5 out of 5

Includes Grandville, Grandville Mon Amour, and Grandville Bette Noir

A funny animal book?  Hardly.

I think I love Bryan Talbot.  I mean, maybe I hate the guy, since he’s probably part jerk – I can’t read Luther Arkwright beyond a couple pages without a’goin’ snooze and Grandville is informed by all sortsa’ high-falutin’ elements that I’d probably go blind trying to understand, but somehow filtered through this intelligence (and somehow surviving the taint of working on Sandman), Talbot produces some really magnificent pieces that work on several levels, and he continues to try and put out comics on all those levels.  Cherubs! was a bit too stupid for my taste, and Arkwright, as mentioned, is way outta’ my league, but I dig that Talbot does these thing, that he pushes himself to these different frontiers of writing and drawing, and while he may be able to school me on any particular topic and he’s probably the friend you’re a tad embarrassed to rope into the conversation because he’s clearly smarter than everyone and a little goofy… well god dammit, I’ll continue to buy everything he puts out (…as a writer… you won’t get me, Sandman…) because love ’em or hate ’em, they are passionate productions to be witnessed.  Thankfully, I love Grandville.

I’m partial to talking animal books, fine.  And we’ve done the “talking animal books done with adult sensibilities” several times over, so the pitch of Grandville – an animal anthropomorphic world where Paris won the war and London is an isolated land of lower class citizens and humans – doughfaces – are the servant class – isn’t surprising in its featuring of violence and nudity, but this is still such an accomplished collection of stories focusing on detective inspector LeBrock (a badger) and his fellow detective Roderick Ratzi (yes, a rat) as the fight their way through controversy and governmental upheavals.  While each volume stands on its own, the building of characters from each book on has been very rewarding, as has the slight shift in style in each – the original Grandville is very much a violence-infused clash, introducing our lead badger with a loud and clear bang – this is the Sherlock Holmes who muscles his way to the bad guy and has no compunction about killing – whereas the second book leans more on being a romantic thriller (no less action, mind you), and the third book the comedic detective.  Our characters somehow remain consistent through this, with LeBrock no-nonsense law abider and Ratzi his reliable companion, but Talbot pushes them just enough in the direction he needs to maintain each story’s overall feel.

God, and the look of these books.  It’s a general steampunk design with a raised image / title hardcover, nice thick pages off of which the colors and inks just beam.  Talbot’s drawings have rarely looked so solid, and the world is as realized as the Arkwright stuff without being so damn cluttered.  The pages are clear, the action exciting, the violence violent – every punch and explosion felt.  My favorite bit, though, is the use of certain sound effects through squared word bubbles.  I’m sure it’s a method that has a name, but whatever.

If you like detective books, Talbot puts a nice dash of mystery at the outset of each book – whichever murder(s) set off that tale’s investigation – though frankly things end up taking a back seat to a more action/thriller element.  Awesome, gorgeous stuff.  Dark Horse did right by these, and they’re totally priced reasonably at 20 bucks.