

Of course, it's just my pure flight of fancy that artist Dongni Hau was specifically imagining Joan here, but the ages (and maybe armor style?) seem to roughly fit, in which Joan would have been between 17-19yo, around 1429-1431AD.

One of the most fascinating things I've seen across the arts is the way in which vastly-different cultures examine each other (and produce imitative work) across such vast, geographical & social gulfs. As in-- no matter how culturally-conservative and predictable such a process might go, there is STILL almost always something fascinating in the interpretation and recapitulation, I personally find.

Now me, I don't really know what to make of the heavily religious-political overtones during Joan's (or almost any other) era, but in terms of pure narrative (based on historical fact, mind you), I find Joan's sadly brief life & times rather fascinating, tragic, and certainly moving.

The artist's site is below.
She's from Fuxin, Liaoning, China, and now lives and paints in Paris:
https://dongnihou.com/

I've always enjoyed the visceral, impactful red-black or red, black & white color theme. Unfortunately, it's not something I explored very much during my 'watercolors & acrylics' peak of creativity. Hence, why I admire (and envy, dammit) other artists who had success with that theme, as seen above. Still... regardless of the particular color-theme, I find the backdrop art quite superb on its own.

Also kind of amusing in a sense, since the original Italian poetry here seems heavily butchered in translation, not exactly helping one's enjoyment of the pure artistry.

I mean, lol... it's either "haha" or bah," at such point? 😵

Eh, in any case, I'm thinking these panels depict the opening to a play, in which a narrator both describes a backstory, as well as foretells things to come, like 'Willy Shaketown'-style?

Very sadly, Rome's Tenuta passed away at only 54yo, in 2023.
He sounded like a perfectly swell bloke:
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/t/tenuta_saverio.htm
https://downthetubes.net/in-memoriam-comic-artist-saverio-tenuta/