In Review: Largo Winch - 3 Eyes Of The Guardians Of The Tao/The Way And The Virtue

Largo Winch, writer Jean Van Hamme and artist Philippe Francq's James Bond-like billionaire businessman adventurer, returns in his latest two part adventure in Cinebook's The Three Eyes Of The Guardians Of The Tao and The Way And The Virtue.

An aircraft manufacturing deal between one of the W Corporation companies and a Chinese business requires Largo to travel to Hong Kong to sign the contract personally. With Hong Kong now part of China this is a plot by the Chinese to get Largo back into the country to arrest him because of his past. Previously Largo had been imprisoned in Chinese occupied Tibet, a prison that he escaped from and the Chinese authorities want him back in it.

Largo escaped from that prison with the help of a Chinese triad arms smuggler, Tan Ming T'Sien, whose triad later helped rescue Largo's good friend Simon Ovronnaz from a Burma prison. But that help came with a price and the triad are now calling in that favour as they want an ancient religious document, the Tao Te Ching, the book of the Way and the Virtue, that is owned by the man who runs the Chinese aircraft business that Largo is dealing with.

Largo must steal from the man he is doing business with while avoiding the authorities...

This pair of titles are effectively the sequel to the much earlier book The Hour Of The Tiger but you really do not need to have read that book to understand what is going on here as Jean Van Hamme gives the reader all the information that they need in these new titles to appreciate the back story of this meticulously plotted tale of business, triads and friendship. Indeed the main story is so heavy that it is good that Van Hamme has introduced a new sidekick for Largo in the petite and pretty form of his new personal pilot Silky, as seen on the cover of the first book. As the main plot starts to get so serious, the sparring of Simon and Silky over Silky having much better luck with women than Simon gives the first book in particular some lighter breathing spaces.

Les Trois Yeux Des Gardiens Du Tao was originally published in France in March 2007 while La Voie Et La Vertu was published in November 2008 just before the release of the big budget live action Largo Winch film with Sisley Tomer and Kristin Scott Tomas. It is interesting to note that the film transposed the W Corporation headquarters from New York to Hong Kong, a fact that Van Hamme would presumably have known, and where he set so much of the spectacle of these books.

Philippe Francq's artwork plays well to that spectacle with  various Bond film-style set pieces such as a car chase between an ancient Renault 4 and a new Smart ForTwo Cabrio, or an aerial sequence with an old and unarmed Beaver float-plane being chased between the Hong Kong skyscrapers by a new and armed MD-520N Notar helicopter. It all comes together to make this story feel like the big budget action film it deserves to be.

It is easy to get used to how good Jean Van Hamme's various series can be but Largo Winch - The Three Eyes Of The Guardians Of The Tao and The Way And The Virtue are perhaps the most impressive Largo books yet. For those wanting to sample this series I used to recommend the pairing of See Venice... ...And Die! but now I would say that these are the best pair of titles in the series to date, and well worth picking up. 

• There are more details of the English language Largo Winch books at the Cinebook website

• There are more details about all the Largo Winch books, as well as the two live action films, at the official Largo Winch website (in French).

In Review: Antares - Episode 3

Brazilian artist and writer Leo (Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira) continues his Worlds of Aldebaran saga with Antares Episode 3, the (presumably) middle part of the third series of his incredibly alien tales of 22nd century interplanetary settlers and the beasts and plants they find on the worlds that they settle.

While the main expedition to Antares 5 sets up a base camp, a second shuttle has crashed. The rescue party finds the survivors but loses its aircraft in the process and so the few survivors of both craft are now attempting to return to the base camp location - a journey of many months that they are ill prepared for.

Kim Keller, her daughter Lynn, lover Mark Sorenson, and friend Mai Lan, are all part of this disparate group of survivors who have little food or room in the tracked truck that must be their home. As they skirt the huge forests of the continent that they are trapped on, they must try to avoid the more dangerous of the alien beasts they encounter.

Antares is the third in Leo's Worlds Of Aldebaran sagas, the previous two of which, Aldebaran and Betelgeuse, were serialised over five French albums each. Antares is currently up to Episode 4 in French (due to be published in English in August 2013) and so I would assume that this story will also be five albums long making this the middle point of the story.

Episode 3 is very much a character piece in which we discover more about the group of survivors as they struggle to cope with the planet, the beasts that inhabit it, and the rest of their group as the vehicle slowly makes it way back to a base camp that isn't that keen on finding them. As ever Leo's imagination for alien flora and fauna is the highlight of each individual book and, despite being the 13th album of this overall series, this book is no exception with trees bearing transparent eggs and fast moving crustaceans that appear from nowhere.

I enjoyed this one, as I have enjoyed all Leo's previous books, but I'm also very aware that his sagas are often more than the sum of their parts. Individual books in the series can seem flat as apparently unrelated sequences build toward the bigger story and it can often be the fifth and final book in which everything falls into place and earlier encounters make sense.

With Antares each book to date has ended on a puzzling cliffhanger, none of which have so far been explained, and Antares - Episode 3 is no different. It makes for a somewhat frustrating read when you know that the next book is not yet available however, once they are all available, I suspect that the same plot device will make them just as addictive, and as demanding of all being read in one sitting, as the two previous sets in the saga.

There are more details of Antares (and Aldebaran and Betelgeuse) on the Cinebook website.

Antares - Episode 4 is due to be published in August 2013.

The downthetubes review of Antares - Episode 1 is here and Episode 2 here.

There are more details of all Leo's books on The Worlds Of Aldebaran website (in French).

In Review: Thorgal - Ogotai's Crown

Thorgal - Ogotai's Crown picks up directly from where the previous book, Brand Of The Exiles, left off. However this Thorgal title is very different to the more traditional Viking tale of exile and slavery of the preceding book as writer Jean Van Hamme and artist Gzegorz Rosinki give readers a major dose of time-travelling science fiction.

After Thorgal lost his memory, the treacherous Kriss of Valnor convinced him that he was a merciless pirate called Shaigan as well as her husband. Shaigan and his men have been roaming the seas terrorising all travellers, including Thorgal's own people, the Vikings, ever since. When one Viking survived to tell his tale, Thorgal's true wife, Aaricia, was branded an exile and with his two children Jolan and Wolf Cub, set out to find him. When Aaricia was recognised by Kriss, Kriss had her and Wolf Cub imprisoned and taken to Shaigan's castle as slaves. Meanwhile the young Jolan buys a boat and with two friends sets out to rescue his mother and sister.

Losing his boat and friends to a storm, Jolan is washed up on an island with a man who seems to know rather too much about him - a man who turns out to be from the far future and who uses a sword-like device to time travel. He displays his ability by retrieving the lost crown of Ogotai. a device that increases Jolan's own psychokinetic abilities giving him a fighting chance to free both his mother and sister from Shaigan's castle and also to free Thorgal from Kriss' influence.

As with the previous Thorgal time travel story, The Master of The Mountains, the plot gets very complex very quickly as time lines are crossed and and an older Jolan is recruited to help his younger self. However at the core of the story, and its strength, is Jolan's single-minded determination to rescue his family from the injustice foisted upon them in the previous book.

It is worth pointing out that for all the stylistic differences between this and the previous Thorgal book, they are two halves of the same story and you really need to have read The Brand Of The Exiles to appreciate fully what is going on in this book. It may not be as brutal as the 'one story = two books' of Van Hamme's modern day series Largo Winch, but like the Largo books it gives him plenty of time to set up his situations and secondary characters which is always to the benefit of the story.

As the second part of the story begun in The Brand Of The Exiles, Thorgal - Ogotai's Crown was not how I was expecting the story to continue yet, as ever, Jean Van Hamme weaves a masterful story with more than enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing its outcome right through to its conclusion.

• There are more details of the English language Thorgal books at the Cinebook website.

• There are more details of the French language Thorgal albums at the official Thorgal website (in French).

In Review: Thorgal - Brand Of The Exiles

Cinebook may have completed Jean Van Hamme's XIII series of books but they still have others from the bandes dessinee master and one of them is the Viking fantasy series Thorgal. Illustrated by artist Gzegorz Rosinski, The Brand Of The Exiles takes readers back to some characters the series hasn't dealt with for a while, Thorgal's wife Aaricia and their children Jolan and Wolfcub.

In their village the women, children and old men wait for their men to return home from a raiding expedition with food and treasure but instead a lone survivor of the ships appears. He tells the story of their ships being attacked by a pirate known as Shaigan The Merciless who killed or enslaved all but him, a pirate that he recognised as the missing Thorgal.

Because of this the women of the village turn on Aaricia demanding blood money for their dead menfolk. She is tried under Viking law and literally branded an exile, the brand on her cheek meaning that she must forever be shunned by all. Taking her children, Aaricia has no choice but to leave and make the dangerous trek to the coast in an attempt to find Thorgal and understand what has happened.

It has been some four books since we last saw Thorgal with Aaricia when she gave birth to Wolfcub and, in that time, while we have been following Thorgal's adventures, his family have been getting on with life, so it is good to have Van Hamme return to these characters. Indeed it is also good to see one of his books written from the underdog's perspective and, with her very visible branding, her young children, winter weather, and little rations, Aaricia is most definitely the underdog here.

As we discover more about the situation when the ever treacherous Kriss Of Valnor appears, it is Thorgal's son Jolan who comes to the fore and quickly becomes the hero of the piece. As his mother is captured and he is faced with the choice of watching her and Wolfcub sail off into slavery or attempt to free the Viking slaves to help him, he shows his resourcefulness.

Rosinski's rich artwork shows off the Viking village and its population before the story moves on to the family's trek through the forest and mountains, before he his given the chance of a night-time battle between the slaves and their jailers. As ever Rosinski's artwork reminds me of John Ridgway's colour work and it never disappoints.

While Thorgal himself appears in only a single panel of The Brand Of The Exiles, this should not put potential readers off as this is a book that shows off Jean Van Hamme's ability to write just as well for his secondary cast of characters in this series as he can for its hero.

• There are more details of the English language Thorgal books at the Cinebook website.

• There are more details of the French language Thorgal albums at the official Thorgal website (in French).

XIII x 18 = A Full Set

With our review of The Last Round, downthetubes has now reviewed all 18 of the XIII books published by Cinebook over the last two and a half years - from the beginning of the saga of the amnesiac agent in The Day Of The Black Sun, through two presidential assassinations in America plus an attempted military coup in between them, a Central American revolution and the search for century old Mexican gold coins, right up to its finale.

Written by Jean Van Hamme and translated by Jerome Saincantin, with art by William Vance plus a guest spot by Jean Giraud/Moebius, the series has been, along with Lucky Luke, one of the two mainstays of Cinebook since 2010 with a new XIII title appearing every two months as the company showed its dedication to a series which had never been translated beyond book three before.

Due to the non-graphic novel nature of the 13th French book, The Investigation, and it basically retelling the story up to that point, it was not included in the main Cinebook series although the company have plans to publish it in English later in the year.

Cinebook publisher Olivier Cadic and XIII translator Jerome Saincantin spoke to us about the series in 2011 in XIII Questions About XIII while each of the 18 book reviews are listed below.

1 - The Day Of The Black Sun

2 - Where The Indian Walks

3 - All The Tears Of Hell

4 - SPADS

5 - Full Red

6 - The Jason Fly Case

7 - The Night Of August Third

8 - Thirteen To One

9 - For Maria

10 - El Cascador

11 - Three Silver Watches

12 - The Trial

13 - Top Secret

14 - Release The Hounds!

15 - Operation Montecristo

16 - Maximillian's Gold

17 - The Irish Version

18 - The Last Round


• Details of each of the XIII books are available on the Cinebook website along with the first two pages of artwork for each.

• Details of the original French XIII books, and the spin-off series XIII Mysteries, are available of the official XIII website (in French).

• View all the XIII books on amazon.co.uk

In Review: XIII - The Last Round

It has been a long haul, 18 books over almost two and a half years, but Cinebook have stuck with Jean Van Hamme and William Vance's amnesiac tattooed agent XIII and that has lead us all to the final book of the series, The Last Round.

XIII and his friends are still in their safe house in Mexico as they decide what must be done to clear their names in the USA where, unknown to them, two books have been published about the "XIII Mystery" which has made what has been happening public. However before they have a chance to return to the States, their safe house is discovered and attacked.

Pretty much everyone who has survived the last 17 books is in here which is as it should be as the series comes to a conclusion. The last couple of books have tied up the plotlines of the Mexican gold and just exactly who XIII is, although XIII doesn't yet know, which leaves Van Hamme with the problem of clearing the name of a supposed presidential assassin and IRA terrorist in front of a fascinated media which have just read two expose books about the XIII events.

One of these fictional books, The XIII Investigation, is the original 13th French book that Cinebook skipped in their series as it was neither a regular graphic novel nor vital to the ongoing plot due to it retelling what had happened in the series up to that point, while the other fictional book, The Kelly Brian Story, appropriately released by Moebius Publishing, is the equivalent of the XIII series' prequel title The Irish Version illustrated by Jean Giraud.

It is hard to say much about the plot of The Last Round without giving too much away, but Jean Van Hamme gives us an instalment that is both action packed and full of political intrigue as the different factions try to manoeuvre themselves to safety.

As always William Vance's artwork is more than up to the job and, while it was nice to see Jean Giraud's take on the characters' younger selves in the previous title, it is good to see Vance back with his planes, explosions and close-ups of pretty women - and he even manages to squeeze another fight in the rain in there as well.

I first read XIII via CatCom's Code XIII American publication of The Day of The Black Sun, the first book in the series, but I never expected that any English language publisher would ever have the dedication to get deep into the series let alone finish it. It is to Cinebook's credit that they did and, given that it has been such a backbone of their publishing schedule over the last few years, it will be interesting to see what they choose to replace it with.

XIII - The Last Round is a more than satisfying conclusion to a series that has never disappointed over a total of 18 books. If you haven't indulged yet, what are you waiting for?

• There are more details of the English language XIII books on Cinebook's website.

• There are more details of the original French XIII albums on the official XIII website (in French).

• You can read an interview with Cinebook publisher Olivier Cadic and XIII translator Jerome Saincantin on downthetubes at XIII Questions About XIII. 

In Review: Yoko Tsuno: The Curious Trio

Roger Leloup's Yoko Tsuno returns in the seventh of her books to be translated into English by Cinebook, The Curious Trio, which was actually the first of the Yoko Tsuno albums published in France back in 1972.

Vic Van Steen and Pol Paris are a TV director and cameraman who, on leaving the station late at night, spot some unusual goings-on at a nearby building site where they follow a female cat-burglar into a laboratory. There they discover the 'burglar' is actually testing the lab's security and is a Japanese engineer called Yoko Tsuno who is between jobs.

Yoko accepts the job of a sound engineer from the two men and a few days later is part of a camera team shooting a documentary in an underground lake. However as they dive in the lake attempting to discover where the water exits to, they are drawn into a current and end up in an underground cavern populated by an advanced race of blue skinned humanoids.

It is not unusual for Cinebook to publish their various series out of order when the stories in those series are not sequential. This origin story that introduces Yoko to Vic and Pol was first published as Le Trio De L'Etrange in the weekly Spirou comic between May and September 1971 and then combined into an album in 1972 - a further 25 have since been published. So here readers see writer and artist Roger Leloup's early versions of the now familiar characters and they are not that different - Yoko is resourceful, Vic is unshakable and Pol is the comic foil.

What is different is the artwork and here Leloup uses a more humorous style of art than his later ligne claire, indeed Cinebook felt the need to for a brief introduction to point out that this is the earliest book due, presumably, to the difference in art style to what they have published from the series before. While I prefer the later artwork, the art style and the science-fiction nature of this story mean that this bears quite a resemblance to the early Valerian and Laureline books that Cinebook are also currently publishing.

Like all Yoko Tsuno titles this is aimed at a slightly younger audience, late primary school girls would probably be the bulls-eye, with a relatively straight-forward tale of futuristic underground railways, sleeping aliens and a dangerous main computer. While it is not too taxing for an adult reader, it always remains imaginative and fun.

Yoko Tsuno - The Curious Trio maintains the series style of good, adventurous story telling for a younger audience and, in a market lacking in good graphic novels for younger girls, it comes especially recommended for daughters and nieces.

• There are more details of all the English language Yoko Tsuno books on the Cinebook website.

• There are more details of the original French books on the official Yoko Tsuno website (in French).

In Review: XIII - The Irish Version

As XIII the series nears its end, writer Jean Van Hamme takes time out to explain the beginning of the saga, and just exactly who XIII the man is, in The Irish Version and forsakes his regular artist for Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius.

Two college students go up a mountain, but only one comes down, and that one goes on to become the amnesiac killer known as XIII. But which of the two men was it - the American political science freshman Jason Fly or the Irish history freshman Kelly Brian? Except that neither was really who they said they are - Jason Fly is actually Jason McLane, the son of a left-wing journalist, and Kelly Brian is actually Seamus O'Neil, an IRA killer.

Long time readers of XIII already knew part of this story as it marked the chronological beginning of the "Who is XIII?" arc but here writer Jean Van Hamme gives readers the full story which acts as a stand-alone prequel to the entire XIII series. It begins with Seamus O'Neil telling Jason Fly/McLane his life story, not the cover story he had as a college student but the real one of growing up in Belfast during the Troubles and his desire to join the IRA told, obviously , from an anti-British republican perspective. This is then tied into the CIA's attempt to compromise O'Neil's cover using the rather familiar secretary of Dick Giordino. It all works very well indeed given that long time readers know what happens at the end, the big reveal here is who it happens to.

After Van Hamme's mis-step in Top Secret when he gave his IRA terrorist the unlikely name of Angus, and had him bizarrely fighting for the independence of Ulster, his research on the Troubles for this book is much better with real locations such as Crumlin Road Gaol and Court House coming to the fore. While the anti-car bomb measures around the Court House at the time would have prevented anyone jumping from its roof, as shown on the cover, actually reaching the roof of a lorry parked beside it, it makes for an intriguing, and very XIII-like, way for O'Neil to elude British justice.

Giraud's artwork works well as a replacement for series regular artist William Vance, albeit it feels a little too darkly coloured at times due, in part, to the skulking around that the characters do. While it does have that inevitable feel to British eyes of a non-British artist drawing the United Kingdom, I'm sure that Vance's version would have been similar. However I suspect that Vance's knowledge of military hardware would have prevented the wrong armoured cars appearing and the rifles used by both sides being less generic than what actually appear. That said, while Cinebook have not made a fuss about the artist, any new English language book by Giraud/Moebius is to be appreciated at the moment.

XIII - The Irish Version is an impressive stand-alone prequel to the entire XIII series which works just as well for Jean Giraud/Moebius fans, who would not want to have to read the rest of the series to make sense of what is going on, as it does for regular XIII readers as a resolution to the question of just exactly who XIII is.

• There are more details of the English language XIII books on Cinebook's website.

• There are more details of the original French XIII albums on the official XIII website (in French).

• You can read an interview with Cinebook publisher Olivier Cadic and XIII translator Jerome Saincantin on downthetubes at XIII Questions About XIII. 

In Review: XIII - Maximilian's Gold

XIII reaches book 16, Maximilian's Gold, in which writer Jean Van Hamme and artist William Vance give readers the conclusion to the golden treasure hunt arc that began in book 11, Three Silver Watches.

XIII, Jones and co have left Costa Verde and are hiding out in Mexico from the US authorities as NSA chief Dick Giordino continues his attempts to capture XIII. In the relative safety of a friendly hotel, they start to unravel the mystery of the numbers and letters that are engraved on the three watches which gives them what they believe may be the location of the 100,000 gold coins that could be worth up to $15 million. However the suggestion that there may be something worth hunting for in the Mexican mountains attracts some unwanted attention.

With only two other books to go after this one in the XIII series, Jean Van Hamme is starting to complete some of the story arcs that he has so carefully plotted in the previous books. Maximilian's Gold is the conclusion to the buried treasure arc as XIII, Jones and others finally decipher the information on the watches and set out to find the gold that Sean Mulligan, who may or may not be XIII's father, has been searching for much of years. However as that goes on, the political machinations in Washington over the presidential assassination and power play that began way back in the first book in the series also begin to reach a climax as NSA chief Giordino shows that he is prepared to do anything to preserve his power base.

The last quarter of this book gives artist William Vance scope to provide some quite unearthly vistas and locations in the mountains where the gold may be hidden to go along with his much more familiar planes, boats and rainfall at the beginning of the book.

We are so close to the end of the XIII saga and Maximilian's Gold gives me hope that after all the plotting and side tracks that Van Hamme and Vance have taken readers down over the last 750+ pages of this ongoing story that the final conclusion will be just as interesting as the trip we have  taken to get there.

• There are more details of the English language XIII books on Cinebook's website.

• There are more details of the original French XIII albums on the official XIII website (in French).

• You can read an interview with Cinebook publisher Olivier Cadic and XIII translator Jerome Saincantin on downthetubes at XIII Questions About XIII.

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). 

In Review: XIII - Operation Montecristo

With Operation Montecristo, XIII the series reaches the 15th book of the 18 that Cinebook are releasing and, after a run of solo adventures, writer Jean Van Hamme and artist William Vance get XIII the man back with his friends - albeit not in the most friendly of  situations.

XIII, Major Jones, Colonel Amos, General Carrington, and the Marquis De Preseau and his wife, and ex-SPAD, Betty, have all taken refuge in the central American country of Costa Verde, the president of which is XIII’s former wife Maria De Los Santos. Under pressure from the US, Maria is forced to imprison XIII while the US authorities attempt to extradite him for his “terrorist” activities.

However Maria organises a jail break to free XIII and his friends and get them to a safe house in the country. Whilst there Sean Mullway, who claims to be XIII's father, tells them that he believes he knows the location of the third silver watch which in turn will reveal the location of the gold that XIII’s ancestors hid. He believes that the watch is in the old church of Montecristo which, unfortunately, is now 150 feet below the surface of a dammed reservoir.

After the solo adventures that XIII had in the last two books, which harked back to the style of the earliest books in the series, it is good to get the gang back together again and off on a what is basically a secretive treasure hunt with little of the political machinations that the series has had recently. While it does feel that writer Jean Van Hamme has added a story that doesn’t really need to be there, there must have been a quicker way for XIII to find that third silver watch, this story is great fun with American agents trying to locate XIII and his friends, while they try to find the final clue to the treasure haul.

With XIII and Jones diving into the reservoir in scuba gear, artist William Vance gives readers five consecutive pages of silent underwater panels as our heroes search for the submerged church and then battle the US agents sent to kill them. With only two speech bubbles with question marks in them, those five pages tell the story of the search and battle remarkably well and are a highlight of the book.

As we get close to the conclusion to the XIII series, Operation Montecristo provides a breather to the heavier aspects of the on-going saga and gives readers a fun, action adventure.

• There are more details of the English language XIII books on Cinebook's website.

• There are more details of the original French XIII albums on the official XIII website (in French).

• You can read an interview with Cinebook publisher Olivier Cadic and XIII translator Jerome Saincantin on downthetubes at XIII Questions About XIII. 

From all at downthetubes, we wish Cinebook’s sales table maestro Aldous Russell a speedy recovery and hope to see him fit and well at comics events later in the year.

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: XIII - Release The Hounds

Just when we thought that we were on top of who exactly XIII is, writer Jean Van Hamme and artist William Vance are out to turn more than just the two cover characters on their heads in the latest book in Cinebook's XIII saga, Release The Hounds!

XIII remains on the run from America's National Security Agency, the NSA, and their double agent Jessica Martin who also works for the illegal Executor organisation run by former KGB agent Irina Svetlanova. Jessica and three other NSA agents are prepared at all costs to stop XIII escaping from them while they are all on a sleeper train in California but, inevitably, he does with a reluctant Jessica in tow and after the high speed action in and around the train, they make their escape in, of all things, a hot air balloon. But can XIII trust a double agent who has tried so hard to kill him?

After the James Bond shenanigans in the second half of the previous book, Top Secret, the train fight on a stormy night at the start of this one comes as no surprise, especially since fights in the rain are such a XIII staple. Yet the aerial escape in a hot air balloon proves to be a short lived quiet interlude as XIII continues to make his way back to his friends in San Miguel via Mexico with a multitude of killers after him.

Jean Van Hamme almost pushes a little too far with this one. Partially I think it is to give William Vance a chance to show off his accurate aviation art as a selection of aircraft (Bell 206L Long Ranger, OV-10 Bronco, and a Cessna Skymaster) put in appearances as XIII heads south from the USA towards his friends in the Caribbean in a succession of different modes of transport. Partially it is also because Jessica's apparent change of heart over killing XIII early on seems a little too convenient to the plot and, given that we already know that she is a double agent, why does XIII suddenly trust her quite so much? However by the end we have an explanation and another twist that leaves XIII in yet another awkward position.

As for that awkward position on the cover, with both XIII and Jessica upside down with Jessica's hair seeming unaffected by gravity, you'll understand it when you read the book.

XIII - Release The Hounds! is not the best chapter in the ongoing XIII story but it remains an enjoyably entertaining one and, with Cinebook skipping the retrospective book in the series, The Investigation, that means there are now only four books to go before the conclusion of the saga when, hopefully, all will be explained. 

There are more details of the English language XIII books on Cinebook's website.

There are more details of the original French XIII albums on the official XIII website (in French).

You can read an interview with Cinebook publisher Olivier Cadic and XIII translator Jerome Saincantin on downthetubes at XIII Questions About XIII.

In Review: Berlin - The Seven Dwarves

The Cinebook Expresso collection brings together interesting  bandes dessinees that do not fit into the various series that the company normally publishes. Berlin - The Seven Dwarves, written and illustrated by Marvano (Mark Van Oppen) is one such book.

In 1993 on a disused RAF base in Lincolnshire two elderly women meet for the first time, brought together by their remembrance of a pilot who flew from the base during World War II. The older of the two women hands a doll to the younger as well as a letter from the pilot which she asks her to read.

In is 1943 and Lancaster bomber S-Snowwhite and its crew of seven young RAF airmen are taking part in the 'Thousand Bomber' raids against Germany, watching the fires burn in the cities below them as the enemy night-fighters and flak eat away at the aircraft around them.

S-Snowwhite's pilot is Flight Sergeant David "Aubie" Auberson who has survived 17 of the 30 sorties he needs to complete his tour of operations - the average number aircrew survive is 11. Cycling in the country to take his mind off things, he meets a young girl called Lisa with a doll she calls Snow White, a girl who was affected by the bombs dropped by German bomber crews over London three years before. They talk before Aubie has to return to base to take off on his latest sortie, to bomb the heart of the Reich - Berlin.

Morvano's artwork is striking with lots of lovely blue skies and open country during the daytime while the night time raids are claustrophobic and dark, illuminated only by fires and explosions. His depictions of the Lancasters are impressive and their German predators, the unusual Dornier Do 335 A-6 in the earlier raid and a Junkers Ju 88C in the later one, are accurately presented yet never overdone.

This is no "they've just shot down that plane, let's get 'em" book, this is "they've just shot down that plane, thank God it wasn't us." Morvano brings the horrors of warfare very much to the fore as the bombers fly off into the night with their crews of seven, while dawn sees fewer return, many with incomplete crews.

But Seven Dwarfs isn't just about how this affects the aircrew but how it affects the men and women back at the base. He even draws parallels with the Blitz to show how aerial bombing affects the people on the ground. Yet perhaps the greatest strength of the book is that it is told as a flashback from the reading of the letter in 1993 allowing the feelings of the pilot to be directly expressed to the reader.

Berlin - The Seven Dwarves could so easily have been a gung-ho bloodfest, instead Morvano creates a compelling story of the lives and deaths of bomber crews in World War II and the effect they have on the people around them. It is as good as any war comic that I have ever read, whether written by Garth Ennis, Pat Mills or anyone else you may care to mention.

There are two other books in the Berlin series, Reinhard Le Goupil (Reinhard the Fox) set in 1948 about the Berlin Airlft and Deux Enfants De Roi (Two Children Of A King) set in 1963 about the Berlin Wall. If either of these are even half as good as The Seven Dwarves then I hope that Cinebook will be looking to translate and publish them as well.

There are more details of Berlin - The Seven Dwarves on the Cinebook website.

There are more details of the Berlin series at the Dargaud website (in French).

Cinebook will be selling their range of books including Berlin at Thought Bubble's Royal Armouries Hall in Leeds on the weekend of 17-18 November 2012.

In Review: Buck Danny - Ghost Squadron

After a gap of over two years Cinebook return to US military pilot Colonel Buck Danny in Francis Bergese's Ghost Squadron, originally published in France in 1996 as L'Escadrille Fantôme, the 46th Buck Danny album.

Colonel Buck Danny and his squadron are flying F/A-18 Hornet attack fighters from the carrier USS Eisenhower as part of the NATO Operation Deny Flight no-fly mission over Bosnia in 1995. Operating under strict 'no attack' orders, their planes are sometimes targeted by Serb ground forces and, when Lt Cindy McPherson's Hornet is hit, Danny's colleague Captain Sonny Tuckson attacks and destroys the missile battery that hit her.

As punishment, Tuck is reassigned to a secret squadron of F-16 Fighting Falcons commanded by Danny that are due to launch a bombing strike on Serb positions, however their secrecy is threatened when a unidentified MiG-29 Fulcrum is spotted near the base.

Cinebook's previous Buck Danny title, The Secrets Of The Black Sea, was set during Russia's Glasnost period while this one moves on slightly to the war in the former Yugoslavia and the Serb forces siege of Sarajevo in 1995. As both writer and artist, Francis Bergese weaves a story that is a fictional precursor to the real Operation Deliberate Force that effectively ended the Bosnian war by bombing the Serbs to the peace table.

Danny's secret mission in unmarked F-16s places his men in jeopardy of being attacked not just by the Serb ground forces and the mysterious MiG-29 squadron, but by their own side as well and Bergese provides a battle royale as a massive dog fight breaks out between the F-16s, the MiG-29s and the Eisenhower's F/A-18s, with a few RAF Tornado F3s and French Air Force Mirage 2000s thrown in for good measure. It is somewhat amusing that in a book written and illustrated by a Frenchman the only fighters in the battle that do not have at least one of their number shot down are the French Mirages.

Francis Bergese's artwork is always impressive when is comes to the aircraft. Indeed the US Navy squadron that Danny and co begin the book with is Strike Fighter Squadron 37 operating as part of Carrier Air Wing 3 and I can tell you that not because it is in the text, because it is not, but because all the information is there in his artwork. He even goes as far as making the one UK military registration that we can just about read on the RAF planes a genuine Tornado F3 registration number. That is the level of detail and accuracy that he works to in his artwork.

The storyline is perhaps less impressive, getting shoehorned into a real life situation with genuine military tactics makes for a solid, if somewhat uninspiring, plot. The addition towards the end of the mercenary pilot known as Lady X, a longtime Buck Danny adversary in the French books but never before seen in the Cinebook translations, lifts the book away from its real-world foundations and onto somewhat shakier ground.

If Bergese's writing was as good as his artwork then this would be a great book, as it is Buck Danny - Ghost Squadron is merely good but, given that it was the first book in the series that he had written as well as drawn, we can hope that further titles will improve as Bergese grew into the idea of being Buck Danny's writer as well as his artist.

• There are more details of the English language Buck Danny books on the Cinebook website. 

• There are more details (in English) of the French language Buck Danny books on the Dupois website.

• Cinebook will be selling their range of books including Buck Danny at Thought Bubble's Royal Armouries Hall in Leeds on the weekend of 17-18 November 2012.

In Review: Lucky Luke - Fingers

Roll up! Roll up! That master of bandes dessinee humour Maurice De Bevere, also known as Morris, will astound and amaze you with his work illustrating the man who shoots faster than his own shadow, known to one and all as Lucky Luke, and introduces the prestidigitator, the one and only Gaston, also known (unfortunately) as Fingers.

The smart, handsome, immaculately dressed and intensely charming European illusionist Gaston has been arrested due to his inability to stop himself pick-pocketing anything and everything from those around him. Taken to the Texas prison that the four Dalton brothers are currently in, he lifts the prison keys from a guard and escapes with the Daltons. Lucky Luke has heard it all before, or so he thinks, before he realises that there are five prisoners that need rounded up and not the usual four. Catching the Daltons and Gaston just as they are playing cards, Luke discovers just how good Gaston is at sleight-of-hand as cards change, guns disappear and bullets become blanks.

With Gaston's help, Luke returns the Daltons to prison and petitions the Governor for amnesty for Gaston, who agrees provided that Lucky Luke takes responsibility for him. However things take a turn for the worse when Gaston lifts the feathers from three Indian warriors and the tribe's medicine man decides that the two paleskins must be sacrificed with a magic hatchet for the offence Gaston has inflicted.

Fingers dates from 1983, after the death of Morris' long time Lucky Luke writer Gene Goscinny, when he worked a variety of other writers on the books. This one was written by the rather spectacularly monikered Lo Hartog Van Banda whose plot is as sharp and quick as Gaston's fingers are. The story revolves around Gaston's apparent kleptomania, he even manages to lift a horse shoe from Jolly Jumper, and his ability to twist what is happening at any given time to his own benefit. Indeed for much of the book it is hard to decide if Gaston is actually the dandy-ish magician he portrays or actually a criminal mastermind who thinks so much faster than everyone else that his plan seems like little more that a game to him.

Morris keeps up with all the goings-on with a much larger cast of characters than normal in a Lucky Luke book as Van Banda plays with some of the conventions of the series including the traditional last panel of Luke riding off into the sunset happening in the middle of the book as well as the end.

Lucky Luke - Fingers is as fast moving as the titular character's digits and, for me, just as funny as any of the Goscinny titles.

• There are more details of the English language Lucky Luke books on Cinebook's website.

• There are more details on the original French language Lucky Luke on the official Lucky Luke website (in French). 

• Cinebook will be selling their range of books including Lucky Luke at the Comica Comiket Fall 2012 Independent Comics Fair in the City Of London on Saturday 10 November 2012 and at Thought Bubble's Royal Armouries Hall in Leeds on the weekend of 17-18 November 2012.

In Review: Lucky Luke - The Daltons Always On The Run

Morris and Goscinny's honest cowboy and his horse, Jolly Jumper returns in Lucky Luke - The Daltons Always On The Run.

The new President of the United States announces a general amnesty for all prisoners freeing amongst many others Joe, Jack, William and Averill Dalton. However just because they are free doesn't make them any more honest and, after trying to rob the bank at Awful Gulch, they steal the money  from a stagecoach delivery to the bank and hightail it into the desert with Luke in pursuit.

Meanwhile an Apache attack on the prison frees the Daltons yet again but they are soon the prisoners of the tribe. However they are able to persuade Chief Tipi Toes that Averell is a great sorcerer and so get the Apaches to help them continue robbing people. Lucky Luke now not only has to stop the cavalry going to war with the Apaches but must also convince the Apaches that they are being used by the Daltons, however the only way he can find their hidden camp is with the help of the prison's rather stupid dog, Rin Tin Can.

This Lucky Luke book is the 34th that Cinebook have published but it was originally the 24th French album when it was published in 1964. Does it feel like it is almost half a century old? Not at all. From the vertically challenged, and often incandescently outraged, Joe to the tall and somewhat dim-witted Averell, the four Dalton brothers always ensure an enjoyable Lucky Luke book, and this one is no different. What is slightly different is that its 48 pages are made up of one short and one long tale that sort of dovetail together but must have have been separate stories when they were originally published in the weekly Spirou comic in the early 1960s due to their separate page codes in the artwork.

The first story is short, sweet and fun while the second story does rather involve a lot of back and forth between the prison and the Indian camp making it feel a little longer that it probably should be. However the dumb mutt, Rin Tin Can, an obvious play on Hollywood's Rin Tin Tin, who doesn't really understand anything that is asked of him but still manages to save the day, is a nice addition especially with the reader being able to see the his thoughts as we sometimes do with Snowy in the Tintin books.

Lucky Luke - The Daltons Always On The Run with its two part structure and reliance on the characters of the Daltons and Rin Tin Can rather than Lucky Luke himself may not be to everyone's taste, but Lucky Luke books featuring the Daltons are always worth reading and this is no exception.

• There are more details of the English language Lucky Luke books on Cinebook's website.

• There are more details on the original French language Lucky Luke on the official Lucky Luke website (in French).

•  Cinebook will be selling their range of books including Lucky Luke at the Comica Comiket Fall 2012 Independent Comics Fair in the City Of London on Saturday 10 November 2012 and at Thought Bubble's Royal Armouries Hall in Leeds on the weekend of 17-18 November 2012.