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I recently received volumes one and two of this series from my aunt as a birthday present (thank you very much, Aunt Kathy, for supplying my habit) and have finally been able to crack them open.

I hadn’t heard of the title before receiving the books but was familiar with the creator, Jacques Tardi, from reading It Was the War of the Trenches, a collection he did about the French front lines during WWI.  Trenches is an amazingly simple and powerful book. Tardi’s grandfather was a vet, the book took over a decade to come together and the reader can easily grasp that the entire project was a labor of love for Tardi.  The tales told are gripping in their relatability, both from a character and narrative standpoint.  Tardi shows a true knack for making history palpable for audiences.  It comes down to very real people living in extraordinary times and making extraordinary choices.  So simple a concept, and wonderfully executed.

Adele Blanc-Sec is a sharp departure from this, which can go one of two ways: the writer can show growth and depth in their craft, or the writer can shove aside all strengths and lose sight of what engages their audience.  Unfortunately, Adele Blanc-Sec went the latter route for me.

Adele Blanc-Sec is set in Paris around 1912.  It’s fast-paced who-done-it focusing on Adele Blanc-Sec and a series of crimes that come together in an overarching plot of deviousness that only Blanc-Sec can unravel.

I’m not sure if it’s the translation, or something inherent in the writing itself, but the series comes off as entirely flat.  Adele Blanc-Sec, our heroine, is entirely one-dimensional.  There are entire pages where she is wearing the same scowl in every panel.  The story herks and jerks and contains very few smooth transitions.  The reader is almost forcibly uprooted from a scene and dropped into another with little or no warning.  The longer through-line seems to escape Tardi in this series, as well as any depth of character.  I, personally, love a good period crime thriller but these flaws ruin the experience for me.

Apparently this was made into a movie (2010, in French, directed by Luc Besson) which I’m interested to see.  Another prime example of cinema grabbing on to the comic book/graphic novel.  I’m intrigued to see how someone else translates this work.