The Arctic Marauder by Jacques Tardi was originally published in French in 1974. Fantagraphics Books has been translating and republishing his graphic novels in English. The artistic style is reminiscent of Belgin comic author, Hergé.

Jérôme Plumier is searching for his uncle who has gone missing after the L'Anjou mysteriously crashed near the arctic circle. His search takes him to a frozen hideaway that brings to mind Captain Nemo's Nautilus. Plumier has to quickly decide which side to take.

The artwork is done in strong, well defined black and white ink strokes. While the caricatures of faces is the most like Hergé's Tintin, the backgrounds and overall affect is more like a hand-drawn broadsheet paper. ( )

I expected a simple adventure with cool steampunk imaginary, and that is what I got. A crazy scientist wants to conquer the world by the usual means and plot turns. The story is not original and the writing is subpar, with characters stating in text what we see in the pictures... but this is well compensated on the graphical side.

It opens with a boat stuck on top of a tall iceberg in the artic ocean, bringing a feeling of mysterious adventure, and from then on we see interesting machines on air and sea.

Too short fascinating reading. I want more on this style with better stories! ( )

Nicely drawn but somehow not that interesting. However, the occasional fourth wall breaking moralizing is enjoyable. ( )

Ok here's the thing..the illustrations bring this up to 3 stars but really this is a disappointment for Tardi. I think the main thing that really perplexed and irritated me was how he failed to explain the huge change in character of one of the leads. He also sort of passes off the idea that he can take literary liberties because it's just a fiction anyways, right, trying to be playful but coming off as lazy in my opinion. Great graphic novelist but this is not the one to read if you're not looking for a better graphic novel, start with The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec found here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8103702-the-extraordinary-adventures-of-adele.... This is a creative book with Tardi's usual plethora of imagination of an underground of crime controllers but with too much of an abrupt and cop out ending especially.

I'm also currently reading You Are There, which I am enjoying a great deal. ( )

Let me preface by saying that the illustrations in this graphic novel are by far some of the best pieces of artwork that I have ever seen! When artwork this good is placed next to text, the story pales in comparison. Such is the case with this graphic novel.

A ship is sailing peacefully in the arctic when a crewman spots another ship perched atop an iceberg. The captain from the first ship sends a dinghy out to the stranded ship in hopes of saving the passengers or at least discovering how the ship got there. When they arrive, they find that all of the crewman on the stranded ship have frozen at their posts. The men turn around in time to see their own ship explode before their eyes. Their future seems beyond bleak and the perched ship sends them on a mysterious journey.

In many ways, the story is classic Steampunk. The graphic novel is in an oversized format which perfectly fits the larger than life tale. The drawings are absolutely beautiful and far outshines the writing, which is also lovely. I truly wanted to love this graphic novel and while I adored the drawings, I did not fall in love with the overall package. Therefore, I have to give it three stars as I found the story confusing and secondary to the illustrations.

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