- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
Sure! Keep in mind, I've only just started dipping my toe into French comic albums, so take my recommendations with some salt. I tend to gravitate to genre fiction just for the art or spectacle, even if the story is nothing to write home about. If nothing else, I think you'll fine my recommendations entertaining.
Here are some titles to try:
- Megalex - People already threw out Metabarons, so I decided to throw out this underrated Jodorowsky sci-fi series. Art takes on a more digital look than the other series, which might not be everyone's cup of tea, but the concepts are just as insane and fascinating.
- Similar Sci-Fi of a bleak kind include Retroworld, and Exterminator 17 by Jean-Pierre Dionnet, one of the founders of Metal Hurlant.
- Angel Wings, a series I've brought up on the actual comic thread, but one I'll namecheck again for anyone who didn't see that post; it's a giant love letter to WW2 Flying Aces and pin-up girls. I elaborated more about the premise and the art in that thread, but the sample panels I posted speak for themselves. The art is superb.
- Nottingham - A violent re-telling of Robin Hood with far higher stakes, and killer art. I believe it reached its conclusion fairly recently. Think of it as a comic version of that Ridley Scott movie from 2010, except good.
- Chronicles of the Dragon Knights - One of the longer series I've discovered, this is a vivid and imaginative sword-and-sorcery series with an aesthetic that reminds me a lot of old CrossGen comics, notably Soujourn.
- Valerian and Laulerine - any French comic list without this title is compiled by a charlatan and a cruel person who doesn't have your best interests at heart. It was and is Star Wars before Star Wars, with flashes of Fifth Element and anime like Crusher Joe.
- Just about anything by Jean-Luc Istin. The guy writes a wealth of fantasy series, such as long-running anthologies like Elves, its spin-offs Druids, Mages, and Orcs & Goblins. Unreleated fantasy works include Cathedral of Chasms,
He's also done a fuck-ton of Arthurian fantasy like The Excalibur Chronicles, Merlin, and the untranslated Lancelot series. - Order of Dragons - as an aside, this is another series by Istin, but despite what its name implies, it isn't a high fantasy series, and instead a bizarre but intriguing plot about a secret society in 1919 who see into the future of Adolf Hitler and are trying to assassinate him before he can start the Holocaust. I haven't read it myself, but that premise is just crazy enough to be on my reading list.
- The War of the Orcs - Some of the best art of any fantasy comic I've ever seen. How Blizzard or Weasels of the Coast haven't picked up this guy to illustrate the compendiums of their IP's is beyond me.
- Requiem: Vampire Knight - and speaking of Nazis, this a story about an SS Officer that dies and reincarnates as a vampire in hell, wherein he partakes in a dark fantasy escapade wrought with Lovecraftian imagery, political intrigue among Elder Vampires, and waves of gory violence. Just literal proof that you can write anything in France and get away with it.
- Noir Burlesque - An ongoing murder mystery series set in the 40's and clearly inspired by Bacall and Bogie films of that decade.
- Legend of the Scarlet Blades - France's answer to Lone Wolf & Cub; samurai action, slick art, and more convincing than a lot of recent Franco-Belgian attempts at samurai fiction, which they struggle to nail, from what I've found.
- Mask of a Thousand Tears - Samurai story like the first one. Weaker art, but still good.
- Raven - Ongoing pirate series. France doesn't make nearly enough comics in this setting (likely because of the void being filled by One Piece, which is popular over there), but the few they make are great. This one is no exception. Also be sure to check out Redbeard, Long John Silver, and Barracuda.
- Hound's Head by Vincent Brugeas - an ongoing that literally started this year about a tough girl in the medieval era who disguises herself as a man to partake in jousts, as she ventures with a skeevy knight who learns and agrees to keep her secret.
- Arawn - a fantasy origin story based on Celtic mythology about the Death-Lord Arawn; gorgeous art, and one of the characters has an uncanny resemblance to Lady Death, if anybody remembers that series.
- Siegfired - an adaptation of the Nibelungenlied Germanic Saga by Alex Alice
- Crusade and its sequel, Crusade: The Nomad Cycle by Jean Dufaux, a gritty historical comic
- Ehko - The only way I can describe this is that it feels like France's answer to anime like Escaflowne or Fushigi Yugi, only way naughtier, and involving dragons. Cartoony art style and a tonal departure from everything listed, but the main girl is cute, and most of the humor lands.
- Wunderwaffen - Another pilot series, but radically different in tone, and set in alternate history. It's 1946, the Japanese have surrendered, the Normandy Landing has failed, and the Third Reich are defending their borders with an experimental fighter plane squadron called the Wunderwaffen.
- Jack the Ripper - exactly what the name suggests: a short, 2-issue comic adaptation of the infamous London Murders.
- The Alamo - same as above; historical re-telling via comics. Short, but worth reading.
- Conquistador - Comic adaptation about the fall of the Aztecs from Cortez's perspective. Art isn't as good as some of these others, but the depiction of events is still engaging.
- Every Western series you can find--no, seriously. All of them. Despite Westerns being all but neglected in the pop culture landscape of America, the French LOVE their Westerns, both traditional Ford epics and gritty Spaghetti's. As such, the French market is flooded with cowboy comic albums full of lead, whiskey, blood and ornery bastards--ones to namecheck are Moebius' Blueberry, Jodorowsky's Bouncer, Philippe Pelaez's Six, Thierry Gloris' Wild West anthology series, Durango, Texas Jack, Lonesome and Undertaker. And not to be outdone, publisher Grand Angle has a new series coming out in January called Gunmen of the West, which I'll be scouring French torrent sites for like a fly to a watermelon.
That should be enough Baguette Comics to get you started. As for other Euro comics, I'm sure everyone's well aware of 2000 AD and Judge Dredd, but I'd also like to throw out the Italian publisher Bonelli, whose comics I've only dipped my toe in...if anyone somehow chews through all the Western titles I listed, you might be interested to know that long-running and acclaimed Western series Tex Whiller is getting English releases at long last, courtesy of Epicenter Comics.
Oh, it's selling, alright. Ask any of the users on the Spawn forums, and they'll all straight up tell you that they're buying the comics solely for the art, just like everyone did in the 90s. I don't think most of them could tell you what the plot is at this stage of the comics, just which uber-famous artist Todd got to draw King Spawn or whatever.
The only silver lining is that recently McFarlane announced a bunch of new titles written by outside talent (which actually paid off for older stuff like Sam & Twitch, and Spawn: The Dark Ages). The most promising new announcement was a new Gunslinger Spawn series set during the Civil War written by Jimmy Palmiotti.
So maybe we'll get a bare minimum of one readable Spawn comic. Which is more than the franchise usually gets.
No problem, dude. This archive is a goldmine, and even has a few translations that I haven't found anywhere else.
It has probably the only high-quality and fully-translated collection of Blueberry, even the last few modern titles Moebius wrote before he passed away. If you know how rare and obscure those comics have become in English-speaking countries, that shit is worth its digital weight in platinum.
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