1949. Quelque part en Europe centrale, existe un orphelinat où sont admis des enfants qui ont survécu au contact d'un mystérieux virus transformant les gens en monstres. L'arrivée d'une nouvelle pensionnaire, Sarah, une petite fille de 10 ans, va mettre en lumière les secrets que renferment les vieux murs de ce lieu que ses pensionnaires nomment le manoir des murmures.
This is interesting. If you like Pan's Labyrinth, you might like this. I am getting frustrated by the girls always hating each other, aka "only one good girl" trope, however.
Très belle découverte. Une histoire entrainante et un brain angoissante avec un suspense bien mené et croissant. Et comment ne pas parler du dessin et surtout des couleurs : magnifique ! C'est sûr, je vais me laisser tenter par la suite !
This is volume one of a Spanish graphic novel series. I have read both the French and English editions, but only the English one is on Goodreads as yet. Both editions are available on kindle unlimited.
The art is superb: detailed, dynamic, expressive, full of visual storytelling. The colourist is unusually (for a European cartoon) given equal billing to the writer and inker, but this is fully justified as colours provide much of the information in each panel. My only gripe is that some of the panels are too small: I want more!
The story writing is very good, maintaining the mystery and the tension whilst letting all the characters, even minor ones, grow sympathetically (except perhaps the Marketa character - what’s up with her?) and add to vampire lore rather than stick to tropes.
I think the English translation is a bit dodgy in places. French seems to work better.
Overall, a pleasure to read and reread. I’ll definitely be following the series.
The Devil's Backbone is one of my favorite films, so when I learned that co-writer David Muñoz had written a series of graphic novels, I jumped at the chance to read them. The first book introduces us to Sarah, a young orphan, and a few of the other isolated residents of a Czechoslovakian orphanage in 1949. They are not the only creatures in the building -- ghosts? monsters?