Familiar and Unfamiliar Aspects

Unlike the Crime SuspenStories we read a few weeks, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec has done a decent job in creating a developed suspense, mystery, crime plot. Jacques Tardi created a nice interplay of text and image to help create the suspense necessary for a mystery, crime genre comic. He used panel transitions not only to help convey the suspense but to also effectively counteract the issue of too much text.

It was difficult to keep up with all the characters, especially since many of the side characters were men with glasses, black suits, mustaches, and black hair. However, the artist/writer almost makes up for it with the use of episodes to separate each story since some of the characters also transfer over to the next episode. The transition from Pterror Over Paris and the Eiffel Tower Demon began this trend of having a major story line divided into sections that had their own mini plot lines that I don't think we have seen before in class. Basically, Tardi left his audience at a cliffhanger that finished the plot for that episode but would be the start of the next episode. Because of the confusion of "who is who?" with the multiple side characters, it was nice to have the preview on the first page of The Demon of the Eiffel Tower (apparently this is also the title of the second episode/part two). It reminds me of that reminder/preview that some TV shows add into their episodes of what happened in the previous episode. I can see that this is a helpful refresher while we wait for the next episode BUT doesn't it also suggest that the writers know that their episodes were incredibly confusing and complicated?

Tardi also did something different from the SuspenStories by making his title character a strong, independent female! Adele is the main character who takes on an interesting role of being the protagonist yet being involved in crime (antihero?). Apparently the reason she became involved is because she writes books about crime! Yes, she is sexualized sometimes (e.g. naked in someone's dreams, taking a bath), but she doesn't have stereotypical female characteristics and she is not put down by the other men for being female. Rather, they are against her because she is against them (i.e. both are after the same thing). Overall, she is pretty cool.

Note/Just a Thought: Does this feel like a mixture of the SuspenStories and The Adventures of Tintin? Doesn't Caponi seem like Inspector Jacques Clouseau from The Pink Panther and Thompson and Thomson from Tintin?