Grandville (comics)
Encyclopedia
Grandville is a British
graphic novel
series written and drawn by Bryan Talbot
. It is a mixture of the steampunk
, alternative history and thriller genres. It is set in a world in which France
won the Napoleonic Wars
and invaded Britain, and in which the world is populated mostly by anthropomorphic
animals. The main character is Detective Inspector Archibald "Archie" LeBrock of Scotland Yard
, a British anthropomorphic badger
working with the police
.
The plot of the first book, entitled Grandville and published on 15 October 2009, sees LeBrock investigating a murder
which leads him to visit Paris
in order to solve the crime, which itself leads him to uncover a political conspiracy
. In the second volume, Grandville Mon Amour, was published on 2 December 2010, LeBrock attempts to track down an escaped serial killer
that he previously brought to justice. A further three volumes are planned, the third of which is to be entitled Grandville Bête Noire.
, who worked under the name J.J. Grandville, and Albert Robida
. He states he is also inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rupert Bear
and Quentin Tarantino
. References are made to them in the book. For example, there is a building called "Robida Tower" and an early scene set in England takes place in a village called "Nutwood", the setting of the Rupert Bear stories.
Grandville makes several references to modern day political events. There are references to the War on Terror
, weapons of mass destruction and the September 11 attacks. There are also references to other works, such as Tintin
.
The second book, Grandville Mon Amour is based on the themes of terrorism
. Talbot plans for the third book to have a science fiction
theme, the fourth on religious conspiracy and the fifth on a gangster
theme.
world, featuring steam powered motor vehicles, air transport, robots (known as "automatons"), telephones (known as "voicepipes") and televisions. In this world, Britain lost the Napoleonic War and was invaded by France. The British Royal Family
were guillotine
d. Britain was later given independence from the French Empire
following "a prolonged campaign of civil disobedience and anarchist bombings." Following independence, Britain became "The Socialist Republic of Britain". 23 years later, Britain is linked to the French Empire by the Channel railway bridge, and Paris is the biggest city in the world, known by the nickname of "Grandville". In Britain the English language
is only spoken in rural communities, with the main language spoken in the country being French
.
The vast majority of the population in Grandville are anthropomorphic animals. Humans do exist, however. Having evolved
in Angoulême
, they are referred to by the French as "doughfaces", have never gained citizens' rights, and are considered menial workers. They are not allowed passports and so have never made it to Britain.
The main characters in the series is Detective Inspector Archibald "Archie" LeBrock, a large, heavily-built badger
; and his assistant Detective Roderick Ratzi, a dapper, monocle-wearing rat.
and in the United States by Dark Horse Comics
. The second book was published in December 2010.
was also positive saying: "It's a playful, allusive book in which there's a witty touch or deliciously knowing in-joke on almost every page: the French press whipping up Anglophobia
; LeBrock's Holmes-like unpacking of apparently innocent signs, which yield vital information, when he makes his first appearance; the drug-addled Milou/Snowy, dreaming of plotlines of Tintin books in his opium-induced stupors. The numerous fight sequences are simply cracking, especially the beautifully rendered sprays of blood and, throughout, the glossy gorgeousness fills your eyes." Rich Johnston
from Bleeding Cool wrote that: "I love this comic. It's big, bold, brash, insanely detailed and has badgers torturing frogs. There are steam powered carriages and robots, gratuitous violence, big explosions, lots of kicking, a decent ending and Inspector LeBrock finding himself a long, long way from Wind In the Willows
. It can be appreciated on so many levels and with so many potential fanbases basically performing bukkake upon the pages, it should appeal to a lot of people. even those who have a problem with a talking snobby French fish butler with legs. Also, don't try to work out the evolutionary timelines. It will just mess with your head. But do enjoy."
Joe McCulloch from The Savage Critics was less positive however, writing: "This doesn't automatically lend itself to a tremendous amount of depth, frankly, and the somewhat stale, vengeful nature of Talbot's plot leaves it teetering on the edge of embarrassing-silly instead of fun-silly."
Grandville Mon Amour was reviewed by Michael Moorcock
for The Guardian
, who said "[a]lthough Talbot's narratives lack the complexity or originality of Alan Moore
's, he brings a rare subtlety, even beauty, to his medium. His drawing is first class and his dialogue superb, adding credibility to his characterisation while moving the story along at a laconic lick."
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
series written and drawn by Bryan Talbot
Bryan Talbot
Bryan Talbot is a British comic book artist and writer, born in Wigan, Lancashire, in 1952. He is best known as the creator of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and its sequel Heart of Empire.-Career:...
. It is a mixture of the steampunk
Steampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
, alternative history and thriller genres. It is set in a world in which France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
won the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
and invaded Britain, and in which the world is populated mostly by anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
animals. The main character is Detective Inspector Archibald "Archie" LeBrock of Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
, a British anthropomorphic badger
Badger
Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the weasel family, Mustelidae. There are nine species of badger, in three subfamilies : Melinae , Mellivorinae , and Taxideinae...
working with the police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
.
The plot of the first book, entitled Grandville and published on 15 October 2009, sees LeBrock investigating a murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
which leads him to visit Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in order to solve the crime, which itself leads him to uncover a political conspiracy
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
. In the second volume, Grandville Mon Amour, was published on 2 December 2010, LeBrock attempts to track down an escaped serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
that he previously brought to justice. A further three volumes are planned, the third of which is to be entitled Grandville Bête Noire.
Development
Talbot writes in his book that Grandville is inspired by the work of Jean Ignace Isidore GérardJean Ignace Isidore Gérard
Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard , generally known by the pseudonym of J. J. Grandville, was a French caricaturist.-Life and work:...
, who worked under the name J.J. Grandville, and Albert Robida
Albert Robida
Albert Robida was an illustrator, etcher, lithographer, caricaturist, and novelist. He edited and published La Caricature magazine for 12 years. Through the 1880s he wrote an acclaimed trilogy of futuristic novels...
. He states he is also inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rupert Bear
Rupert Bear
Rupert Bear is a children's comic strip character, who features in a series of books based around his adventures. The character was created by the English artist Mary Tourtel and first appeared in the Daily Express on 8 November 1920. Rupert's initial purpose was to win sales from the rival...
and Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
. References are made to them in the book. For example, there is a building called "Robida Tower" and an early scene set in England takes place in a village called "Nutwood", the setting of the Rupert Bear stories.
Grandville makes several references to modern day political events. There are references to the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
, weapons of mass destruction and the September 11 attacks. There are also references to other works, such as Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
.
The second book, Grandville Mon Amour is based on the themes of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
. Talbot plans for the third book to have a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
theme, the fourth on religious conspiracy and the fifth on a gangster
Mob film
Mob films are a subgenre of crime films dealing with organized crime, often the Mafia. Especially in early mob films, there is some overlap with film noir.-History:...
theme.
Setting
Grandville is set in a steampunkSteampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
world, featuring steam powered motor vehicles, air transport, robots (known as "automatons"), telephones (known as "voicepipes") and televisions. In this world, Britain lost the Napoleonic War and was invaded by France. The British Royal Family
British Royal Family
The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...
were guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
d. Britain was later given independence from the French Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
following "a prolonged campaign of civil disobedience and anarchist bombings." Following independence, Britain became "The Socialist Republic of Britain". 23 years later, Britain is linked to the French Empire by the Channel railway bridge, and Paris is the biggest city in the world, known by the nickname of "Grandville". In Britain the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
is only spoken in rural communities, with the main language spoken in the country being French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
.
The vast majority of the population in Grandville are anthropomorphic animals. Humans do exist, however. Having evolved
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
in Angoulême
Angoulême
-Main sights:In place of its ancient fortifications, Angoulême is encircled by boulevards above the old city walls, known as the Remparts, from which fine views may be obtained in all directions. Within the town the streets are often narrow. Apart from the cathedral and the hôtel de ville, the...
, they are referred to by the French as "doughfaces", have never gained citizens' rights, and are considered menial workers. They are not allowed passports and so have never made it to Britain.
The main characters in the series is Detective Inspector Archibald "Archie" LeBrock, a large, heavily-built badger
Badger
Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the weasel family, Mustelidae. There are nine species of badger, in three subfamilies : Melinae , Mellivorinae , and Taxideinae...
; and his assistant Detective Roderick Ratzi, a dapper, monocle-wearing rat.
Issues
The first book was released in October 2009 as a hardback, published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan CapeJonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
and in the United States by Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
. The second book was published in December 2010.
| Volume name | Release date | Plot | Book cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grandville Grandville (graphic novel) Grandville is the first of a planned five-part British graphic novel series written and drawn by Bryan Talbot. Published on 15 October 2009, it is a mixture of the steampunk, alternative history and thriller genres. It is set in a world in which France won the Napoleonic Wars and invaded Britain,... |
15 October, 2009 | Following the murder of British diplomat Raymond Leigh-Otter, LeBrock and Ratzi travel to Paris in order to find the killer. During their investigation they uncover a political conspiracy to start a new war between Britain and France. | |
| Grandville Mon Amour | 2 December, 2010 | Three weeks after the events of Grandville, LeBrock learns that old adversary, urban guerrilla, terrorist and serial killer Edward "Mad Dog" Mastock has escaped execution from the Tower of London Tower of London Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space... . After being told he is off the case due to his long absence, he quits his job and tries to track him down himself. |
|
| Grandville Bête Noire | Release date unknown |
Reception
Grandville has received positive reviews. Ryan Agee from The Skinny gave Grandville four out of five stars, writing: "Corny puns abound, but this is a stunningly well drawn book with a compelling mystery, and a great detective team at heart. Great stuff." Neel Mukherjee in The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
was also positive saying: "It's a playful, allusive book in which there's a witty touch or deliciously knowing in-joke on almost every page: the French press whipping up Anglophobia
Anglophobia
Anglophobia means hatred or fear of England or the English people. The term is sometimes used more loosely for general Anti-British sentiment...
; LeBrock's Holmes-like unpacking of apparently innocent signs, which yield vital information, when he makes his first appearance; the drug-addled Milou/Snowy, dreaming of plotlines of Tintin books in his opium-induced stupors. The numerous fight sequences are simply cracking, especially the beautifully rendered sprays of blood and, throughout, the glossy gorgeousness fills your eyes." Rich Johnston
Rich Johnston
Rich Johnston is a writer who writes about the comic book industry.-Early life:Johnston grew up in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, studied politics at University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and was an advertising copywriter until 2009; he currently lives in Kingston Vale, London, with his wife, Janice...
from Bleeding Cool wrote that: "I love this comic. It's big, bold, brash, insanely detailed and has badgers torturing frogs. There are steam powered carriages and robots, gratuitous violence, big explosions, lots of kicking, a decent ending and Inspector LeBrock finding himself a long, long way from Wind In the Willows
The Wind in the Willows
The Wind in the Willows is a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England...
. It can be appreciated on so many levels and with so many potential fanbases basically performing bukkake upon the pages, it should appeal to a lot of people. even those who have a problem with a talking snobby French fish butler with legs. Also, don't try to work out the evolutionary timelines. It will just mess with your head. But do enjoy."
Joe McCulloch from The Savage Critics was less positive however, writing: "This doesn't automatically lend itself to a tremendous amount of depth, frankly, and the somewhat stale, vengeful nature of Talbot's plot leaves it teetering on the edge of embarrassing-silly instead of fun-silly."
Grandville Mon Amour was reviewed by Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, who said "[a]lthough Talbot's narratives lack the complexity or originality of Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
's, he brings a rare subtlety, even beauty, to his medium. His drawing is first class and his dialogue superb, adding credibility to his characterisation while moving the story along at a laconic lick."
External links
- The Grandville homepage at Bryan Talbot's official website
- Bryan Talbot explains his artwork on Grandville, in Italian and English