Grandville: a grand graphic novel
Although several friends are great fans of the graphic novel, I have never read many in the past. However, my eye was caught by Bryan Talbot’s Grandville when visiting the British Library’s current science fiction exhibition, in which it features. So off to Amazon it was to get a copy – and I’m mighty glad I did for it is a fantastically inventive and sumptuous graphical treat.
There are some niggles about this steampunk tale for sure – the plot is little more that a caricature of a left-wing conspiracy theory and the cover of the book is poorly done (wonky sticker on the back, very easily scuffed edges and spine).
But ignore those and enjoy instead the beautifully drawn and reproduced pictures inside of a world where France won the Napoleonic wars, Victorian technology still dominates (it’s a world of steam cars and airships) and the Earth is inhabited by anthropomorphised animals.
There are many sly allusions in Talbot’s imaginary world, such as the regular appearance of famous works of art on the walls which have had humans replaced with animals in them. Talbot does this sort of referential detail with real skill – if you understand the references, they add to the enjoyment, and if you don’t understand the references, then no matter – the scene still looks good and makes sense as far as the story goes. Rather like Terry Pratchett, Bryan Talbot can satirise without baffling the less knowledgeable reader with obscure detail in the way works more traditionally viewed as having literary merit can do.
So enjoy the world of detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard (badger) as he mixes Sherlock Holmes with Rambo to save, if not the world, at least Britain.
Talbot is indeed a giant but I can't be alone in finding the Grandville books slight and self-indulgent compared to, say, the Luther Arkwright books (or am I just a boring old fart steeped in nostalgia – don't answer). Most people would probably point to "One Bad Rat" but to my mind his masterpiece so far is "Alice in Sunderland", probably because it does things that could never be done in any other medium. I went to Sunderland because of this book and enjoyed it immensely.