Zoran Janjetov

Before the Incal is everything I wanted The Incal to be, a delightful romp through the deranged and decadent Cityshaft with John Difool, and much less "it was spaaaaace Jesus the whole time". The young Difool bounces between acts of crime and charity, experiencing the banned emotion "love", falling in with an obsolete Bible-quoting robot cop, and foiling the machinations of the Technopope and repeatedly clone President. His investigation, into where the babies of prostitutes are show more disappearing, uncovers a scandal of galactic proportions that has him leading psycho-anarchists against the news media in a desperate battle for survival.

There's one quote which I think gets the essence of the story. "We know one thing: The babies have their brains injected with sperm and ova from two non-putrefied ancient saints... Then they're frozen and sent to the Aristo-Maternity Ward... So if we want to resolve this mystery, that's where we have to start!"

Yeah, that's the one thing I know. Strange story by Jodorowsky, great artwork by Janjetov, awesome book. show less

This volume collects the full-length prequel series that provides background for the classic Jodo/Moebius Incal books. The stories are all set on the planet Earth 2014, and they center on the young John Difool, particularly the vicissitudes of his romance with an aristo girl Luz and his progress from gutter rat to revolutionary to detective.

Jodorowsky's storytelling is as fun as ever, although these are heavy on the social satire, and they don't dive as deeply into the mythic strata that show more dominate The Incal. The sixth and last of the parts of Before the Incal is a little frenetic, making connections and tying up loose ends in order to maintain the continuity between this arc and that one. Even so, it seems like an incipient galactic revolution got lost somewhere between the two books.

Janjetov's art is terrific. According to the Lambiek Comiclopedia, Janjetov first worked with Jodorowsky and Jean "Moebius" Giraud as a colorist on some issues of the original Incal series, and he had the express blessing of Moebius to continue the work with Jodo. In Before the Incal, he mostly emulates Moebius's style from the earlier material, but he occasionally experiments (quite successfully) with integrating the more highly-rendered style that he would later use in other Incal-related books (Metabarons and Technopriests). show less

uma história rápida, absurda, repleta de podridão e instintos primários, mas cativante, com imagens incríveis e figuras marcantes. e quem diria que o tolo detetive era um destemido paladino!? ademais, aqui e ali, tiradas geniais, como a do museu de artes e finanças.

Interestingly, these prequel comics for the Incal are rather more exploratory for character development, starting with John's childhood and showing another side to him that is rather more proactive and interesting than the buffoon he later becomes... and it also shows us the reason for the change.

I'm actually rather impressed that it bothered to take its time... unlike the main Incal cycle that rushes through huge events like we're watching a reader's digest of a galactic war between good show more and evil. :) This one has a little of everything... a romance of nonsense, a love of love, and a very cool pair of robots, mystery, and massive corruption to combat.

What? John Difool the hero?

Well, it happened! ... until he got lobotomized. Oops!

Quite fun. I don't know if I'd recommend this before the original comics, however. It is slow and methodical and it gives away some surprises early while deepening the core story. I honestly don't know. It might give the wrong impression and it might make the MC more sympathetic. *shrug* Still happy I read it. :) show less