Geek Syndicate Issue 4 | Page 61

COMIC REVIEW - Grandville: Bete Noire Geek Syndicate boy (humans, in this world a menial underclass) Rights, Art Theory and finds the time for more depth to be added to its recurring cast. It definitely builds on the earlier volumes but at the same time I don’t think you’d need to be familiar with them to understand the characters or their relationships. This time, Inspector LeBrock is headed back to Paris (the titular “Grandville”) at the request of an old friend to investigate a baffling “locked room” murder. Along with Roderick, his able assistant, he soon uncovers a wider conspiracy aimed at the heart of the French Government. I don’t want to say too much more, but the Bondinfluence is strong, though not too dominating and Billie, returning from Grandville: Mon Amour, makes for a great Bond Girl and proves more than capable of holding her own both physically and emotionally. It is no great revelation (it’s right at the start) that the villain of the piece is Toad of Toad Hall, a great choice and one that feels seamlessly “right”, not least because of the acknowledged similarity to the Baron Greenback from Dangermouse. His plan is grandiose and maybe a little silly, although a nice afterword gives some context to it, equating it to real-world events. As you’d expect from Talbots work there is a huge amount of background nods to other comics and movies too, and spotting them is definately a private joy that adds to the books. 61 Writer: Bryan Talbot Artist: Bryan Talbot Publisher: Jonathan Cape (UK) & Dark Horse Comics (USA) tion of master storyteller and graphic novel pioneer Bryan Talbot with the third standalone volume of the Eisner and Hugo Award nominated Grandville series. As the body count mounts and events spiral exponentially out of control, aided by his brilliant deductive abilities and innate ferocity, LeBrock battles against outrageous odds in this funny, high octane thriller, an adventure shot through with both high art and comic book references, a glorious illegitimate offspring of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming - with animals! The Review: There is something refreshingly different about Bryan Talbot’s “Grandville” series. For a starter, there is the format solid, hardcover volumes that radiate production quality and look great on your bookshelf, casually dominating whatever soft-cover series has the misfortune to be stacked next to it. Secondly the artwork, glorious full colour illustrations featuring a diverse cast of anthropomorphic animals in a steampunkesque world. And finally, the stories themselves, a mix of conspiracy-crimethriller and all-out action starring a tough-talking Badger Detective named LeBrock. Grandville: Bete Noire is the third in the series, and this time the story takes its inspiration from the Bond series, with a Master Villain, secret lairs, and a nefarious plan to take over, well, everything. Along the way it takes in Robots, Dough- The Blurb: At Toad Hall, lair of multibillionaire Baron Aristotle Krapaud, a cabal of industrialists and fat cats plot the violent overthrow of the French state by the intervention of horribly beweaponed automaton soldiers. Meanwhile, the brutal murder of a famous Parisian artist, mysteriously stabbed to death in his locked and guarded studio, is subject to the investigations of the tenacious Detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard, placing him and his faithful adjunct, Detective Sergeant Roderick Ratzi, in pursuit of the mysterious masked assassin stalking the cut-throat commercial world of the Grandville art scene. Bête Noire signals the welcome return to anthropomorphic steampunk detective fic-