It is in the second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, that Doctor Watson is cautioned by an animal supplier on entering his premises to “keep clear of the badger, for he bites”. Bryan Talbot’s choice of this quote to open Grandville Force Majeure is appropriate, because this case will see the burly, badger-headed Detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard pushed beyond his limits and biting back. This is the fifth and final volume in the anthropomorphic graphic series, set in an alternative past in which France won the Napoleonic wars and rules the rest of Europe, and it’s clear from the cover that the stakes are being raised to their highest. LeBrock stands alone, his back turned, his eyes glowering suspiciously over his shoulder, while his right hand clasps a handheld version of a rapid-fire Gatling gun.
A review of a prose novel rarely mentions its paper stock, font or production qualities, but graphic novels can offer a highly visual and physical experience of the book as design object. The Grandville series distinguishes itself, seducing with its embossed hardcover heft, ornate, art nouveau-inspired decoration and endpapers, and crisp colour printing, in a format reminiscent of classic children’s comic annuals. Related to this is a deep seam of nostalgia for the British and international legacies of “funny animals” in comics as well as in animation, television and other popular culture. The title itself pays tribute to Jean-Jacques Grandville, the pen name of the 19th-century French caricaturist famed for his animal-headed “metamorphoses”.
Deeply referential if not always reverential, Talbot squirrels into his panels numerous nods and winks to a menagerie of characters, some from his childhood. From the cast of the Rupert Bear strip, for example, he derives the pug Algy, one of LeBrock’s Eton-collared superiors at the Yard. Talbot rarely resists a pun, even if it’s a groaner, so a Parisian prostitute named Gigi is a horse, a pigeon informant is called Walter after the film star, and the tyrannical lizard mastermind is a T rex named Tiberius Koenig. Gangster twins the Crays are, naturally, crayfish.
Hiding this number of Easter eggs might risk overegging the story, but it places Grandville in the tradition of Britain’s humorous comics, not least those by the late genius of the Beano, Leo Baxendale, to whom Talbot dedicates the book. From the Bash Street Kids to the Three Bears, Baxendale’s comedies abounded with anarchic humour and gags to be savoured on repeated readings. Talbot may play to our preconceptions about animals’ characteristics, casting a pig as a sexist circus strongman or a vulture to conduct an autopsy. But he can also exploit our prejudices, for example making us worry if LeBrock’s partner Detective Sergeant Roderick Ratzi can be trusted, or will reveal his “true” rat-like nature. He is not unaware of the unsettling surrealism of this animalist fantasy, such as in the opening scene in the kitchen of a fish restaurant, with its fish-headed chefs, waiters and clientele.
Equally vital to the hybrid fusion of Grandville is the detective fiction genre. This grand finale is 60 pages longer than previous volumes, so Talbot has room to flesh out more of his characters’ back stories, particularly a flashback to LeBrock’s crucial apprenticeship under the master sleuth Stamford Hawksmoor, portrayed by an eagle in tribute to the aquiline nose of Sherlock Holmes. Talbot also unfolds several dynamic, largely wordless action sequences as our beleaguered badger pursues justice and vengeance, hounded by criminals and fellow police officers alike. One problem particular to graphic novels is their graphic immediacy, enabling readers to glean so much from merely a bookshop browse or a little peek ahead. So, in an inspired solution to avoid giving away twists and turns, the last 50 pages come wrapped in plastic, enshrouded inside a black removable sleeve or “Anti-Spoiler Seal (Patent Pending)”.
Additionally, Grandville Force Majeure features a strong political undercurrent. Like Talbot, LeBrock’s roots are working class. Despite the supposed newfound equality in Grandville’s alternative Britain, post independence from its French rulers, the snobbish class system endures. As his mentor Hawksmoor warns, LeBrock will have to “be absolutely brilliant in order to overcome the mountain of prejudice in your path”. And the trail of corruption will lead LeBrock to society’s highest echelons. This graphic novel achieves an extraordinary balancing act of themes, tones and genres, full of mesmerising retro science fiction and crowned with an intense, sparky love story between badgers.
In a witty self caricature, Talbot presents the fishy opportunist Byron Turbot, eager to rewrite LeBrock’s exploits for the “fifty centimes dreadfuls”. In contrast, while a live-action/CGI TV series has been proposed, the Grandville books end here and will never be overextended or farmed out as a franchise to others. Talbot is now collaborating with his wife Mary on reality-based graphic novels (Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes, about James Joyce’s daughter Lucia, won the 2012 Costa biography prize). So while it is regrettable that LeBrock’s casebook must close, Talbot shows no signs of becoming set in his ways.
Paul Gravett’s Mangasia: The Definitive Guide to Asian Comics is published by Thames & Hudson.
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