Juan Díaz Canales

Really great art and intriguing premise, but the story was awfully grim. Still digesting this one.

Next day update: OK, since this still had the power to stir my brain—a lot—this morning, I’m bumping up my rating.

I’ve been thinking about the monster—why is it there? What is it a metaphor for? The god they abandoned? The depth of understanding and harmony with the natural world that most of them never achieved? I’m not sure.

One thing that was nagging at me was whether or not they show more developed enough the idea that a utopian society will always fail, that there’s something flawed about humanity that kept the experimental community like the one in the book—and the real one it was based on—from working. Maybe they did a better job than I originally thought. They had characters who represented the focus on pure philosophy and characters who represented a focus purely on the physical, and these two groups could never come to terms or balance. And maybe that’s the point. The founder of the community dying as his project was failing was easy to spot, but still poetic.

Who knows? I could be way off, but since this book gave me a little exercise for my brain, I appreciated it, grim as it was. I liked the glimmer of hope at the end, but it will take some more mulling to decipher what it means. Maybe that Emile was closer to enlightenment than anyone else. show less

A terrific read. I'd procrastinated on checking out "Blacksad" for nearly a decade -- really, there are so many highly recommended comics out there, you can't get to it all -- but man, was it worth the wait. The first story in this three-story colelction is at the face of it very basic noir fare -- an old girlfriend turns up dead and the sullen private investigator can't help but get to the bottom of it -- but it still gripped me due to the fantastic artwork and great execution. The other show more two stories -- a child kidnapping in the middle of a small town race conflict, and a conspiracy amid Cold War paranoia and prosecution -- are much more inventive and complex, and in particular the middle story makes use of the anthropomorphic animal world in surprising ways. I've been trained to expect fiction that uses animal people like this to rarely if ever really reference that the characters are all (different) animals, but "Blacksad" does so frequently and with impressive effect. I will definitely be buying the fourth and fifth volume as well, and no doubt join the eager wait for the long-delayed sixth and seventh, the first of which is currently rumoured to finally be due in October 2021. Fingers crossed. This is great stuff. show less

Perhaps the most acclaimed French comic of the new century, Canales and Guarnido cleverly combine the seemingly disparate elements of anthropomorphic animal and 1950s crime fiction into their wholly original creation, Blacksad. Private eye cat John Blacksad uncovers the often filthy depths of mysteries involving child abductions, nuclear secrets, racist hate groups, and of course murder. Guarnido evokes the period through his evocative and elegant art while Canales' script successfully show more evokes the era's moods and attitudes through a contemporary lens. One of the best books of the year, Blacksad more than deserves its abundant praise. show less

Blacksad in New Orleans - what more could I ask for? Well, I could be greedy and ask for a longer story, but gotta be happy with what I get, eh? It's a good tale, with some shady characters and some cool jazz, and good ol' Week riding shotgun! The volume I read also had two short, short stories (2 pages each!) - one good, one cheesy.