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Detective John Blacksad returns, with a new case that takes him to a 1950s New Orleans filled with hot jazz and cold-blooded murder! Hired to discover the fate of a celebrated pianist, Blacksad finds his most dangerous mystery yet in the midst of drugs, voodoo, the rollicking atmosphere of Mardi Gras, and the dark underbelly that it hides! Features an extensive making-of section, with tons of prelim sketches and watercolor studies.Tags
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The art alone would earn a 5-star rating, but the story was swell too. The idea of a hard-boiled detective story told with all animal characters might sound silly, but you won't be laughing once you've checked it out. Crazy original and a feast for the eyes-highly recommended.
PI John Blacksad takes to the streets of 1950s New Orleans for a case involving murder, drugs, voodoo, and the madness that is Mardi Gras. Brilliant noir with great characters and extremely high stakes. The art is, if possible, even better than in the previous installment. Whereas the previous book contained three different stories, this one only contains "A Silent Hell" along with two short stories and the rest of the book is an illustrated article by Juanjo Guarnido explaining his approach to the art. At first this seemed a little disappointing, but Guarnido is a brilliant teacher and it turned out to be very interesting to see how he worked out the different challenges. These characters and stories are some of the best noir I've read show more and I can't wait for the next installment, "Amarillo," to be released. show less
Summary: John Blacksad is your typical hard-boiled detective, pursuing truth and justice but not afraid to get his hands a little dirty in the process, sometimes the only honorable man left in a world of liars and thieves and double dealers… and murderers. Or perhaps it should be "the only honorable cat", since all of the characters in the world of Blacksad are anthropomorphized animals.
The first volume contains three stories, while the fourth and the fifth story are each published (in the US, at least), as independent volumes.
"A Silent Hell" involves Blacksad being tasked to hunt down a missing jazz musician by a wealthy but dying record producer. In the search, however, Blacksad runs up against deceit, drugs, and murder, and show more uncovers a dark secret that had been buried for decades.
Review: Noir-ish detective stories aren't really my cup of tea, but this series was recommended to me by a friend with reliable tastes in graphic novels, so I figured I've give them a shot. And while they weren't my favorite, they were certainly an interesting departure from my normal fare. As mysteries, they're kind of hit-or-miss; the one I thought was most effective was "Arctic Nation", which had a good balance of clues being slowly doled out, and the right amount of twistiness and double-crossing to make it interesting without being overly convoluted. It's also the most personal, the one that I thought had the most-developed characters (also, probably not coincidentally, the one that featured the most non-corpse, non-lounge-singer women characters). The other stories, particularly "Somewhere Within the Shadows" and "A Silent Hell", seemed like they either relied too heavily on one-dimensional thugs and corrupt businessmen, or else didn't really provide enough clues to allow readers to piece together what's going on by themselves. "Amarillo" is less of a mystery, so that wasn't really an issue, but even as more of a character piece it still didn't entirely draw me in.
The artwork is also really interesting. The drawings themselves are lovely and very detailed, but often a little busy for my tastes. The use of color, though, is really gorgeous, mostly a very muted palette that heightens - if not creates entire - the film-noir feel that permeates Blacksad's world, highlighted with more vibrant colors in occasional individual panels that draw they eye and grab the attention. I'm still not sure I'm entirely sold on the use of animals as characters, though. Their animal nature is almost never commented on (a line referencing "cold blood" is the only one I remember), and the different species are used as a shorthand for their characteristics - a lizard is a slimy informant, or a rhinocerous the brute enforcer. I suppose it does add something to the overall story, and feeling, and originality of the work, but I found it more distracting than anything else - wondering how animals of different species could produce kids, for example. It also bothered me that the male characters seemed to be more animalistic in form than the women; everyone was walking upright, and had human-ish (if hairy/scaly) hands, but the men's faces and bodies were clearly still animals, while the women's were much more human, with hourglass figures and perfect hairstyles and humanoid faces, just with pointed ears and maybe a slightly upturned nose or a slight indication of some whiskers, but certainly not a snout or fur or anything else you might expect on a dog or cat. Maybe that's not that big of a deal in the big scheme of things, but I noticed it every time a female character was on screen, and it bugged. 3 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: If mysteries and noir are your cup of tea, Blacksad is lovely and definitely worth checking out. If not, then it still might be worth checking out - it's very well done, even if it didn't entirely click for me. show less
The first volume contains three stories, while the fourth and the fifth story are each published (in the US, at least), as independent volumes.
"A Silent Hell" involves Blacksad being tasked to hunt down a missing jazz musician by a wealthy but dying record producer. In the search, however, Blacksad runs up against deceit, drugs, and murder, and show more uncovers a dark secret that had been buried for decades.
Review: Noir-ish detective stories aren't really my cup of tea, but this series was recommended to me by a friend with reliable tastes in graphic novels, so I figured I've give them a shot. And while they weren't my favorite, they were certainly an interesting departure from my normal fare. As mysteries, they're kind of hit-or-miss; the one I thought was most effective was "Arctic Nation", which had a good balance of clues being slowly doled out, and the right amount of twistiness and double-crossing to make it interesting without being overly convoluted. It's also the most personal, the one that I thought had the most-developed characters (also, probably not coincidentally, the one that featured the most non-corpse, non-lounge-singer women characters). The other stories, particularly "Somewhere Within the Shadows" and "A Silent Hell", seemed like they either relied too heavily on one-dimensional thugs and corrupt businessmen, or else didn't really provide enough clues to allow readers to piece together what's going on by themselves. "Amarillo" is less of a mystery, so that wasn't really an issue, but even as more of a character piece it still didn't entirely draw me in.
The artwork is also really interesting. The drawings themselves are lovely and very detailed, but often a little busy for my tastes. The use of color, though, is really gorgeous, mostly a very muted palette that heightens - if not creates entire - the film-noir feel that permeates Blacksad's world, highlighted with more vibrant colors in occasional individual panels that draw they eye and grab the attention. I'm still not sure I'm entirely sold on the use of animals as characters, though. Their animal nature is almost never commented on (a line referencing "cold blood" is the only one I remember), and the different species are used as a shorthand for their characteristics - a lizard is a slimy informant, or a rhinocerous the brute enforcer. I suppose it does add something to the overall story, and feeling, and originality of the work, but I found it more distracting than anything else - wondering how animals of different species could produce kids, for example. It also bothered me that the male characters seemed to be more animalistic in form than the women; everyone was walking upright, and had human-ish (if hairy/scaly) hands, but the men's faces and bodies were clearly still animals, while the women's were much more human, with hourglass figures and perfect hairstyles and humanoid faces, just with pointed ears and maybe a slightly upturned nose or a slight indication of some whiskers, but certainly not a snout or fur or anything else you might expect on a dog or cat. Maybe that's not that big of a deal in the big scheme of things, but I noticed it every time a female character was on screen, and it bugged. 3 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: If mysteries and noir are your cup of tea, Blacksad is lovely and definitely worth checking out. If not, then it still might be worth checking out - it's very well done, even if it didn't entirely click for me. 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.
Gorgeous graphical novel. Every time you look at certain shots you will find something new in it, be it among the mass of people walking in the street, buildings, city or interaction of the above mentioned.
Story puts our PI onto streets of New Orleans looking for a missing person. Blacksad is maybe out of his hometown but he is as always on the track to reveal the facts and truth and ready to answer in measure to anyone trying to push him around.
Great read [story-wise] and true feast for the eyes. Highly recommended.
Story puts our PI onto streets of New Orleans looking for a missing person. Blacksad is maybe out of his hometown but he is as always on the track to reveal the facts and truth and ready to answer in measure to anyone trying to push him around.
Great read [story-wise] and true feast for the eyes. Highly recommended.
I really liked this volume of the series. It was fun to read, because it was like finding an old friend (I'd read volumes 1-3 in 2011, so it'd been a while). I love the artwork, as I'm a big fan of glossy graphic novels. Blacksad doesn't disappoint, the characters are as good as I remembered, as is the story. There are two shorts stories at the end which are both quite good. There's also a long section by the illustrator, Juanjo Guarnido, about using water colors. I read some, but not all of it, mostly because I've never really been an artist/etc. Overall, though, the volume was great and my only complaint is that there isn't more.
This is possibly Juanjo Guarnido's finest artwork so far, following his black cat detective to sunny New Orleans and featuring a stunning Mardi Gras parade sequence.
However, the storytelling seems to fall flatter than the last collectio. Flashbacks are handled clumsily with almost no indication that we're in a different timeline, and there's less bite to the story: Blacksad has no personal connection to the people involved, and there's less of the serious political themes of the last volume.
This collection contains one full issue of Blacksad, two two-page short stories, and a bucketload of notes from the artist about why he colours his panels the way he does. The art explanations are fun for a while, but I can only read so much about show more the comic's art theory before getting tired of it. After the packed-to-the-brim first Blacksad collection this is a little disappointing, but perhaps that's only because I was expecting another three collected issues. show less
However, the storytelling seems to fall flatter than the last collectio. Flashbacks are handled clumsily with almost no indication that we're in a different timeline, and there's less bite to the story: Blacksad has no personal connection to the people involved, and there's less of the serious political themes of the last volume.
This collection contains one full issue of Blacksad, two two-page short stories, and a bucketload of notes from the artist about why he colours his panels the way he does. The art explanations are fun for a while, but I can only read so much about show more the comic's art theory before getting tired of it. After the packed-to-the-brim first Blacksad collection this is a little disappointing, but perhaps that's only because I was expecting another three collected issues. show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Blacksad: A Silent Hell
- Original title
- Blacksad: L'enfer, le silence
- Alternate titles*
- Blacksad. O Inferno, o Silêncio - Volume 4
- Original publication date
- 2010; 2012-07-11
- People/Characters
- John Blacksad; Weekly; Hannah Fletcher; Sebastian Fletcher; Madame Gibraltar; Junior Harper (show all 13); Faust Lachapelle; Thomas Lachapelle; Ted Leeman; Bill Lenoir; Carl [in Blacksad]; Joachim; Rose [in Blacksad]
- Important places
- New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; Louisiana, USA
- Dedication*
- A la memoria de J. Berendt y W. Claxton en agradecimiento por la enorme ayuda que nos ha proporcionado su "Jazz Life".
Nuestro agradecimiento también a nuestro indómito colega y sin embargo amigo JL Munuera por sus conse... (show all)jos, aliento e inspiración.
Y finalmente, sirva este libro como homenaje a la mágica ciudad de Nueva Orleáns. Su música y su espíritu impregnan cada rincón de esta historia... - First words
- Sartre says that Hell is other people.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Says the tough guy! You'd think you had a guardian angel...
- Original language
- Spanish
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Graphic Novels & Comics
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- 741.5946 — Arts & recreation Drawing & decorative arts Drawing Comic books, graphic novels, fotonovelas, cartoons, caricatures, comic strips History, geographic treatment, biography European Spanish; Portuguese
- LCC
- PN6777 .D53 .B53413 — Language and Literature Literature (General) Literature (General) Collections of general literature Comic books, strips, etc.
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