Previous introduction here.

In the above scene, two police detectives are interrogating a literal Satan-worshipper, a man who seemingly reeks of guilt by all that's good and holy, we presume. But what exactly is he guilty of, and how best to corner the beast..?

Now, our heroine as it were is carrying on the tradition of her father, and even though she received top results at the Police Academy, she's immediately treated as a complete joke by her colleagues. Her assigned partner is initially of such a 'boys' club mind,' but soon begins to respect her abilities...

Time to party?
(I think not)

This little two-book work is like the ultimate 'cool cat,' late-60's gem about cultism from the 'other' angle. It nicely reflects those times, whilst also giving us a huge, satisfying puzzle to read, enjoy, and perhaps solve.

https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-88105-BD-American-Parano.html

I just loved the expression of this little rat, surprised whilst taking his daily bath. Checking on the author sent me down an interesting rabbit hole...

"Ptiluc" (Luc Lefèbvre) is a Belgian comic artist best known for his humor comics about rats: Pacush Blues (1980) and Rats (1995). Yet he has also taken other anthropomorphic animals as main characters, like apes and monkeys (Ni Dieu, Ni Bête, 1992) and pigs (La Foire aux Cochons, 1998). Ptiluc uses these animals as a satirical metaphor for human society, featuring black and bleak comedy, yet thought-provoking commentary at the same time. Since 2002, he's been a French national. --Lambiek, with edits

Veillée au coin du feu ("Fireside vigil")

Ptiluc's main inspirations come from American underground comix and the French magazines Fluide Glacial and Rigolo. He cites Hugo Pratt, Marcel Gotlib and André Franquin as his prime influences, but also adores the work of novelist George Orwell.

Pacush Blues : This gag comic about rats living in a drain would eventually become his signature work. Ptiluc said he closely identified with this animal species because people always said he resembled one, due to his long nose.

Urinoir : another day, another community bath

This looks like a funny animal comic at first sight, but contains sarcastic and often nihilistic commentary on humanity. There are no single recurring characters. While the comic features some black comedy gags at times there is also more poignant food for thought. The rats often wonder about the meaning of life and especially the role humans play in the destruction of the planet.

I'll be looking for these books and will likely post more of Ptiluc's work in future. It seems enormously promising on all fronts...

I'd say this series is primarily pitched towards kids and fanciers of the comic medium. The 'superhero' here is like a riff on ComicBookGuy from The Simpsons. He's completely out of shape, unremarkable in physical appearance, and wears one of the silliest outfits since the days of Ma Hunkel masquerading as The Red Tornado in the pages of the classic American comic, Scribbly. BUT he does have a 'comics superpower,' in that he can interact between panels, bending the very laws of the medium. (or dare I say "multiverse?")

We've occasionally seen this technique used before across various famous comics, going back to Little Nemo I think, but generally as more of a one-off gag. In this case it's developed much further, and is unambiguously the entire point of the series. Imbattable (i.e. Mr. Invincible) is amusingly billed as the 'one and only true comic book superhero,' and if you follow that logic, I think it works!

First appearing in Spirou, there are three collected books in this series, plus a special, authored by writer / artist / colorist Pascal Jousselin from Rennes, France. [list of his BD works] 'Mr. I.' has been nominated for multiple Eisner awards and did win an Italian award, the Bologna Ragazzi.

Of course there are some occasional hiccups with Mr. I.'s superpower. What would be the fun without a little kryptonite here and there?

There's a nice, longer-form article below by the School Library Journal's Betsy Bird. It does a fine job getting in to the nuts & bolts of the series, and raises some interesting points, such as the issue of what kinds of comics pander to kids vs. which truly respect their intelligence.

https://afuse8production.slj.com/2020/11/12/review-of-the-day-mr-invincible-local-hero-by-pascal-jousselin/

Jérôme Moucherot ("Jerome Katzmeier" in English editions) is a middle-aged, unremarkable-looking insurance salesman. Unremarkable, except for the fact that he's almost dwarf-life in stature, wears a leopard-skin suit, and has a nose-piercing with a fountain pen stuck through it. Nominally he's sort of a throwback-50's family man with a patient, frumpy wife and three homely little boys. In fact, Jerome is essentially author / artist François Boucq's whimsical, fertile soil of an overlooked everyman, one who appears in a series of satirical, absurdist stories. Typically he rises (or sometimes retreats) to the occasion in surreal, amusing ways that classic heroes would never dream of doing.

Me, I'm familiar with the short stories as seen in Heavy Metal, and I'm currently reading The Walls Have Teeth, one of the full-length books that clocks in at 80pp. It appears that there are ~5 books in total, I take it some being collections and some extended adventures.

Ah yes, and in terms of personal peeves? I'd say the banter, while generally amusing, can sometimes weight down the natural pace of the comic. Also, the absurdist stories can be a bit hit or miss, altho TBF that's exactly the kind of thing you'd expect here. On the whole, though, this is a classic series my fellow silly gooses would do well to check out.

"This man is a beast. With his leopard-print suit, his noble bearing and piercing gaze, his agile yet powerful walk… and his pen stuck up his nose, he is as alluring as he is frightening. His name is Katzmeier, Jerome Katzmeier. His mission: to destroy the fear of tomorrow, allowing everyone to board the train of progress as it departs from the dock of the hassles of everyday life. In other words, Jerome Katzmeier is an insurance agent. But one not quite like the rest…" --Mediatoon

“He's an insurer-explorer in a leopard costume who goes in search of himself in the jungle of existence” --WP FR

So then, as a prize for lasting so long, below is one of my favorite "Jerome" short stories. Interestingly, the author happens to be a master kendo swordsman (5th-dan rank). One wonders if he interjected some of that 'kendo spirit' in to the panels:

https://imgur.com/gallery/gNdXxjG

Note: Did anyone else catch a bit of a Roger Rabbit tribute near the beginning?

Boucq of course is the same bloke who gave us the one-armed Old West lawman "Bouncer," as well as the hilarious adventures of Death and his porcine companion, Lao-Tsu. He's quite a versatile artist & writer, and for whatever reasons, visually he seems to like playing up the physical homeliness of his characters, not unlike his fellow creator Hermann (so far covered here briefly via his art).

More on François Boucq below, and if you do click, make sure you scroll to the bottom to see his hysterical poster tribute to other famous characters:

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/boucq.htm

The Black Axe is a six-issue mini-series set in the Mouse Guard universe, and this is the original art used for the cover of issue #4. I'm sharing it because I found the art heavily ligne claire-inspired, plus.. yeah! I simply love the piece.

But more than just that, I found The Black Axe a wonderful series as a whole, which shares elements of style, narrative, plotting and tragedy with classics such as Beowulf and Túrin's Tale (from Tolkien's Silmarillion).

Here's three sample pages from this same issue: (click or zoom to expand)

I'll have to write a proper review of the Mouse Guard series at a later date, but for now, I can certainly recommend this particular mini-series as a great introduction, more focused and less full of characters and subplots than the other series.

Following is the cover version of the art:

And more general Mouse Guard samples HERE.

Swarte has always been someone who tickled me, with his beautifully clean, mad, pleasing designs. For now, this will have to serve as a minor introduction to his work.

Joost Swarte is a Dutch graphic designer, illustrator and architect, and one of the most famous Dutch comic artists internationally, even though he has not made that many actual comics. Most of his better known series, like Jopo de Pojo, Anton Makassar and Katoen en Pinbal (1972-1979), were made in the 1970s. Afterwards he became far better known as an illustrator and architect.

Swarte is not just a follower of the "Clear Line" tradition of Hergé and Edgar P. Jacobs, but is actually the very person who coined and popularised the phrase "Ligne Claire".

!!

Swarte draws in a very calculated, technically-precise style with much attention to bright colours and elegant design work. Swarte is additionally (co-)initiator of magazines Modern Papier and Scratches, as well as the festival Stripdagen Haarlem, and the Hergé Museum in Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium.

--Lambiek, with edits & additions by Johnny

More here, with samples: https://www.lambiek.net/artists/s/swarte1.htm

This is easily one of the greatest graphic novel series (3 tomes) I've ever read. It's by Lewis Trondheim, creator of the brilliant Donjon mega-series, plus Ralph Azham, McConey / Lapine, and countless others.

FIRST THOUGHTS: Maggy initially struck me as a likeable 'Bridget Jones'-type youngish woman, in many ways charmingly trying to figure out how best to apply her canny bag of talents to modern life. A talented ingenue, as it were? But good gracious-- the series is so much more than just that.

Our story begins with Maggy freshly hired, yet due to unexpected events, she swiftly goes from 'boring part-time secretary serving a boring PI' (i.e. a dick, a detective), all the way to finding herself deeply embroiled in a painful lottery-ticket-gone-wrong web of murder.

Who is Maggy, anyway? She's young, but canny, resourceful, cynically humorous. She's bold as brass, on the verge of going DOWN.. or NOT, really?

In strolls a new character:

Now we got two. Let's DO this.

Time to get these barstids!

Yeap... bit of an old spoiler, dammit.

Protect yourself, sure... unless someone 'protects themselves even better!'

Any last thoughts, my friend..?

For me, Maggy's such a fun, revelatory, multi-dimensional character, the likes of which we rarely ever see. And especially as a female character! I must say I'm deeply proud of Trondheim for realising this nuanced, realistic series... deeply-satisfying as it is.

CONCLUSIONS? This is an absolute masterclass of a 3-book crime-off-the-rails series. Please check it out if you can. And personally? What particularly impresses me is Trondheim's typically 'light-hearted touch' upon every component, from story to art. It is a level of 'loose mastery' I'm not sure I've ever seen before across comics.