Djinn: Vol. 1

Djinn #1-2

by Jean Dufaux, Ana Mirallès (Illustrator), Noel Hynd (Translator)

A young woman retracing her roots in Turkey stumbles upon an astonishing legend in this thrilling erotic adventure comic.Fifty years ago, Jade served the Black Sultan as part of the Imperial Harem, but Jade was no ordinary harem girl—she was the sultan’s favorite. Rumored to be a djinn from the Ottoman Empire, she had the power to manipulate men’s hearts, subtly alter their convictions, and even affect the course of an entire war. The legends also say that Jade, and Jade alone, knew where the Black Sultan hid his treasure . . . a treasure that no one has ever managed to unearth.Now, fifty years later, Kim Nelson is reliving the life of her ancestor Jade in modern Istanbul, hoping to find answers that have been lost to history. It will be a long journey, a journey that will change her life forever.Contains Djinn 1 and Djinn 2

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

106 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Jean Dufaux is a Belgian comic book writer. Beginning his professional career as a journalist for "Ciné-presse", Dufaux started writing comic books in the 1980s. Perhaps his most well-known, and certainly his most long-running, series is Jessica Blandy.

Reviews

[Mariia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Вибачаюсь, а чому так гаряче? Не витрималась і купила колекційне видання українською, щоб дізнатися продовження. Сказати, що сюжет посередній, можливо, але та тонка грань між минулим та теперішнім, яку пробудовує автор, вражає. Також це поєднання еротики з головним сюжетом таке професійне, прочитала просто на одному диханні!

[Maisie Dickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

- Interesting premise
- Jade is stunning
- Malek is godamn precious gift
- the art style was great

[Yoshiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Przedstawiona w albumie historia rozgrywa się na dwóch różnych osiach czasu. Pierwsza z nich przedstawia czasy współczesne, gdzie główną bohaterką jest Kim Nelson. Młoda Brytyjka mieszkająca w Turcji, która niestrudzenie poszukuje informacji o swojej babci. Kobiecie, która swego czasu należała do haremu „czarnego sułtana”. Jest ona gotowa na naprawdę duże poświęcenie, aby tylko odkryć historię swojej przodkini. Druga oś przenosi czytelnika do roku 1912, gdzie odkrywane są przed nim sekrety wspomnianego haremu i ukazywane losy żony brytyjskiego dyplomaty, która została uwiedziona i wykorzystana w celu zdobycia informacji o posunięciach wojsk korony. Te dwa wątki nieustannie się tutaj ze sobą przeplatają. Równolegle obserwujemy więc losy dwóch kobiet, które zostały wykorzystane i jednocześnie same dzięki swojemu wdziękowi i pięknu wykorzystywały mężczyzn. Ta przygodowo-historyczna otoczka komiksu dodatkowo doprawiona jest porcją pikanterii i odrobiną bardziej fantazyjnej treści.

Jean Dufaux to twórca, który ma w swoim dorobku wiele naprawdę dobrych i ciekawych dzieł. Patrząc tylko na sam opis fabuły albumu Dżinn #1, śmiało można więc stwierdzić, że jest to kolejna niezła pozycja w jego bibliografii. Niestety pierwsze zauroczenie bardzo szybko mija, pozostawiając po sobie dość znaczący niesmak. Fabularnie album jest bowiem dość przeciętny z kilkoma lepszymi (ale również gorszymi) momentami. Największą bolączką tytułu jest to, że ma on potencjał do bycia czymś naprawdę niezłym, co niestety nie zostaje należycie wykorzystane.

Do zalet i jednocześnie wad komiksu należą fragmenty poświęcone Imperium Osmańskiemu. Z wielką ciekawością obserwuje się tutaj odmienną i na swój sposób fascynującą orientalną kulturę. Wiąże się to również z wielką polityką i intrygami, gdzie cielesność staje się jednym z możliwych narzędzi do osiągnięcia celu. Pasjonaci historii szybko jednak dostrzegą, że rekonstrukcja przeszłości i trzymanie się prawdy nie jest dla twórcy czymś istotnym. Początkowy silnie wyczuwalny historyczny akcent scenariusza, zaczyna skręcać w stronę baśniowo-fantazyjnej tematyki.

Z kolejnymi stronami wspomniany harem, ukazywanie wydarzeń dziejących się przed I Wojną Światową, polityka i intrygi stają się jedynie pretekstem do ukazania bohaterek w mniej lub bardziej odważniejszych erotycznych scenach. W wielu momentach można wręcz odnieść wrażenie, że twórca niespecjalnie wysila się do nakreślenia jakiegoś bardziej sensownego powodu, aby kobiety zrzuciły z siebie swoje odzienie i wykorzystały swoje wdzięki.

Na całe szczęście przedstawiona tutaj erotyka nie jest w żadnym stopniu przesadzona. Owszem ma ona kilka mocniejszych/odważniejszych momentów, w żadnym jednak przypadku nie są one niepotrzebnie wulgarne. Do erotycznego stylu albumu nie można się więc przyczepić i trzeba przyznać, że Dufaux sprawnie wykorzystuje ten element dzieła do zainteresowania odbiorcy.

https://popkulturowykociolek.pl/recen...

[Bluebelle-the-Inquisitive (Catherine) · Rating 3 out of 5]

But now , let's embark on a journey together ... Bronze doors swing open, a woman's voice beckons you in song,
Everything is but a mirage. — Jean Dufaux (author's note

Djinn is all nudity, sex and female power. If this is your thing you will love it if it's not then you're going to hate it and likely not get through much more than a few pages. I want to mention this is a translation from a French publication. This is volume was in two parts. Part One was originally titled La Favorite, part two Les 30 Clochettes, The Favourite and The 30 Bells, respectively. These are descriptive titles, I wish they'd been used in the translation.

Djinn tells what the authors call a three-way love story. It's not a simple triangle, it has higher stakes than that. The whole story is told in echoes. Kim Nelson is our present-day protagonist. She has some of her grandmothers, Jade's power, and is living the echoes of her grandfather's first wife's, Lady Nelson. The two settings are 1912 and contemporary Turkey. With the 1912 plot points revolving around WWI and Turkey's alliance with Germany. Dufaux's author's note provides the relevant historical framing.

It is worth noting that is a harem the women, the slaves are the ones with power. They can get what they want by manipulating their master, by action, by words. But the stakes are high leading to the rather distressing death if a child (ordered by Jade, she is ruthless), and believe it or not it is an almost logical action on the moment proving just how good the writing is. The writing is good its hard to make this sort of plot work well, some points lead to predictability but this works. Lady Nelson and Kim are different enough to lose that sense of repetition. And while Jade and Lady Nelson are pan/bi respectively Kim is closer to het. She has a lover but it feels like he's not a focus, well not at this point.

I have volumes 2 & 3 from the library, I will read those. This isn't my usual thing. But I'm glad I read it

It seems to me that you have only ever been handled by men. That's just not right. Only a woman can truly satisfy another woman. — Jade

A representative gif:

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm game to try all kinds of graphic novels from Europe, and picked this one up simply because it looked like it was set at the tail end of the Ottoman Empire and the art looked solid. It combines the first two of the original French-language books in the series (La Favorite and Les 30 Clochettes), and is really just the first part of a longer story, so don't try this without realizing this book doesn't wrap anything up.

The story toggles back and forth between the present day and 1912, as Englishwoman Kim Nelson is in Istanbul, seeking out the mysterious past of her grandmother "Jade." Her grandmother was a favored member of the fictional Sultan's harem who seduced the wife of a British diplomat in order to learn of British strategy. Kim has a tenuous thread to follow in the hunt for her grandmother's history, one which quickly takes her to some dark corners. All of this is kind of standard thriller fare, but there's an erotic overlay to it all that seemed fairly ill-considered to me. 

The story seems to want to present sex as a powerful tool wielded by women, but the Jade character's actions over the course of the book are those of a pimp and not made any more palatable just because she's female. She sexually manipulates the diplomat's wife and requires her to satisfy a thirty-member array of sexual partners in order to please her. Similarly, in the contemporary timeline, Kim has to service thirty guerilla fighters in order to simply meet someone she thinks might have information about her grandmother. Along the way, there is a lot of nudity and sex, which seems like more of the point of the whole thing. 

It's also worth noting that Kim rapidly picks up a hunky clean-shaven local lover with very European features, but whenever she is sexually menaced or assaulted, the men are darker, hairier, larger-nosed stereotypes. The whole thing reeks of a very stale and more than a little offensive Orientalist mindset, and while the art is quite good, it can only reflect the script. Recommended for fans of explicit graphic novels, but I don't think I'll bother picking up the rest of the story.

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

TBH the only reason I'm giving this 2 stars is the artwork.

I like trying out translated works from other countries, so I picked this one up because it looked like an interesting setting (Turkey at the end of the Ottoman Empire) that I don't read a lot about. Also djinn are a fascinating part of mythology so I wanted to see where this would take it. I really wanted to like it.

Now this purports to be erotica, but honestly it's not at all erotic and feels more and more forced the further we get into the volume. While it seems to be claiming that it's reclaiming sex as a tool for women, Jade is nothing but a manipulative pimp in her timeline, and her granddaughter Kim is coerced forced to pleasure 30 random dudes for the just the mere possibility of finding out more info about her grandmother in the other timeline. Where's the power in any of that. And certainly not what I would term erotic, it's just gratuitous sex for the sake of sex.

In addition to that all of that, it didn't escape my notice that most of the time there's anything violent towards Kim and somewhat other women, it's notably the hairier men with darker skin tones rather than the men with European features who are portrayed if not gentlemanly, as more restrained or refined.

Anyway, though I have the next two volumes and it undoubtedly wouldn't take long to read, I don't think what I've read so far makes me curious enough to finish, nor do I think the conclusion would make hate reading it worth it. And I can see that one of the later volumes involves them being in Africa, so given what I read here, I don't even want to know what colonialism bullshit they'll have in that volume. I will be unhauling these.

[Matt Kelland · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguingly different setting: Turkey in the run-up to World War One, and modern-day Istanbul.
It's hard to imagine American comics publishers deciding to put out a story about political intrigues in the Ottoman Empire: it's refreshing to read something that isn't superhero nonsense. As with many European comics, it's heavy on the nudity and sexuality, but it's all there in service of the story, not just cheap thrills.

[Magnus Frederiksen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm..
Lara Croft light försöker hitta sanningen om sin mormor och tar vid där hon sluta. I ett harem. Efter en ceremoni där hon måste ligga en hel del. De erotiska inslagen finns där men det hela känns som en mjuk variant av Emmanuelle, som är det mjukaste av mjukporr. Fint illustrerat och bra skrivet. Historien är tilltalande. Men.. hade gärna sett mer snusk ändå.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art and writing is just compelling enough that I want to know how the story ends. But the eroticism seems more and more forced as the story goes on. Seems like the author should have decided whether to write erotica OR mystery, not an erotic mystery/thriller

[Freya LaRouge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good

I have just started reading graphic novels and I decided to try this one out. I wasn't quite sure as ov what to expect, but I ended up enjoying it. I hope I will be able to find number 2 translated into english.

[Bill Coffin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Remember the really unfortunate racism and colonialism you found in the early volumes of TinTin? Okay, take that, now add a lot of softcore pornography and nonsensical dialogue that pretends to be about something important. That's what this is.

[Justin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read it but I didn’t finish it. It’s pretty terrible.

[A.j. Garner · Rating 2 out of 5]

I mean...it had boobs. Plot seems terrible.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.6 stars

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of puerile and "RACY" and silly. It could get interesting, but I'm not sure it's worth the time.

[Joey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story is kind of meh but the art style is cool. Every 3 pages there is a naked woman or someone is having sex and that's interesting I guess.

[غادة]

Enjoyable

[Rana Biswas · Rating 4 out of 5]

the artwork earns an extra star

[(a)lyss(a) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is a bit confusing - the story is told mostly through the artwork and flashbacks. I picked these up as a way to practice my French and while I haven't been wowed I'm interested to see where it goes.