In Review: Lady S - Game Of Fools

Suzan Fitzroy, writer Jean Van Hamme and artist Philippe Aymond's reluctant spy who is codenamed Lady S, returns in Game Of Fools, the third of her books from Cinebook, originally published in the French weekly comic Spirou before being complied into the album Jeu De Dupes in 2007.

Suzan and her adoptive father James Fitzroy, who is an American ambassador without portfolio, are on holiday at his villa in France. Unknown to them the CIA have discovered that Suzan is linked to the mysterious European counter-terrorist organisation that, despite sharing the same objectives, the CIA has little information on and is therefore suspicious of. In an attempt to learn more about this organisation, the CIA stage her father's abduction by 'Islamic terrorists' in an attempt to force Suzan's handlers into the open.

Believing her father kidnapped, Suzan's handler Orion, who has been injured by the CIA, puts her on the run to apparent safety at a retirement home in a remote mountain pass. With the CIA's operatives hot on her trail, Suzan soon discovers that there is more to this retirement home than meets the eye while the French police begin to suspect that the on-the-run daughter of the kidnapped American ambassador is somehow involved with a notorious cat-burglar.

In Game Of Fools Suzan/Shania/Lady S is presented with a situation that has the potential to expose not just her spy life but also her criminal past as she attempts to find the retirement home where Orion told her to find a new contact known as Betelgeuse. Otherwise the book as a relatively linear plot of a girl on the run being passed from handler to handler until she reaches her destination followed by the big reveal of what that destination is hiding.

Whether this revelation is actually good for the series is debatable although there are another three French albums waiting to be translated. One of the strengths of the previous Lady S books was the fact that writer Jean Van Hamme left Orion's organisation mysterious and that Suzan did not really work for them as much as being blackmailed into doing things by them. Indeed the organisation is not even named in the previous books yet in this one its name appears in the very first panel of the book. So in Game Of Fools everything is revealed and Suzan asked to formally work for the uninspiringly acronymed CATRIG (Centre For Anti-Terrorism Research and Intelligence Gathering) which somehow sounds so much more interesting in the original French book as CIRCAT (Centralised Information And Research Centre Against Terrorism).

Philippe Aymond's artwork remains as grounded in reality as in the previous books. His clear artwork, as ever, portrays Suzan as a pretty young woman living in a real world of trains, truckers and motorcyclists rather than portraying her with a distorted body image and capable of physical feats that would put any real person in hospital.

Game Of Fools is not the strongest of the Lady S books translated to date but it does open up the series so that the reader has a better idea of the background to Orion and the organisation that he, and by default Suzan, works for. Whether this is a good thing for the plotlines of future books remains to be seen.

• There are more details of the Lady S books on the Cinebook website.

• There are more details of the French Lady S books on the Dupuis website (in English).

• There are more Lady S images, as well as preparatory sketches for the books, on Philippe Aymond's blog at http://philippeaymond.blogspot.com

Email woes befall Northern Sequential Art Competition

If you have entered the Northern Sequential Art Competition the organisers have been in touch to say  that they've  had some email issues and may not of received your entry.

They're urging entrants to check their website on Wednesday 2nd November to make sure your entry is there. If not, then you should re-send it to tbartcompetition@gmail.com

"We will extend the deadline to Friday 4th November in case anyone's page has gone astray," they say. "Sorry for any inconvenience caused and good luck with your entry!"

For all who have not entered our art competition, did you know you can send in existing pages as long as they have not been published anywhere else? The organisers are extending the deadline to Friday 4th November.

Check the website for guidelines on sending your comic page. You never know -- your work could end up being featured worldwide in an Images Comics publication!

• The THOUGHT BUBBLE COMIC CON will take place from the 19th to 20th November 2011


• Competition Gallery: http://thoughtbubblefestival.com/events/northern-sequential-art-competition/gallery-of-entries/

In Review: Antares - Episode 1

After the five albums of the Aldebaran sequence followed by the five albums of the Betelgeuse sequence, the science fiction tales of the Worlds Of Aldebaran, written and illustrated by Leo (Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira), continue with the first episode of the third sequence, Antares.

Leo paints a picture of Earth in 2196 not that far removed from ours but where atmospheric pollution requires gasmasks for walking outside, there have been religious wars and the great apes are all but extinct. Against this background Kim Keller has become a reluctant celebrity after saving the Betelgeuse expedition, however her friends Alexa and Mark have been imprisoned for stealing the spaceship that they took to Betelgeuse to rescue her. To free them Kim agrees to be part of a reconnaissance team to the planet Antares for Forward Enterprises, the corporation who have been financing the potential colonisation of Antares, and who can have Alexa and Mark freed to help her.

During the health check for the job, Kim is told that she is pregnant and, realising to her horror who the father is, she returns to Betelgeuse to give birth. Released from imprisonment, Alexa and Mark go to Betelgeuse to find Kim to convince her to begin the Antares expedition, unaware of the strange disappearances have been happening on the new planet.

The highlight of all these books is Leo's art which here is as impressive as ever with yet another batch of very alien creatures for the potential colonists to deal with while his image sequences of the mysterious disappearances that occur on Antares are shockingly beautiful. The cover, with its semi-transparent floating worm creature, sets the scene beautifully and yet it is Kim's pregnancy and, later in the book, her child that are the focus of Episode 1. Leo throws both his characters and the readers a most unexpected curve ball as we are introduced to Kim's daughter Lynn for the first time.

Individually Leo's Aldebaran sagas can be slow with apparently irrelevant passages, but they build into something that is greater than the sum of their parts as he weaves a tale of truly alien worlds and the flora and fauna that inhabit them. Indeed Kim, as the main character in the books, has not even begun her space voyage to the planet Antares let alone stepped onto the planet by the end of this book. That said I would expect this sequence to run to the usual five albums and the fourth Antares book, unsurprisingly entitled Episode 4, has just been released in France.

Antares Episode 1 lives up to the promise of its World of Aldebaran predecessors with the fascinatingly alien fauna and a long form plot that demands you buy the rest of the series.

• There are more details of Antares (and Aldebaran and Betelgeuse) on the Cinebook website. Antares Episode 2 is due to be released in May 2012.

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

• The downthetubes review of Aldebaran is here and the review of Betelgeuse is here.

Ladybird Art Exhibition At The Heritage Motor Centre

The Ladybird Big Book of Motor Cars Exhibition is currently on at the Heritage Motor Centre near Warwick. This exhibition includes over 120 Ladybird books plus more than 30 original pieces of Ladybird artwork alongside many of the vehicles which feature in them. The vehicles on display include a 1886 Rover bicycle, a 1904 Wolseley, a 1967 Austin 1100, a 1936 MG and a 1971 Rover P5.

The traditional small hardback Ladybird books were first published by Wills & Hepworth in 1940 and their standard format of text on the left page coupled with fully painted artwork on the right page of a two page spread, made them popular with adults and children alike.

Many artists familiar to British comics readers of the 1950s and 1960s worked on Ladybird books during this period making them desirable items for comics collectors to have. Perhaps the most desirable Ladybird titles for British comics collectors are those that were illustrated by Dan Dare creator Frank Hampson which include Kings and Queens of England and three of the Nursery Rhymes books.

The Ladybird Big Book of Motor Cars exhibition began on the 17 September 2011 and runs to 15 January 2012 at the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon which is near Junction 12 of the M40. There are more details of the exhibition on the Heritage Motor Centre website.

There are more details of the traditional style Ladybird books at the Vintage Ladybird website.