Customer Reviews

Grandville

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I came across Grandville by chance in a book store while browsing the graphic novel section and instantly fascinated by its wonderful artwork, brilliant anthropomorphic characters and steampunk Victorian setting. I love a good mystery and detective stories are certainly my thing. I had to have it!

A heroic badger Inspector LeBrock and his sidekick Roderick investigate the death of a British diplomat who appears to have been murdered by a group of French conspirators. In this alternate-history Napoleon (a lion) successfully invaded Britain but begrudgingly gave it up after anarchist attacks. LeBrock's case leads him deep into a mire of deceit and political power-plays that mirror many modern day events such as the 9/11 terror attacks and the mess of the Iraq war.

Only a muscle-bound badass badger cop can save the day.

Grandville is nothing if not ambitious, and yet it pulls off everything with ease. It seamlessly blends the alternate history, steampunk, detective and furry genres. Bryan Talbot glides from scene to scene with not a single extraneous panel.

The book is printed in a lovely, tall hardback with colourful, glossy pages. It's definitely a keeper and I strongly recommend it to any and all comic-book and graphic novel enthusiasts. I eagerly await the sequel "Grandville Mon Amour".

This Grandville is a steampunk'd, anthropomorphic animal'd eurofeast of a funnybook. Mr. Talbot has really created a romp of a story, even managing to weave a shadowy 911 parallel up in there. There are quite a few nods to European comic characters as well. Doppelganger's of Herge's Snowy (Tintin) and Velter's Spirou are the two that stand out the most to me. I'm certain I missed several more, but I DID witness his wink to Spiegelman's Maus in the early village scene. The book also features a wide zoological range, most of them firing weapons of mess destruction and/or horn stabbings. Hopefully, Mr. T will turn this into an ongoing (semi?)annual treat for the comic masses. Loudly Recommendated!

I have hardly read a graphic novel of this quality before, both in drawings and script. Mr. Bryan Talbot has done magic.

Just finished reading Grandville - what a great melding of police detective/action/spy/steampunk/conspiracy theory/alternate history/cute (and not so cute) furry animal comics!
I really enjoyed "Alice in Sunderland" and I was wondering what Mr. Talbot would do next - this was a fun read with lots of tricky writing and excellent rendering!

The illustrations are inspired by the works of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard BIZARRERIES AND FANTASIES OF GRANDVILLE: 266 Illustrations From Un Autre Monde and Les Animaux

Bryan Talbot's "Grandville" is an exceptional graphic novel & a great alternative comic to a lot of the other mainstream stuff out there. It's a well thought out murder mystery w/ action, plus the art is some of Talbot's best work to date. I guess it's sort of like Sherlock Holmes meets an alternate history meets anthropomorphic animals. This is great reading for fans of Usagi Yojimbo, BPRD, or DC's Vertigo. A+

I like old-fashioned mystery and adventure stories, and I like graphic storytelling, so this quasi-steampunkish mystery caught my attention. The story takes place in a kind of alternate Victorian era which follows after the French conquer England in the Napoleonic Wars and England eventually wins a meager liberation following a campaign of terror (roughly akin to the Algerian war of independence). The story revolves around a murder that has connections to the relations between England and France. The person who investigates this death and is hero of the story is Inspector LeBrock of the Yard, a kind of action-hero combination Sherlock Holmes/James Bond/Jason Bourne, with beefy muscles, courage, excellent powers of ratiocination, and a capable sidekick. And, oh yes, he's a badger.

You see, the book takes its title from the pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, a French illustrator of the first part of the 19th-century, who was famous for his satirical caricatures of prominent people as animals, as well as for being the illustrator for many popular novels of the time. Talbot populates the tale almost entirely with anthropomorphized animals (humans appear briefly as kind of slave/servants), as Inspector LeBrock and Detective Ratzi (no points for guessing what kind of animal he is), look into the murder of a British diplomat. This quickly sucks them into an elaborate conspiracy that is awfully similar to some of the most outlandish of the 9/11 "Truther" ideas.

The plot is so nutty that it was hard to get too invested in it, and similarly, I just couldn't take the anthromorphized animals seriously. As a result, I read the whole book at a bit of a mental distance -- enjoying the imagination involved in constructing it, but not really getting sucked in. Kind of like when one watches a poorly acted film with excellent special effects -- you can enjoy it for aspects of the craftsmanship, but you're not going to care about any of the characters. One is even more removed from the story when you start to notice winks and nods to other famous graphic works, such a dog that looks exactly like Snowy from Tintin undergoing an opium hallucination that's obviously a nod to The Blue Lotus, or any number of other scenes where characters from other works appear (such as Spirou, Rupert Bear, Maus, and I'm sure many others). It's kind of an amusing lark, but never really captured my imagination.

I stumbled on this book at a convention and bought it on a whim. I'm so glad I did. It's one of the most impressive graphic novels I've seen recently. The art is exceptional, with so much background detail that you have to linger over every panel. The story is such an amalgam of awesome things: steampunk, Sherlock Holmes, Quentin Tarantino, political commentary. Fantastic!

Nice story, and the details (eg some historical references) are very interesting. I borrowed it from the public library and almost finished it on the way home.

Another very good graphic novel about 911 is "Can't Get No".

"Grandville" is the name of the French city where two detectives go to investigate the murder of a British Ambassador. They dodge street gangs, save a damsel in distress, uncover yet more murders while picking up clues, and avoid being corpses themselves. In short, your usual detective story.

What makes this so much more than average is the stunning artwork Talbot's created. Motorised carriages, robots, airships, antiquated yet futuristic weaponry, panoramic views of Victorian streets populated with colourful animal headed people, highly detailed crowd scenes and polished buildings all presented on glossy, high quality paper.

I won't describe the background to this strange world as it'll take ages but it's fascinating and the detective characters are interesting and though Brock is perhaps an amalgam of popular detectives (Holmes, Marlowe, Hammer) he's compelling enough to be different in his own right. Readability is something few graphic novelists have in them but Talbot's work is so detailed you'll miss certain references that you'll discover upon going back. There's a lot of references to children's books that anyone who's familiar with them will enjoy like Beatrix Potter's characters and Herge's Snowy (presented here as an opium addicted tramp).

Possibly my favourite Bryan Talbot book and good place to start if you're new. Very accessible, very layered, a superb book and one of the highlights of comics in 2009.

the story is a decent steampunk mystery set in alternative france, pictures are gorgeous.
the book is very nice. glossy paper, beautiful harcover, high quality comics book as it deserves. dark horse is a great publisher.