I didn't appreciate it when I was young, a least not
consciously, but Morris and Goscinny make Lucky
Luke seem so effortless. The words and picture work so well together. They
combine seamlessly into a fun yet informative narrative. It's professionals at
work and it makes for a really fun read. The effortless storytelling translates
to a breezy read. But Lucky Luke
manages to have substance too so it doesn't feel like a throwaway comic.
James Gamble, an engineer, is given the task to bring the telegraph wire from Carson City to Salt Lake City and completing half of the First Transcontinental Telegraph. Lucky Luke, recently put out of a job with the Pony Express due to the telegraph, is hired to protect Gamble’s team and help out wherever he can. There is a second team whose job it is to install the singing wire from the east coast all the way to Salt Lake City where it will join up with the wire installed by Gamble’s team. Morris and Goscinny give the plot a bit of weight by having the team strike a bet: the team who makes it to Salt Lake City first will get $100,000. This obviously makes Luke’s job much more difficult since he’s now convinced that there is a spy within Gamble’s team and he’s right, of course.
James Gamble, an engineer, is given the task to bring the telegraph wire from Carson City to Salt Lake City and completing half of the First Transcontinental Telegraph. Lucky Luke, recently put out of a job with the Pony Express due to the telegraph, is hired to protect Gamble’s team and help out wherever he can. There is a second team whose job it is to install the singing wire from the east coast all the way to Salt Lake City where it will join up with the wire installed by Gamble’s team. Morris and Goscinny give the plot a bit of weight by having the team strike a bet: the team who makes it to Salt Lake City first will get $100,000. This obviously makes Luke’s job much more difficult since he’s now convinced that there is a spy within Gamble’s team and he’s right, of course.
The setup is done in just a handful of pages and the rest
of the album focuses on the journey from Carson City to Salt Lake City. Gamble’s
team encounter numerous challenges, some natural, some logistical and quite a
few caused by the traitor. Many of the situations are humorous and the overall
tone is light-hearted. Goscinny maintains some suspense with the mystery of who
the traitor is and the reveal is pretty satisfying considering the length of
the comic. The jokes are regularly predictable but I’m not sure if that’s
because I read it numerous times before or if it’s truly obvious where the
jokes are coming from. I don’t think it really matters because seing it happen
on the page is still enjoyable, in great part due to Morris’s expressive
cartooning. Le fil qui chante is good
fun and it’s guaranteed to please and it’ll certainly make you smile. It’s a
fine example of an all-ages bandes dessinées.
My review is based
on the French edition published by Dargaud in 1977.
Yoko Tsuno: Le
Dragon de Hong Kong (The Dragon of Hong Kong):
There are three main types of Yoko Tsuno stories. The first kind involve her background as an
electrical engineer to tell cutting edge (for their time of publication)
science centric stories. Those stories often have science fiction elements but
they’re grounded in the real world thanks to Roger Leloup’s crisp and detailed
art. The second type of stories are pure science fiction often involving the
Vineans, technologically advance blue skinned humanoids. The third type of
stories are the time travel stories. After writing La Spirale du temps (The Time Spiral), Leloup revisited
Monya and her time machine in several other time travel stories. It doesn’t sit
perfection in either of the two types of stories because it has an important
science fiction element to them but they’re also ground in reality (either the
present or well researched representation of the past). As such, I consider
those stories to be a separate type.
Le Dragon de Hong
Kong, published in 1986, is one of the Type-1 stories. The story jumps
right into the thick of it and by the second page Yoko is already acquainted
with the dragon of the BD’s title. She is in China to visit her cousin and
decides to make a trip to Hong Kong (alone, because her cousin doesn’t like the
bit city). After a tooth is left behind in the junk’s wooden banister, Yoko
takes it upon herself to uncover the mystery of the dragon’s origins.
Overall, the story is simple but what’s impressive here
isn’t really the story itself (though there is nothing notably bad about it)
but Leloup’s masterful skills as a storytelling. I was particularly impressive
by the pacing of the comic. It’s plotted very well and the story moves very
briskly while also maintaining a certain rhythm that allows for ease of reading
and enough time for the reader to enjoy the artwork. There really isn’t a
single wasted panel in the whole comic and it’s filled with detective-like
investigating, human story elements (a bit of Yoko’s family history and the
beginning of her own family), action both high-tech and low-tech and everything
wraps up in a final page that is both heart-breaking and heart-warming.
As always, Leloup’s art is one a treat. One of the best
things about Yoko Tsuno is Leloup’s
attention to detail. It’s quite spectacular how he can convey so many realistic
depictions of buildings, people, machines, and boats. Most of the art is done
using a single-width ink line. Because the inking is so uniform everything is
given a more equal importance on the page. Leloup still maintains focus on the
characters and the action, but everything is drawn with equal attention to
detail and it helps to immerse the reader into the real-life settings of the
story. He changes his inking a bit for the dragons, likely in order to convey
the scales more realistically. It also helps to make them stand out more from
the rest of the art. He also used another technique to make the scenes with the
dragons pop, that of using larger panels. Le
Dragon de Hong Kong is entirely made up of pages that have three or four
tiers. The four tier pages are used for the non-action scenes and they mostly
serve to advance the plot or develop the characters. The three tier pages are
used for the action. This allows for larger panels which is necessary to show
off the Hollywood blockbuster-like action.
There is a noteworthy real-life parallel between Leloup’s
live and that of his heroine, Yoko. This album is dedicated to Keum-Sook,
Leloup’s adoptive daughter of Korean descent. Yoko adopts her own daughter in
this story and Rosée du matin, the little girl in question, will become a
staple character of the series from that point on. It’s actually quite nice to
see Yoko evolve so gracefully into this new role but it’s not surprising given
her easy relationship with other children previously in the series. Le Dragon de Hong Kong is a typical Yoko Tsuno story, which means face
pacing, stellar art and an interesting lead character. It was good when I was a
boy and it’s still very good now.
My review is based
on the French edition published by Dupuis in 1986.
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