Korppien synkkä lento

Il était une fois en France #2

by Fabien Nury

Palkittu gangsterisaaga jatkuu

Joillekin hän oli rikollinen, toisille hän oli sankari. Olipa kerran Ranskassa kertoo uskomattoman tosipohjaisen tarinan Joseph Joanovicin vaiheikkaasta elämästä. Joanovici, orpo juutalaispoika Balkanilta, nousi miehitetyssä Pariisissa toisen maailmansodan aikana lumpunkerääjästä miljonääriksi ja Ranskan rikkaimmaksi mieheksi. Hän oli romunmyyjä, yrittäjä, kaksoisagentti, "Pariisin kuningas", huijari ja selviytyjä, joka vehkeili saksalaisten kanssa ja toimitti samanaikaisesti aseita vastarintaliikkeelle. Joanovicin tarina alkoi syksyllä 2011 ilmestyneessä albumissa Herra Josephin valtakunta. Nyt saaga jatkuu…

Olipa kerran Ranskassa – Suuri gangsterisota on sekä arvostelu- että myyntimenestys ja ehdottomasti viime aikojen hienoimpia sarjakuvia. Se palkittiin parhaana jatkuvana albumisarjana Angoulêmen sarjakuvafestivaaleilla tammikuussa 2011.

Genres: Bande Dessinée, Comics, Graphic Novels, War, Historical Fiction, Fiction, France

60 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Born in 1976, Fabien Nury began his career by co-writing with Xavier Dorison the script of W.E.S.T (Dargaud), a hit series illustrated by Christian Rossi (six volumes between 2003 and 2011). Nury independently wrote Je suis Légion (2004-2007, Humanoids Associés), a trilogy illustrated by the American John Cassaday. Translated into eight languages, the series continues with several other illustrators under the title Les chroniques de Légion (Glénat). In 2007 he also started working on Le maître de Benson Gate (Dargaud) with Renaud Garreta. From 2007 to 2012, Nury wrote the script for the six volumes of Il était une fois en France (Glénat). The historical series, illustrated by Sylvain Vallée, received wide critical and public acclaim (850,000 copies sold). Amongst other achievements, in 2011 he received an award for best international series at the Angoulême Comics Festival. Since then Fabien Nury has been gaining success in various genres: Mort de Staline (The Death of Stalin, Dargaud/Europe Comics, forthcoming), in historical narrative; Steve Rowland, volume 5 of the XIII Mystery series (Dargaud, art by Richard Guérineau) in thriller; Corey Silas ( Glénat, art by Pierre Alary) in detective series; and Atar Gull (Dargaud, art by Brüno) in literary adaptation, based on the novel by Eugène Sue. In 2013, he created Tyler Cross with Brüno, (Tyler Cross, Dargaud/Europe Comics, 2015) a noir graphic novel. The album was praised by both critics and readers (over 50,000 copies sold) with volume two in August 2015. In 2014, Fabien Nury published the fourth and final volume of L'or et le sang (Glénat), the script by Maurin Defrance and art by Merwan and Fabien Bedouel. With Tierry Robin he created the two-part series Mort au Tsar (Death to the Tsar, Dargaud/Europe Comics, 2015). In 2014, with Eric Henninot he also published Fils du soleil (Dargaud), an adventure album adapted from two novels by Jack London. As for audiovisual, Fabien Nury co-wrote with Dorison the scripts to a feature film Les brigades du Tigre (directed by Jérôme Cornuau, 2006) and a TV movie Pour toi, j'ai tué (directed by Laurent Heynemann, 2012).

Reviews

[Jenifaël · Rating 1 out of 5]

C'est très personnel et je regrette de ne pas être comme tout le monde car je trouve la thématique abordée et surtout l'angle de vue choisi vraiment passionnant et trop peu représenté, mais je n'arrive tout simplement pas à accrocher.

- Déjà, je ne parviens pas à identifier la moitié des personnages, je suis totalement perdue entre leur multiplicité et le fait qu'ils aient tous la même tête à mes yeux🙈. Bref, je suis totalement embrouillée, ce qui complique grandement ma compréhension de l'intrigue et de ses tenants et aboutissants, ce qui lui enlève quand même beaucoup de charme.
- Ensuite, je ne suis ni attachée ni même intéressée par aucun des personnages qui m'indiffèrent tous autant qu'ils sont. Il pourrait leur arriver n'importe quoi que je m'ennuyerai tout autant, je n'arrive pas à m'investir dans leur motivation ou leur situation😑.
- Enfin, les dessins ne m'attirent pas du tout. Je les trouve très plats avec des visages des personnages qui me semblaient très figés et loin d'être vivants😓. Les couleurs sont très sombres, ce qui va avec le thème, mais n'ont pas réussi de ce fait non plus à capturer mon attention.

Bref, je me suis passablement ennuyée à la lecture de ce tome, perdue par les personnages et l'intrigue complexe😭. Il m'a clairement manqué quelque chose (mais quoi, je ne saurais dire...) pour que je parvienne à m'intéresser à l'histoire pourtant intéressante qui est racontée. Tant pis pour moi, je ne lirai pas la suite.

[Koen Claeys · Rating 5 out of 5]

Opnieuw uitzonderlijk knap op alle vlakken.

[Janne Paananen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Me ajattelimme teitä usein, herra Joanovici...
"...kun tapoimme aikaamme sellissä."

Kylläpä paranee meno sarja toisessa osassa! Ensimmäinen osa selkeästi vasta loi alkuasetelmia tuleville tapahtumille. Toinen maailmansota ja saksalaisten saapuminen Ranskaan vaikeuttaa Joanovichin liiketoimia. Mutta vaikeudet on tehty voitettaviksi.

Korppien synkkä lento on juoneltaan mukaansa tempaava ja sisältää oivia koukkuja. Ihmiset joutuvat tekemään uhrauksia. Isoja uhrauksia. Mutta niitä on pakko tehdä. Ja jälleen albumi loppuu tyylikkäästi.

Eipä tässä sen kummepaa kuin seuraavan osan kimppuun.

[Stephane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tough times, drastic measure

The first volume of the series was more of a mise-en-place, a sort of origin story, I did not enjoy it as much as this one, which drops us right in the middle of the the war; the Nazis are occupying France, it is a time of crises for many, a time of opportunities for some, and for the protagonist, Joseph Joanovici, a time for both. It is a more linear structure, it is easier to follow and to understand.

I was interested by this little window to occupied France, you can appreciate the tension, fear and insecurity that permeates every aspect of life. You can see the desperation, and the greed, the thirst for power from some opportunistic thugs, that a shift in authority has created. Joanovici doesn't run away when he could have, he stays, but his motives are blurry. And he plays a very dangerous game... always conflicted between his identity, his love for his family, and his voracious hunger for money and power.

Originally, I did not think highly that the authors of this book admitted to a mix of factual information and fiction. I would have rather them choosing one route, either try to be historically factual or just make up a story. But I have come to understand, given the era depicted, that this was probably the best approach. After all even History (with a capital H) is often as much fiction as it is fact...

[Marellium · Rating 3 out of 5]

On avant dans l'histoire controversée et clivante de Joseph Joanovici. Il aurait d'abord collaboré, avant de devenir résistant, ce tome aborde la première partie de la guerre et on peut dire que c'est aussi écœurant que prévu.

Mais l'histoire est bien racontée, et le dessin continue de me plaire (alors que c'est souvent un point rédhibitoire chez moi pour lire des BDs), on verra si le protagoniste devient moins abject dans le prochain tome ou s'il continue de s'enfoncer.

[Zéro Janvier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Après un premier épisode qui jouait avec plusieurs lignes temporelles, ce deuxième album présente une structure plus linéaire. Il n’en est que plus lisible et le résultat m’a plu : c’est captivant du début à la fin, avec des personnages troublants, ni tout blancs ni tout noirs, qui survivent et se compromettent dans une période trouble.

[Vincent Saint-Cyr · Rating 4 out of 5]

If in France it is difficult to compare our TV series with the BCC, Netflix, HBO and other Production,
the quality of these comic books easily shows that Fabien Nury can used his talent to a great story with a great support.
The story is complex, not manichean, and enough closed to the french history to make it interesting to any good reader of Ken Follet and others.

[Henrik · Rating 3 out of 5]

So here we are, part two in Nury’s gangster epic about the man, who nobody knows and who nobody cares, except some ‘I live in a bin since the normal world scares me’ tossers and handful of French people.


Since I spent my previous review crying about the mood and pacing of the first book, and behold what happened.
In the second volume the all over jumping timeline has finally been established into a solid ground, this book taking place during 1940’s and Nazi occupied French.
That in mind, and because I’m an self-loathing prick, as a first thing I’m gonna cry about the mood and timeline, which are both fucked.
Now, I know what you may be saying.
“Henrik, you well-oiled sex machine! How after all the complaining that went on during the previous book, how can you now complain about the same thing, when in fact you just got what you wanted?”
The short answer is: “But that thing back into your pants and shut your face!”
The longer answer will be in a form of an lecture, so buckle up boy, this is going to be long and incoherent.

You see how when there’s a more than one part in the story that you are telling, you create an series.
And when there’s a series of some kind people tend to start reading it from the beginning, in order to fully understand what’s going on and to see the thing as a whole.
They don’t have the habit to jump into the series when it’s halfway on, because this just ads into the confusion and makes the whole reading experience that much harder (having to piece the puzzle together while it’s moving and all that stuff).
So in the first part of your series, when you start telling your story you create the mood and overall feel, that your readers get and some anticipation for them.
So when you start telling your story one way and then all of sudden you turn the whole thing upside down, it gets disorienting.
You can use that thing as clever twist, but this here surely isn’t a twist.
Throwing rocks at innocent baby’s cradle is a twist, this is dumbfuckery.
So when I picked up the first volume my first question was “the fuck am I reading”, but I got used to it.
Now there’s completely new set of pace than what I had gotten used to, so whit this book my first question was “the fuck am I reading, and why are these tits growing up in my back”.
Also this second book loses the overall feeling of the story.
When in the first volume you had this feel of loneliness and regret, how all these characters had fallen from grace during their chase for ghost (being that creed, revenge, justice or whatever), it isn’t in here.
It’s an common trick to show you the aftermath and then start to tell the story from the beginning, but the first part whit its jumping timeline didn’t do exactly that, but it got you used to this one way of storytelling and now you are dropped here.
The first volume also introduced us a punch of characters, that are now absent, but of whom you will still have to keep track of in your head, because they will be present in the end.
Not to mention that you also have to remember, the events that happened to these characters in the first book, since in the later parts there’s sure gonna be mentioning of them, but they aren’t going to be shown to you again.
It’s like trying to use your half eaten sandwich as condom. It may work, but there’s bound to be some bread grumps….But it is cost efficient so she can keep her yap shut all I care.

The graphics wise it’s the same as last time.
You are shown close ups of interesting things like, mouth, eating, drinking, French man’s feet.
But you aren’t shown disembodiment, man’s penis or gay erotica.
Violence is kind of scares otherwise too.
And where the hell is that tit, besides the ones growing out of my back.
There’s not even strongly hinted off screen rape, only mildly hinted off screen sex.

There’s also a punch of characters that come and go, but are not fully shown or fleshed out.
This can be explained, maybe Joanovici really didn’t see these characters that much, but they are this books most interesting side characters.

There are the bodyguard goons, the local body disposer “the doctor”, only the local fraud expert gets some time in the story, others are quickly introduced and the forgotten.
And even our expert just kind of is there, I would have like to see more of this guy and frauding of legal documents.
What comes to the whole nazi Germany thing, you are shown the beginning of Joanovicis dealings whit them and you are given some nice contrast to his actions (the way how he feels he’s helping the allies through sabotage and still making some profit) and the beginning of the hole he’s dropping, but the story is clearly left unfinished.

[Goo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ca. læsedato.

[Couet13 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Les allemands ont envahi la France.
Joseph Joanovici tire profit de la situation pour fructufier son entreprise de ferailles. Il vend au prix fort des métaux de mauvaise qualité aux envahisseurs, afin de saper leur production d'armes. Il se procure des papiers pour ses employés afin de les prémunir contre d'éventuelles rafles.
Même s'il la voit peu, la protection de sa femme et ses filles passent avant tout, et ne recule devant rien pour les mettre à l'abri.
Sa précieuse Lucie-fer est essentielle dans la réussite de ses projets, compensant ainsi son illettrisme.
Joseph est vraiment un personnage ambigu, on a du mal à percevoir de quel côté il se trouve, même s'il martèle qu'il travaille pour la France.
Il reste à lire la suite afin de voir comment ce dernier va évoluer pendant de conflit.

[Markku Kesti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarja heilahtelee siellä kolmen ja neljän tähden välimaastossa. Gummerus lupasi jo kuolemansuudelman tälle, mutta Apollo ilmoitti jatkavansa sarjan julkaisua mistä Iso käsi pienkustantajan suuntaan.

Täytynee katsella, jos tämän saisi sarjisvinkkauslistalle. Ainesta on, vaikka ei maailman häikäisevintä settiä olekaan. Lukee silti mielellään ja ilmeisesti todellisuuteen vahvasti pohjautuvat hahmot herättävät mielenkiinnon tutkia asiaa tarkemmin. Oliskohan sittenkin pitänyt antaa neljä tähteä?

[Dina Rahajaharison · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Vous êtes officiellement aryen."

[Pascal · Rating 4 out of 5]

On replonge volontiers dans le destin tourmenté, ambitieux, et opportuniste de Joseph. Les compromissions et alliances de la guerre, tout en pensant à l'après-guerre...