In Review: Blake and Mortimer - Curse Of The 30 Pieces Of Silver

EP Jacobs’ adventurers, Professor Phillip Mortimer and British agent Captain Francis Blake, return in a pair of modern books, The Curse of the 30 Pieces of Silver Parts 1 and 2, written by Jean Van Hamme, illustrated by three different artists, and originally published in France in 2009 and 2010.

When Colonel Olrik is broken out of an American jail, Captain Blake is called in by the American police to advise them while Professor Mortimer is invited to the National Archaeological Museum of Athens to consult on a ancient coin that may be one of the 30 pieces of silver given to Judas to betray Jesus to the Romans. Meanwhile Olrik discovers that his 'benefactor' is a former Nazi officer who believes that if he can find Judas' 30 pieces of silver he will command the wrath of God and so be able to dominate the world. With Blake after Olrik, Olrik after Mortimer, and Mortimer after the coins, the scene is set for a cat and mouse treasure hunt around the Greek islands.

Jacob’ original Blake and Mortimer books can be long winded due to the author’s often lengthy speech bubbles full of exposition making even the single book stories feel very long due to the amount of reading involved. The modern ones can still give the originals a run for their denarii when it comes to long bubbles but with The Curse of the 30 Pieces of Silver, Jean Van Hamme, who we are more used to writing the modern day tales XIII and Largo Winch, gives us a double length story in the same way that he always uses two Largo Winch books to tell one long story.

Here we have a 1950s tale that owes much to Raiders of the Lost Ark as our heroes battle Nazis who are out to recover a Biblical relic, though in this case the 30 denarii of 'blood money' given to Judas Iscariot rather than the Ark of the Covenant. This provides us with a military tinged thriller set in and around the Greek islands as the RAF, MI6 and FBI agents are called on to help out the Greek police. As with the majority of the modern Blake and Mortimer books, female characters are heavily featured, with Greek archaeologist Eleni Philippides teaming up with Mortimer while Blake is accompanied by FBI agent Jessie Wingo previously seen in Van Hamme's The Strange Encounter.

The first of these two books had something of a tortured gestation as the original artist, René Sterne, died suddenly while working on it and it was finished by his girlfriend, Chantal De Spiegeleer, eventually being published in 2009, three years after his passing. The second book was then illustrated by Aubin Frechon and published a year later. Since the art style of the B&M books has always be ligne claire, this mixture of artists is not as jarring as it would initially sound. Indeed there is little to find fault with in the internal artwork and it is the cover of Part 1 of the story which is perhaps the greatest let down.

The cover, which shows Mortimer bobbing in the ocean as a ship sails away from him, is part of the storyline but really has to take the biscuit for the dullest Blake and Mortimer cover ever with far too much sky and sea which, since it is set at night, is all virtually the same colour. It’s certainly not Cinebook’s fault, they use the original French covers, but it does make me wonder what the original French editor was thinking when he gave this image the nod to be used on the front of the book. It is interesting to note that the French PC game based on this B&M tale uses a much modified, and visually more striking, version of the cover.

While it does feel like a post-war take on Raiders of the Lost Ark, the two parts of Blake and Mortimer – The Curse Of The 30 Pieces Of Silver are an enjoyable romp around the Greek Islands with more than enough twists and turns to keep our heroes perplexed and the reader entertained.

• There are more details of the English language Blake and Mortimer books on the Cinebook website.

• There are more details on the series in general on the official Blake and Mortimer website (in French). 

New Blake and Mortimer game released

Fans of Blake and Mortimer, the bande dessinees adventure saga published in the UK by Cinebook, may be interested to know a new PC game based on their adventures is now on sale.

Explore, enjoy and think is the key formula of Blake and Mortimer and The Tables of Babylon (which we suspect has been wrongly translated from French - that should be 'tablets'), an adventure full of mini-games that will lead to the search of the first origins of writing in the ancient Sumerian empire.

1956: The Suez Crisis. While Paris, London and Tel Aviv are under pressure from Cairo, mysterious murders decimate the very select circle of archaeologists. Is there a link between those facts and the various threats that are terrorising the free world? You will have to be clever and work alongside with Blake and Mortimer to investigate in riddles, as well as scientific fantasy. This will take you all around the world: the sources of civilisation ... into the ruins of ancient and mysterious Babylon.

But it will not be easy: the clock is ticking! Will you be successful in time? Prepare to take on a twenty mini-games that will challenge your sense of deduction: quizzes, puzzles, teasers, cryptography...

The suspect translation of the title aside, the screen shots on Get Games suggest this could be positively fiendish to complete.

• Blake and Mortimer: The Tables of Babylon is available from Adventure Shop

• A Mac version is in development: bookmark this Get Games page for info 

In Review: Blake And Mortimer - The Gondwana Shrine

The Gondwana Shrine is the fourth of the new adventures of Blake And Mortimer by writer Yves Sente and artist André Juillard, originally published in French in 2008 and based on the original characters created by E.P. Jacobs.

Following on from his ordeal in The Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent, Professor Mortimer is suffering headaches and memory lapses and has been told by his doctor to take a rest from his work. Meeting Nastasia Wardynska, she tells him that analysis of an artifact that he brought back from Antarctica suggests that is from a civilisation that predates the earliest so far known.

Discovering that a similar artifact has been discovered in Tanganyika in east Africa, Mortimer persuades an old girlfriend, Sarah Summertown, who is a novelist and amateur archaeologist, to go with him and Nastasia to Africa to investigate the area around where the second artifact was discovered. Meanwhile in London, Captain Blake is confronted by a mysterious stranger who convinces him that Mortimer will need a lot of assistance in Africa.

Writer Yves Sente continues his Blake and Mortimer sequence with a story that begins in a fairly standard way and then, building on the plot of The Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent, heads off on a totally unexpected direction. Gondwana was the name of the ancient southern supercontinent and the tale does indeed take in truly ancient events albeit at times getting more far fetched than even the more science fictional Blake and Mortimer books normally do. That said the strength of the book is in its characters and with Nastasia from The Voronov Plot and yet another former girlfriend of Mortimer in Sarah, Sente has included characters that the reader grows concerned for as the story progresses.

André Juillard's artwork is impressive with accurate depictions of both the wildlife of Africa and the technology of the late 1950s/early 1960s period that these new Blake and Mortimer stories are set in - although quite why his accurately drawn French Air Force Noratlas propeller driven transport aircraft is called a Jumbo Jet in the text is beyond me.

The first of Sente's four B&M books was the rather wordy and somewhat dull The Voronov Plot but he found his feet with the two part Sarcophagi tale. The Gondwana Shrine does not require the reader to have read both Sarcophagi books first but, as it is a sequel to them, it would definitely help.

The Gondwana Shrine is a Blake and Mortimer book that takes both the characters and the reader to an unexpected place and those who enjoyed the previous Sente and Juillard books will not be disappointed.

There are more details of the English language Blake and Mortimer books on the Cinebook website.

There are more details on the series in general on the official Blake and Mortimer website (in French).

In Review: Blake & Mortimer - The Sarcophagi Of The Sixth Continent Part 2

Following directly on story-wise from the previous book, Cinebook have released the second part of their latest Blake and Mortimer title, The Sarcophagi Of The Sixth Continent. Created by writer Yves Sente and artist Andre Juillard and originally published in French in 2004 as Les Sarcophages Du Sixième Continent Tome 2: Le Duel Des Esprits, this follows on from Part One in which the eternal Indian Emperor Ashoka pledged revenge on the colonial powers and Philip Mortimer in particular. That revenge came as a psychic attack disrupting the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels.

Blake and Mortimer have tracked the source of the attack down to the new Indian Antarctic base but having arrived on the sixth continent they are captured by Ashoka's men. Blake escapes and makes it to the French base but Mortimer is taken to the underground section of the Indian base where Ashoka explains his plan which includes forcing Mortimer into one of the psychic sarcophagi. However Blake is determined to lead a rescue attempt using a French new submarine, the Subglacior.

After all the problems at the World's Fair in the first book, and the very interesting back story of the young Philip Mortimer's encounter with the Indian nationalist Ashoka and his beautiful daughter Gita, the second book becomes more of a traditional Blake and Mortimer action story with the two characters separated and imperilled both by the villains of the piece as well as the natural forces of earthquakes and volcanoes. The Subglacior, which was mentioned in passing in Part 1, comes to the rescue as Blake needs to enter the underground base although its ability to travel through solid ice by melting it and then travelling through the resultant water probably doesn't bear too much thinking about. However that is irrelevant to the flow of the plot as Sente piles problem upon problem for our heroes with the Soviets siding with Ashoka as a natural disaster threatens everyone.

The anonymous and apparently immortal Ashoka remains the most intriguing character with the second book returning to the first book's back story of the doomed love affair between Ashoka's daughter, the Indian Princess Gita, and the young and oh so English Mortimer. The details of this in the first book are enhanced with the second book's retelling of the tale from another person's perspective and, while it perhaps gives the reader enough information to figure out who Ashoka is, it is an interesting twist to both the back story and the main plot.

Not as heavy going as many of the Blake and Mortimer books, The Sarcophagi Of The Sixth Continent Part 2 continues the enjoyable story from the first part and together they combine to make for a satisfyingly long adventure that sheds a surprising new light on the youth of one of the series' main characters.


• There are more details of the English language Blake and Mortimer books on the Cinebook website.

• There are more details on the series in general on the official Blake and Mortimer website (in French).

The downthetubes review of Part One of this story is here.

In Review: Blake & Mortimer - The Sarcophagi Of The Sixth Continent Part 1

Edgar P Jacobs' MI5 chief Captain Francis Blake and Professor Philip Mortimer return in the first part of a two part adventure, The Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent. Originally published in French in 2003 as Les Sarcophages du Sixième Continent, Tome 1: La Menace Universelle, it was the second of the (to-date) four Blake and Mortimer albums created by writer Yves Sente and artist Andre Juillard.

It is 1958 and Professor Mortimer is involved in the preparations for the British Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair which will include real time scientific information being relayed direct from the British Antarctic Survey base at Halley Station on the coast of Antarctica. As well as providing the information for the World's Fair, the British base is helping the nearby new Indian base with power and supplies. However the Indian base is being used as a cover by the apparent reincarnation of the eternal Indian Emperor Ashoka, someone the young Philip Mortimer had come across many years before and who had vowed revenge on him as he blamed Mortimer for what had happened to his daughter. With the help of the Soviets, Ashoka plans to disrupt the World's Fair from his base in Antarctica, the sixth continent.

Blake and Mortimer books, especially the original ones created by Jacobs, can be very text and plot heavy and, especially with the deliberate translation into the rather formal 1950s style of English, they can often be heavy going especially when the characters decide to sit around and discuss just where the plot has got to. Yet this first part of The Sarcophagi Of The Sixth Continent doesn't seem to fall into that trap. Perhaps it is because there is so much going on with so many different characters or perhaps it is the fact that there are effectively two different but interconnected stories with the 'modern day' plot set in Brussels and the flashback in colonial India. With 'sarcophagi' in the title, the book gives the impression that the story will be somehow mixed up in archeology and yet the opposite is very much the case with the sarcophagi, when they appear, being much very much ultra-modern technology - for 1958 at least.

However the delight of this book isn't the main plot of the attack on the World's Fair but rather the long flashback to the doomed love affair between the young clean shaven Philip Mortimer and Princess Gita, Ashoka's daughter, and the revenge that her Indian nationalist father plans against both Mortimer and the colonial powers of the West. It helps to put a more human face on Mortimer as well give the book's main villain the strongest of motives.

If this "origin story" of Mortimer isn't enough, Sente adds a string of characters familiar from other Blake and Mortimer books from both Jacobs' original titles as well as the more modern books including, of course, the duo's seemingly perpetual nemesis Colonel Olrik. Since most are only used fleetingly, a good grounding in B&M continuity is not required but it is a nice touch for the fans of the series and logical to the plot that so many of the Professor's scientific acquaintances would be helping out at the many pavilions at the World's Fair. The rest of the book deals with the attack on the Fair and Blake and Mortimer's realisation that it is originating in Antarctica and that is where they must go to to deal with the threat, a journey that will take them into the second part of the story and the next book.

Whatever it is that sets The Sarcophagi Of The Sixth Continent Part One apart from other Blake and Mortimer stories, be it the flashback, the double story or the characterisation, it makes for a story that is more interesting than some of the other Blake and Mortimer books that I have read and left me eager to read the second part.

• There are more details of the English language Blake and Mortimer books on the Cinebook website.

• There are more details on the series in general on the official Blake and Mortimer website (in French).

In Review: Blake And Mortimer - SOS Meteors

Originally published in 1959 as SOS Météores, this was the eighth of the, to date, eighteen Blake and Mortimer albums. However as Cinebook have been jumping around in the original publication order this is actually their sixth Blake and Mortimer title.

British scientist Phillip Mortimer is sent to Paris to investigate ongoing freak weather that appears to have a human cause. While travelling in the dark to the house of the head of the French Met Office, Mortimer is involved in a series of unusual traffic incidents and eventually a crash. The next day the French police suspect him of involvement in the disappearance of his taxi driver and he retraces his route on foot in the daylight. This leads him to the grounds of a country house where unusual things are going on. Meanwhile MI5 chief Francis Blake is in Paris on other business when he gets caught up in his French equivalent's investigation of another case, a case that Mortimer would be helpful with except that he seems to have gone missing...

Rather than being a Blake AND Mortimer book this is very much a Blake OR Mortimer book as our two heroes arrive in Paris separately and it takes quite some time for them to finally meet up and their story strands to come together. With story and art by the series creator Edgar P. Jacobs, SOS Meteors is set in a 1950s world where a gentleman scientist would know his foreign contemporaries and speak their language perfectly. Indeed the plot would not have looked out of place in the early James Bond films with its international intrigue and science fiction devices. Jacobs' art is ligne claire with nicely detailed vehicles for the protagonists to use throughout the story which does rather revolve around motor vehicles and includes one major car chase.

Annoyingly the text size increases and decreases depending on the size of the speech bubbles although this is presumably to allow a workable translation to fit into the original French language bubble size some of which, typically of Jacob's Blake and Mortimer albums, can take upwards of half a panel to tell the ongoing story. But this is a minor complaint and the only real let down of the book is the cover. With its nonsensical machines, jagged lines and garish colours swamping a small Eiffel Tower it is uninspiring, but after forty years promoting the book in the French speaking world it isn't about to be changed now.

However don't let the cover put you off. SOS Meteors, with its British characters investigating a science fiction tinged plot in 1950s France, is a good example of Edgar P. Jacobs' Blake and Mortimer stories and does not require any prior knowledge of the characters or situations to be enjoyed.

The next Blake and Mortimer title to be published by Cinebook will be The Affair Of The Necklace which is scheduled for January 2010.

The details of the English language Blake and Mortimer books are on the Cinebook website.

The official Blake and Mortimer website (in French) is here.

Cinebook Hits 100

British publishers of some top class European graphic albums Cinebook have just been celebrating the publication of their 100th book - and not just any book, since it's the newest instalment of adventure series Blake and Mortimer, published in English for the first time in this year of its 50th anniversary.

Even more symbolic, this story of weather disruption is coming out just as United Nations representatives are gathered to combat the climate changes currently threatening our planet–another sign of Jacobs’ visionary genius.

In S.O.S. Meteors, extreme weather threatens the whole of continental Europe, turning the lives of its citizens inside out. The French government calls Professor Mortimer to help solve this enigma, who visits his friend, Professor Labrousse, the chief French meteorologist, to further his investigation. But when the taxi driver Labrousse sent to meet Mortimer at the station disappears, our friend becomes the prime suspect in a missing persons case.

Mortimer gets in touch with his old friend Blake, also in France, to help him out of this tricky situation - but Blake disappears as well, leaving Mortimer and Labrousse to deal with not one but two missing-person cases.

They soon discover that the two disappearances are not only linked to each other, but also to the climatic catastrophes...

It's been a busy year for Cinebook and the releases keep on coming, offering a fine mix of adventure, science fiction and humour that should appeal to all ages. Also available now is Thorgal Volume 6: City of the Lost God, in which Thorgal and Aaricia are making their way towards Mayaxatl along with Kriss of Valnor, intent on stealing the magical headpiece of the bloodthirsty god Ogotai.

Meanwhile, Jolan is back with the Xinjin people, who have made him their own god. Difficult times for all, and, of course, not everything is as it seems...

In Chimpanzee Complex, The Volume 1: Paradox, set in the year 2035, a space capsule from the 20th century returns to Earth… with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard! The investigation of this mystery will take astronaut Helen Freeman to the moon but might end up costing her her daughter. The second book in this series will be out in January 2010.

Finally, in Cedric Vol.2: Dad's Got Class, Cedric is back, and still head over heels for Chen. At home, the skirmishes between Dad and Grandpa continue. Business as usual? Not quite, because the boy suddenly finds himself enrolled in the Wolf Cubs. An unpleasant surprise - until he learns there are Girl Scouts too!

• If you're curious about Cinebook's range, then head over to their stall at the British International Comic Show this weekend or visit their web site at www.cinebook.co.uk