@@KonSimpl72 It's definitely not. In BD stores in France I thought Blacksad really stood out. The attention to detail on light sources, backgrounds, 3 point perspective, these are top illustrators in the world taking as long as they want to produce their best work.
@@bk04ft I'm not saying it's not top tier creativity. It is. But if you find yourself with ample time in a big bookstore with bandes dessinées, I can guarantee you can find at least a dozen or so showcasing similar crazy levels of detailed/inspired draftsmanship.
5:57 you forgot to mention that he's black because (at least here in Spain) black cats are usually related with bad luck. Since they were playing with noir tropes, it fitted the "down on his luck detective" trope perfectly.
I'm glad you noted that "trope" can be good or it can be bad. I do think that generally people use the term negatively, in a sense that something is repetitive, derivative or otherwise not good writing, but tropes in a broader sense are what define genre, and can themselves become part of the metaphorical presentation of themes. In this case, sometimes a black cat is just a black cat. In other cases, it's something else entirely.
If you haven't already I'd recommenced checking out Bryan Talbot's "Grandville" series, which mixes anthropomorphic animals with steampunk and classic European detective stories. It's named after the French caricaturist Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard (aka JJ Grandville) whose "Les Métamorphoses du jour" (1828-29) are definitely the first "funny animal" drawn cartoons.
I'd heard of Blacksad but never seen it anywhere locally. Because of your review I ordered the books online. OMG, the artwork is gorgeous. Blacksad "The Silent Hell" is a good read, I'm waiting for the others to come in the mail.
Blacksad is a Spanish-French comic, as a matter of fact. Juanjo Guarnido (which worked for Disney, BTW) and Juan Díaz-Canales are the Spanish creators and the comic was printed in France. Many people will miss out a FANTASTIC noir story with OVER-THE-TOP artwork if they mistakenly label it as a "furry comic". Blacksad novels are must-buy. So just don't waste time, GO BUY IT. You're welcome.
I have to say, this show is so educational. The way you express yourself about comics and their influence is pretty unique. I'm picking up many of these comics even some obscure ones because of this show. Thanks!!
You should take a look at the recently released El Buscón de las Indias, an apocryphal sequel to Quevedo's El Buscón with story by Alain Ayroles and art by Guarnido, to see how he works with human characters (also, there's a music clip he animated for Freak Kitchen's Freak of the week). Also, I don't remember if you've ever done it, but if you haven't, you should make a video on Enki Bilal's stuff. May I recommend the Nikopol Trilogy or the Black Order Brigade.
@@kostajovanovic3711 It's not for everyone. Its tone is weird with it feeling so melancholic and yet so cheesy at times. Like I said, it's a bit of a fever dream, but I can't help but love it.
Great video as usual, Blacksad is probably my favorite series of the 2000's. Btw, on one of the trope you point out, I would say that mostly the beautiful females of the comic and/or potential love interests of Blacksad are made more "human-like". My guess is that it's probably so that the audience could see them from Blacksad's perspective you know, find them beautiful just like he does. It's also to make them stand-out as while not major characters usually, there actually many female characters that are more animal-like (more akin to something like Zootopia). For instance, the Maid in the first book, Miss Grey in the second one, The hookers (A pig and and fox) and Madame Gibraltar in the forth book, the flower shop owner in the last book etc.
Awesome episode, been waiting for it since I found the channel, I even learned few new things despite being a fan of Blacksad for a while now. Can't wait for the new Blacksad books and game, hope everyone interested in noir comics give it a try.
14:46 This seems to be common in anything with anthropomorphic animals. Males look ugly, distorted, or very animal like, and females look like human women, with animal noses and ears stuck on. Take a look at something like 90's cartoon Swat Kats...two main characters are very cartoony, and the main women have small noses instead of snouts, and well, take a look yourself. It's a really strange trope you'll see oft repeated.
Absolutely!! And then it gets even worse once you delve into the furry fandom and see just how varied and unique female body types can get on it... :/ I'm saying this as a long-time furry myself - not exactly a greymuzzle, but still, I've been in this mess for what? Seven, eight years now? :P
I have noticed similar tendencies not only in stories about anthro animals but also in science fiction and fantasy with different races and nations (males are monstrous but females are more humanoid). Maybe it is done for fan service. I also heard a theory that we are easier to project empathy onto characters resembling humans (especially children and women)
@@andreydoronin6995 You're referring perhaps to the "women are wonderful effect"? It's quite startling to realise when you look into prison sentences. Men are wired to sympathise with women - that's why you'll get women victims in comics/games/tv more often.
@@reveranttangent1771 Sex sells. Doesn't really work the other way round that well...pretty boys don't sell women targeted stuff that well. It only works when you try it with things like shades of grey....that whole rich and powerful man doing the dominance angle. The charity shops ended up building forts out of donated copies.
I've seen this trend in cartoons/comics depicting 'normal' humans too. The women always have to look cute or attractive while the men get variety. Annoyingly common.
16:17 The Senator being a rooster is a callback to Foghorn Leghorn. Foghorn Leghorn's voice is based on the fictional radio character Senator Claghorn. Claghorn was a wildly exaggerated Southern supremacist based on real life Senator Huey Long from Louisiana. It's actually an extremely well researched dig at American fiction and American history.
I distinctly remember seeing the first Blacksad compilation in a bookstore, in English, in the middle 2000s, so I'm puzzled about 3:47 I see what you mean by the female characters, but BEAR in mind (ho ho) that it's just the 'sexy' ones that are more humanoid. There's a few that are more 'animalistic' (ie. the mouse house-keeper and the giraffe art gallery lady) but nonewithstanding, I don't feel the artist should have been afraid to try and make the attractive characters look more like the animals they are based on. Also as for choosing which animals to cast as which characters? Sometimes that may just be purely arbitrary. Sometimes that's literally my logic. If I have a design I want to use, I'll just use it - human, animal, whatever, it's a design, so just have fun! Story aside, it peaked my interest visually, because sometimes, just sometimes, you can get a bit tired of humans. You see them every day in real life and comics/cartoons are a break from reality.
I agree with you! The artist can do more animalistic women! Perhaps for me it annoys me more that it is clearly a decision? Because I adore the men's designs more then the women's because of their animal characteristics!
The women looking human is a classic anthro cartoon trope. The films Rock & Rule and Treasure Planet is a good example. Im a big fan of furry art and blacksad in general. But even some of the guys stand out. Theirs 2 characters ive notised with tails. While all of the others lack tails. Thanks for doing this story!
The goat is named Faust, which SPOILERS is a reference to the W H Göthe novel about a man who's about to make a deal with the devil, who is sometimes shown as a goat.
Funny, I used to see ads for collections of this very comic in the pages of Kevin Eastman's run on Heavy Metal. Thank you for a closer look at what seems to be a very interesting book.
Reminds me of both Saga and Bojack Horseman. Animals being used to illustrate characteristics, but within an adult context. Granted, Bojack's animals are usually just background gags or wordplays, but still.
Thank you for introducing me to Blacksad! I had heard a bit about it before, but I had no clue the art was so incredible! I have immediately ordered a copy for myself. :3
This looks amazing! I love your channel dude. Every once in a while you introduce me to something that I’ve never heard of, but than HAVE to read! Brat Pack was a great read by the way. 👍
Been wanting to pick up a copy of blacksads first volume, Noir is just such a under utilized genre these days so it's always great to see creators bring it back.
There is an unstranlatable joke in the books, when Blacksad goes looking after some drug trail he meets a drugged horse and a camel who sell drugs, in spanish a "camel" is a drug dealer and being drugged is "having the horse"
Looking at the artists behind Blacksad I can't help but laugh. The writer looks proud of his work, while the illustrator is like: "Yup. I did it. I drew that dog titty. It was me."
I just discovered your channel, and the Maus image you showed just makes me want a video form your about that now! That comic is one of my favorites ever
Great episode. That splash of New Orleans with Ignatius J Reilly in the corner is incredible. The rooster might be a reference to communism. The red rooster was the symbol of the communist party of Venezuela and I have a Spanish friend who sang communist songs that referred to the red rooster.
Please do a video about Scalped and 100 Bullets. I loved the Criminal one and those are my other two favorite crime series. Especially Scalped. I think it's one of the most underrated comics ever.
"Transgression!!!" Boy how that should become a popular meme these days. Also that cover art for Blueberry looks so sweet I'm going to have to give that one a look.
Possible interpretation for the rooster. In Europe the rooster can be representative of two things. one one hand. First it is known as the king of the farmyard due to the fact that a good rooster can be quite majestic with it's colorful plumage, its posture, and the fact that there is generally a single rooster for several hens. It is a important, central figure in the farm. Often depicted standing on top of the tallest roof. On the opposite hand, it is often caricaturized as an annoying, proud, vain, self-agrandizing bird due to the fact that not all roosters are majestics, that chicken in general can look a bit goofy and it is sometimes depicted as that anoying bird that wakes everyone in the morning with its chant. Basically the mayor is a rooster because he is a important figure and have some autority, but as a politician he wants to make himself look good and be the center of attention.
Actually, the characters are human, represented as animals. You'll notice how like the Polar bear dude has a daughter who's another animal. And the dialogue mentions the human race at some point. Pretty metaphorical representation of individual characters. It's what makes it different from the likes of many other funny animal stories where in they're literal animals. Also thanks so much for covering the European side of comics as well. I grew up more on manga and Heavy Metal, it's nice seeing a channel tackle something besides superheroes.
And that's how Juan Canales - the writer - ended up ruining what was initially a slick _bande dessinée_ imo. It’s so reductionist turning a world bursting with colours, patterns, aromas and _types_ of skins (touched upon in the 1st book using reptiles) into mundade human racial tensions & childish historical notions. This was ultimately stifling for Guardino's wonderful art; maybe going an early _Métal Hurlant_ route would've been more fruitful, i.e., unfettered by writers.
@@Target00smile I still think it was well done, and despite the content, I personally never found it preachy (in contrast to the trend in modern comics, or so I hear about). It didn't come much as a surprise to me as well, the part that they're really human. It was an interesting take for me. Although, I wouldn't mind a setting with "man beasts" as actual man beasts. Makes me miss Thundercats 2011, haha.
@@nickdrawschicks3463 It wasn't preachy per se but definitely in-your-face. Every character twisted into an absurd caricature to fill in the basic colour-based racial roles. For instance, birthing any such supremacy groups without a significant number of alike people with age-old analogous cultural identity is senseless seeing as there’s nothing to base a supremacy on, however misguided it might be. A hot or cold-blood supremacy would've made way more sense, but then it would require some complex world-building by a skillful writer. In sum, the whole dissonance distracted me from the stunning artwork, and no amount of steamy felines Lauren Bacalls was enough to make me go beyond the 3rd book.
@@Target00smile you have a point. I'm that detached when I read things, or rather I always considered whatever good stories had to offer always dealt with the human condition. Considering the setting was old or vintage, I never really found it in your face. I do get where you're coming from, however. Personally, I am bothered with how some kinds of people do take stories as if they were scripture. I have some SJW "friends" who use this as well as X-men as an excuse to always make their work political or to always look for current if not past politics in the comics they read; it's disturbing to a point they get mad at normal people or people like me who are detached as being "apathetic" - when all we do is take a story as is and account to whatever lessons we choose as individuals. Comics like this don't bother me; some kinds of readers, do. And eventually they do make stories in-your-face because they lack nuance and storytelling skills, besides being driven by personal issues. (You should see the convention scene here in the Philippines, or rather the geek scene. A lot of them ride on the SJW trend, if not even on just the coat tails.) This lead to some modern comics being really in-your-face. While I do think comics can be political and realistic (as is the case with Sanctuary, a Japanese classic about the Diet and Yakuza), there's a way a story is written that allows the individual reading it to make their own choices. The difference I see with comics with political themes and in your face Social Justice Preachiness is that one is like Lucifer. He tells you a story, gives you knowledge, but whatever you do is up to you. The other is driven by a sense of self-entitlement, a messiah complex, and an ego fueled by daddy issues. As for me, I'm at this point I think readers should learn to account to themselves because sometimes you'll see people making excuses such as, "Scott Pilgrim made me a thot." Despite it being a shitpost meme, it does reveal a person who can't account to their individuality and lays the blame on whoever writer made some story they took as canon or scripture. After all, with good stories, everything is a metaphor, even to a slightest degree, since archetypes are varied, yet eternal. Apologies if I went a bit tangential, what you said reminded me of certain things.
@@nickdrawschicks3463 Vent all you like my Filipino friend; greetings from some damp European corner 🤘 The absence of subtlety regarding sociopolitical commentary plagues every medium, not just American comics. These were already riddled with damning issues like pricing, unimpactful events, bluff deaths, nth reboots, &c. before the nu-sensitive crowds were given a platform, so I couldn’t care less about its dire state. What I’ll say is that you’re projecting onto your friends something that’s quite rare in most individuals - forethought & distinctiveness. Most abide by collectiveness hence their nosediving into what’s _en vogue_ while eschewing responsibility, i.e., they can’t live without a "scripture" and liberal capitalism fills that void with fast-food politickin' instead of meaningful collective ideals. Speaking of Sanctuary, its artist was featured in an episode of the mangaka documentary series _Urasawa Naoki no Manben,_ and I couldn’t help laughing at his unabashed tracing lol.
That frame at 9:12 looks like Canal Street in New Orleans, and that pig in the lower right corner reminds me of the character Ignatius Reilly from John Kennedy Toole's novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, which was set in New Orleans. It's an excellent read, and I highly recommend it.
Blacksad reminds me of Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds and Around the World with Willy Fog, both anime shows that I watched as a kid. Interestingly enough, both shows were Spanish and Japanese collaborations. (The two series are officially on RU-vid!)
I was waiting for Blacksad in its original French. I finally got a copy and enjoyed it well. I didn't remember it was set in America, but that makes sense.
I guess the animal choces come, or are much influenced by Spanish culture. Here in Spain when you want to say somene is the boss, you can say (between many other slangs) "es el gallo del corral" meaning "he´s the Rooster from the corral", also here when you want to say someone´s crazy, you´d say "Está como las cabras" or "Está loco como una cabra" meaning "He´s crazy as a goat" maybe from there the choice for a drug addict, don´t know, just a quick tought on it...
Hope you liked it at least haha I remember passing by the Spanish section in the library when I noticed that someone put a Blacksad Comic with the kid books alongside Captain Underpants. Moved it back to the adult section real quick XD.
