Le Vagabond des Limbes

Le vagabond des limbes #1

by Godard-Ribera

album tapa dura con alguna marca de golpe en los cantos, buen estado general, edicion en frances de 1973, 46 paginas

Genres: Bande Dessinée, Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction

Comic

First published March 1, 1975

Reviews

[Tucker Stone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stupid shit, as bad as any mediocre superhero comic or a failed TV pitch turned Image series, or whatever generic genre flavor you happen to despise. While it’s become extremely trendy in the last few years to go online and bitch and moan endlessly about how little the U.S. comics scene acknowledges the precious Angoulême festival–despite the fact that Bart Beaty reminds us how incredibly boring the whole thing is every single year without fail–it’s always worth remembering that the only reason French comics are special in America is because we’re lucky enough to have people with pretty solid taste responsible for sifting through the detritus. And if ever there was detritus that needed sifting, it’s this, the Angoulême prize-winning Vagabond of Limbo, a French science fiction comic following the adventures of Captain Shithead and his moronic sidekick as they travel to Universal Studios and a caterpillar they bring with them makes everybody crazy. It’s about as exciting as getting hit in the head with a pretentious pipe wrench, except that it takes longer, and no one will feel sorry for you and ask you how you’re doing afterwards. I hated this comic almost as much as Chris Mautner hates EC Comics, but way less than Eddie Campbell hates Faust. If you’re making a chart. (I hope you’re making a chart.)

[Tristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have found a digitised version of this graphic novel on the Internet Archive. I haven’t read this for more than thirty years and I’m delighted to refresh my memory.

This is a very kitsch space opera, very sixties / seventies in its style with many nods to the Golden Age. But it’s also full of French eroticism, so not a kid’s book by any measure. The story writing is overly wordy, but it is poetic and introspective, dealing with dreams and infatuation and the question of what it means to be human. The art is startling in its technicolour imagination and it is deliberately ridiculous, blurring dream and reality. It’s all oneiric nonsense and yet deep. It’s unlike anything else I have ever come across.

One thing that is intriguing, looking back from today’s perspective, is the gender-fluid sidekick, an immortal who has deliberately chosen to freeze their development pre-puberty, intending to decide upon their gender once they have met the person they will love. Surprising for the rigidly gendered seventies.

Because it is so stylised, there are many things that rankle as well as many things that amaze (the flexible, living spacecraft in particular has influenced so much sci-fi in cartoons, movies, and TV), so it’s not quite a wow, but it’s definitely a series to explore and enjoy time and again. A definite four stars.

[Martel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relecture d'une BD culte de mon adolescence. Étonnant, mais il est exactement comme dans mes souvenirs.
Mélange de science fiction, d'aventures, de romance, d'érotisme et d'horreur, très daté seventies dans son style et dans les mœurs, un classique.