The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec by Jacques Tardi

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec:
Pterror Over Paris / The Eiffel Tower Demon (Vol. 1)
by Jacques Tardi

Published: 2010
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books; Reprint edition
Genre: Comics, Mystery
Paperback: 96 pages
Rating: 5

Classic comedy-thriller by one of France’s greatest, released to coincide with the film version!

Both a rip-roaring adventure series set in pre-World War I Paris and a parody of same, Adèle Blanc-Sec has been enchanting, thrilling, and puzzling readers worldwide through four decades.

With various American attempts to publish Adèle having dribbled into nothing decades ago, Fantagraphics Books, fresh from its triumphs with Tardi’s West Coast Blues and You Are There, launches a spectacular, newly re-translated, hardcover series that intends to collect every one of its nine (soon ten) volumes. In this premiere installment, Adèle becomes involved in an interlocking series of mysteries that involve a revived pterodactyl, a frightful on-stage murder, a looming execution by guillotine, and a demon from the depths of hell — plus of course moronic gendarmes, loyal (or perhaps traitorous?) henchmen, and a climax atop the Eiffel Tower.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec series:
Pterror Over Paris / The Eiffel Tower Demon (Vol. 1)
The Mad Scientist / Mummies on Parade (Vol. 2)

My two-bits:
In-a-word(s): picaresque
LOVED this graphic novel with its bits of supernatural and steampunk flavors.

The heroine is tough and independent as can be during the times. The disguises really tickle too.

~*~

Check out my review today at Wag the Fox for the DVD of...

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec
Directed by: Luc Besson
Starring: Louise Bourgoin

The year is 1912. Adele Blanc-Sec, an intrepid young reporter, will go to any lengths to achieve her aims, including sailing to Egypt to tackle mummies of all shapes and sizes.

Meanwhile, in Paris, it's panic stations!

A 136 million-year old pterodactyl egg on a shelf in the natural history museum has mysteriously hatched, and the bird subjects the city to a reign of terror from the skies.

But nothing fazes Adele Blanc-Sec, whose adventures reveal many more extraordinary surprises...

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THEN, come back here and tell me what you think of mummies!

In My Mailbox -10.2.11

Bought:

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec:
Pterror Over Paris / The Eiffel Tower Demon (Vol. 1)
by Jacques Tardi
-graphic novel, with hints of steampunk

For Review and future giveaway:

Jane Austen Made Me Do It
by Laurel Ann Nattress
courtesy of author
Thanks Laurel Ann!
btw: a review copy is also currently available at Netgalley
stay tuned: to be featured in November

Cosmic Storm
by Dom Testa
courtesy of publisher
Thanks Aisha!

Cinder
by Marissa Meyer
courtesy of publisher
Thanks Ksenia!

Hades
by Alexandra Adornetto
courtesy of publisher, Tor

All These Things I've Done
by Gabrielle Zevin
courtesy of publisher, farrar straus, giroux

The Faerie Ring
by Kiki Hamilton
courtesy of publisher
Thanks Alexis!

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Bookie Brunch schedule
Now follow me to the Bookie Brunch meeting for a bit of chit chat at This Miss Loves To Read.

Bookie Brunch Question of the day: Which is your favourite classic novel, and why?

Answer this question at This Miss Loves To Read and be eligible for the Bookie Brunch giveaway: Charming miniature of a late-20th-century perfume that wears like an older, more glamorous classic...

~*~
* get a heads up on free or discounted ebooks from Books on the Knob

* per usual, check out the sidebar for my current giveaways to you

* image from Leafcutter Designs - world's smallest postal service and you can get a letter kit at Chronicle Books

* In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren and inspired by Pop Culture Junkie. A post where we share books acquired via mailbox, library, store, etc.

icepunk

icepunk:
In fact, it's a deliberate homage to the sci-fi style of yesteryear, esp. Jules Verne. The story is set in 1899, and ostensibly features technology which barely supersedes that in theory possible during the late 19th century.

But, whereas "cyber" (the style of information flow idea) had previously been replaced with "steam" (power source for the technological device), now it is replaced with "ice" (merely stuff that's around for most of the story). The whole thing makes no literal sense; nor does it make strict analogical sense.

Instead, the sense depends upon semantic rhyming slang. Only someone familiar with the previous terms cyberpunk and steampunk could piece together then intended meaning (anarchic (in the 19th, not 20th cent., style) sci-fi (in the Verne, not Gibson, style)). - per against the modern world

Author includes:

The Arctic Marauder
by Jacques Tardi
In its ongoing quest to showcase the wide range of Jacques Tardi’s bibliography, Fantagraphics reaches all the way back to one of his earliest, and most distinctive graphic novels: A satirical, Jules Vernes-esque “retro-sci-fi” yarn executed on scratchboard in a stunningly detailed faux-woodcut style perfectly chosen to render the Edwardian-era mechanical marvels on display. Created in 1972, The Arctic Marauder is a downright prescient example of proto-“steampunk” science fiction — or perhaps more accurately, and to coin a spinoff genre, “icepunk.”

In 1899, “L’Anjou,” a ship navigating the Arctic Ocean from Murmansk, Russia, to Le Havre, France comes across a stunning sight: A ghostly, abandoned vessel perched high atop an iceberg. But exploring this strange apparition is the last thing the sailors will ever do, as their own ship is soon dispatched to Davy Jones’ locker via a mysterious explosion.

Enter Jérôme Plumier, whose search for his missing uncle, the inventor Louis-Ferdinand Chapoutier, brings him into contact with the sinister, frigid forces behind this — and soon he too is headed towards the North Pole, where he will content with mad scientists, monsters of the deep, and futuristic submarines and flying machines. Told with brio in hilarious slabs of vintage purple prose, The Arctic Marauder works both as ripping good adventure story and parody of same, and, predating as it does the later and not dissimilar Adèle Blanc-Sec series, is a keystone in Tardi’s oeuvre in his fantastical mode. 64 pages of black-and-white comics.

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* image source for icepunk header is an illustration from The Arctic Marauder by Jacques Tardi

-=+ other punk schedule +=-