3 out of 5

‘Quest’ suffers greatly from a childlike because-because-because structure, as well as a mixed innocent / misguided sexist / empowering representation of its buxom lead Pelisse (yes, that she’s buxom is a plot point), but on the whole it’s a fine off-the-beaten-path fantasy, with the detailed European artwork of Régis Loisel an appealing blend of loose character work with lush backgrounds and a nice, oversized presentation from Titan for this English edition.  (Though apparently well known in France, it doesn’t sound like the book has had an English printing since 1982 by NBM.)

The gist is in the title: an evil threatens the land, and sorceress Mara knows the spell to shut it down.  But to execute that spell, she needs the Time Bird, and so conscripts her daughter Pelisse – with her shoulder-sittin’ “Dru!” chanting furry companion, Furry – to go fetch Mara’s old boyfriend Bragon and his axe to go fetch the Bird.  Pelisse insists on tagging along, pushing Bragon to complete various tasks via subtle and unsubtle manipulations, and some others are picked up along the way – a masked stranger, a scarred warrior, etc.  The quest is split into four tasks, which nicely divide up into the four albums which are collected here: first fetch the conch which is the prison for the evil; then go find the message that tells you where the Time Bird is; then go get the Bird; then come back so we can make this spell happen.  Why do we need the bird?  Oh, because it can freeze time, and Mara needs a whole bunch of time to execute the spell.  Why did she wait so long to start the spell, then…?  And why did the gods who imprisoned the evil in this conch give it an expiration date?  How do you know about the Bird and where there’s a message that gives you directions to it but you don’t just know where it is…?  This is the because-because hand waving that plots our tale, and though it results in some nice twists toward story’s end, there are aspects you feel like the creators were just sort of making up to get to the next page.  Along these same lines is the narrative, which is both told to us and shown to us via excessive “And then this happened!” omniscients; eventually the “reason” for this is explained as well, but it’s notable that by that point, the style has been curtailed immensely.  Tendre and Loisel got better at it as they went along, and, perhaps, saw the gaps that they then somewhat smoothly filled in.  This means the series does get better from album to album, and if the whole thing had been as weighty as the last album (it has a sort of stumbling, jaunty and jokey feel prior to that), this would be a straight up classic and not just a “cult” work of note.

Pelisse’s characterization, again, suffers from the same.  She’s naivety and boobs to start, and, yes, knowingly uses her wiles to get things done, which has that mixed charm I mention above: men with tongues waggling do anything when seeing T&A; women are inadvertently diminished to being used in the capacity, even if it’s under their own power.  The innocence of it is fitting for the 70s time, but it’s just one of the girl / boy equations that can’t ever really be solved in a way that makes both sides even.

The art and colors delight all the way through.  Although the lettering is a little too flourished with wrapping tails that make it hard to tell who’s speaking, and typical of European lettering styles, the squared bubbles are sometimes placed oddly to know the reading order – which, admittedly, Loisel doesn’t help by using some oddball layouts on occasion – the overall flow and energy of the pages makes this a zip to read through, even when the text gets fairly dense.  The translation (Ivanka Hahnenberger – dunno if this is a new or old translation) is solid, it just has the occasional pronoun oddity that’s the norm for these things.  In terms of the reproduction, Titan’s binding and presentation are quality: they undeniably make good looking and feeling hardcovers.  It lays flat, with ample gutters near the spine so you don’t have to manipulate things too much to read it.  Though – and I don’t know what causes this – I notice that leaving my copy open on the page I’m on has caused it now to buckle slightly when I close it.  As extras, they’ve reprinted some original black and white pages in French at the end.  For $40, though, I wish they’d added at least one or two pages of overview that lets us know the relevance of the reprint.

So: If fantasy is your bag, Quest is a pretty solid off-brand addition to your collection.  It’s definitely lacking in some sense, but the characters are strong and the setting and mythology starts to work more and more as you go along.  As a random read (i.e. if you’re not a fantasy fan), it’s easy, and mostly fun, but problem doesn’t have the edge needed to make it last on your bookshelf.