Partytrain to Uncomfortabletown

aleph42:

(Extra) Recommended comic reading for this week.

Blacksad - A silent Hell

(Original: Blacksad - L’enfer, le silence)

This one isn’t precisely new. In fact, the translated English version (from the original french) is nearly a year old by now. Still. If I don’t recommend Blacksad at -some- point (if not all of the points), I should be flogged.

If at first look you dismiss it as “DisneyIsh”, just take one more -closer- look at the pages above. If you dismiss it as “furry pandering”, on the other hand, you couldn’t be any more wrong.

There’s (mainly) two ways you can use anthropomorphic characters in a story setting. Animals as people, and people as animals. Blacksad belongs to the later variety, and pulls it off brilliantly. But that’s only part of the appeal. Brilliant art. Brilliant storytelling, setting and characters… It’s really a must read. It has received several prizes, including three nominations to the Eisner Award.

Blacksad: A silent Hell is a detective noir comic, set in 1950s New Orleans; It follows main character Blacksad (a cat), and ocassional sidekick Weekly (a weasel), trying to piece together the puzzle of disappeared Jazz Musician Sebastian “Little Hand” Fletcher and the murders of his friends and fellow musicians.

… But I probably should stop here or I’m gonna fill this post with spoilers. And you should be reading it, instead of hearing it from me.

Blacksad is a mature comic; There will be nudity, references (and use of) alcohol, violence, nudity and drugs, and thus might be consider NSFW. Ye be warned… but you should still read it.

Reblogging with a little note that Blacksad is a comic series, and “The Hell, The Silence” is the very last out of four. Personally Arctic Nation is my favourite, followed closely by Red Soul and the fourth and first comics.