It all started back when we were playing Call of Cthulhu a couple years ago. Caleb, the keeper of arcane lore (the CoC version of the Dungeon Master) lent his copy of Dungeon: Duck Heart to me. I read this French produced comic book knock off of D&D and really liked it, but I didn’t want to borrow another volume because I knew I didn’t have time to read it.
Flash forward to last week or so. Now I’m working on comic books, finally, and since my studio is above RX Comics I am in the comic shop weekly to see what’s on the shelves – something that hasn’t happened since I had a box subscription at the comic shop in Abbotsford while I went to college there. On top of a pile of books I saw this:
I flipped through it and saw that there were two stories in the book. I remembered how much I liked Duck Heart and decided to give this a go. It was wonderful! Charming, cunning, hilarious, and pleasing to the eye. I was so taken that I went back in to RX a day or two later and asked if they had more. And they do! I picked up this:
which was even better than the other two. Another couple of days and I’ve picked up two more, which I haven’t read yet. But I just had to blog about the best comic book find since Hellboy!
Kick ass! I didn’t know there was a new one out. What little of Lewis Trondheim’s work I’ve read has been fantastic. A.L.I.E.E.E.N. was paranoid and funny.
Hopefully more of his comics will be trnslated from the french. . .
Donjon is incredible! I’m lucky enough to be living in Montreal with access to the Bibliotheque Nationale which has a huge, well-stocked and well-cared for bandes-dessinées section. I use it regularily to practice my french reading comprehension. Donjon is one of my favorites and I’ve now read almost all of them. There are 4 separate and ongoing series, all teling narratives from different stages in the history of the donjon. They also made a book that is actually the rules for a roleplaying game set in the world of Donjon. It’s super rules light, almost “indie” and looks really fun. The comic is amazing, so crazy and childlike but then suddenly and shockingly adult.
Here’s a link to the RPG rules, drawn and lettered by Sfar:
http://www.pastis.org/joann/jdr/jdr.html