comic strip gallery

Comic strips are ironic, sometimes. You can read them avidly and quickly, merely glancing through drawings that took their author a great amount of time and work. The more compelling a storyline is, the truer this statement is. However, there's always a second run-through, at least, when you look at the drawings and read the dialogue more carefully, appreciating their details more deeply. Some books have, with time, become classic works to which we regularly come back, always discovering new details.

I have always admired Edgar Pierre Jacobs, author of the comics series Blake e Mortimer. He is a perfect example of what I stated above. His stories are thoroughly captivating, thanks to the plot's consistency and the free-flowing narrative, and his sober drawings hide an exceptional graphic quality. He had a great influence in Hergé's work, with whom he teamed up from 1944 on. Actually, the clean and precise style that gave Tintin its reputation was partly due to Jacobs' intervention - just take a look at the colour and set evolution from The Seven Crystal Balls forward.

One of Jacobs' best-loved stories is La marque jaune. The entire story takes place in London, which Jacobs faithfully portrays, without ever having been there! Each strip is a woderful composition, especially the chase through the docklands under a thick blanket of fog. Amazing!

More comic strips here.