Wide World of Comics

This week we're studying the “Wide World of Comics” which I'm just assuming is a way of introducing new and exciting comics from all around the world that we wouldn't otherwise be aware of.  This week I read the extremely well done Blacksad by writer Juan Diaz Canales and artist Juanjo Guarnido, both of whom are Spanish, but were targeting the French market.

First of all it's impossible to read Blacksad and not notice how gorgeous the art is, every page, every panel is a beautiful illustration with perfect textures and composition.  Guarnido knows what he's doing, every character is fully able to be read through posture, facial expression, and he even chooses just the right animals for the job(That's right I said animal).  Every character in this series is a humanoid animal, some more human than others (I noticed the female characters often had more human characteristics especially in their figure), but I think the anthropomorphic quality to these characters just add a certain quality that you couldn't get with a different medium.  Going this route allows the authors to basically tell these well written noir detective tales with a more exaggerated and expressive quality then they would have other wise.

The writing style is perfectly blended with the setting and what you would comic to expect with a noir piece, which is a good thing. I thought it was interesting that given the 1950's noir setting where a lot of the verbal expressions would include animal tie-ins such as, “you dirty rat”, and the character would literally be a rat.  I thought the detective stories were pretty entertaining, and well written but they weren't the most original mysteries I'd ever heard of.  But with a piece of this caliber it didn't actually detract from my overall enjoyment.  The script and illustrative quality is at such a level that I could easily this having been made up of stills from an animated movie by Disney's dark older brother.

Anyways, on to “Comics as Contemporary Literature”, oh and before I go here's one of my favorite shots from the first issue, the lighting and drama connected to it are so well done I couldn't help but share.