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Adèle Blanc-Sec #5
Le Secret de la salamandre
Avec les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle, Jacques Tardi rend hommage à la grande tradition de la littérature populaire. Rebondissements, coups de théâtre, intrigues alambiquées, savants fous, personnages fourbes et traîtres tous plus affreux les uns que les autres... Tardi joue avec jubilation de tous les ingrédients du roman-feuilleton, s'amuse à brouiller les pistes pour mieux dérouter le lecteur, tenu en haleine d'un épisode à l'autre. Son héroïne est un personnage doté d'une véritable épaisseur : ni potiche ni vamp, Adèle est une femme moderne et indépendante, en prise avec le réel. Et le trait de Tardi recrée à merveille l'ambiance du Paris du début de siècle. Une série créée en 1976.
Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1981
About the author
Jacques Tardi
291 books216 followersJacques Tardi is a French comics artist, born 30 August 1946 in Valence, Drôme. He is often credited solely as Tardi.
After graduating from the École nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris, he started writing comics in 1969, at the age of 23, in the comics magazine Pilote, initially illustrating short stories written by Jean Giraud and Serge de Beketch, before creating the political fiction story Rumeur sur le Rouergue from a scenario by Pierre Christin in 1972.
A highly versatile artist, Tardi successfully adapted novels by controversial writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline or crime novelist Léo Malet. In Malet's case, Tardi adapted his detective hero Nestor Burma into a series of critically acclaimed graphic novels, though he also wrote and drew original stories of his own.
Tardi also created one of French comics' most famous heroines, Adèle Blanc-Sec. This series recreates the Paris of early 20th century where the moody heroine encounters supernatural events, state plots, occult societies and experiments in cryogenics.
Another graphic novel was Ici Même which was written by Jean-Claude Forest, best known as the creator of Barbarella. A satire, it describes the adventures of Arthur Même who lives on the walls of his family's former property.
Tardi has produced many antiwar graphic novels and comics, mainly focusing on the collective European trauma of the First World War, and the pitfalls of patriotism spawned several albums (Adieu Brindavoine, C'était la guerre des tranchées, Le trou d'obus, Putain de Guerre...). His grandfather's involvement in the day-to-day horrors of trench warfare, seems to have had a deep influence to his artistic expression. He also completed a four-volume series on the Paris Commune, Le cri du peuple.
Fantagraphics Books translate and publish in English a wide range of Tardi's books, done by editor and translator Kim Thompson.[3] The books released so far are West Coast Blues (Le Petit bleu de la côte ouest), You Are There (Ici Même), and It Was the War of the Trenches (C'était la guerre des tranchées); a single album collecting the first two Adele Blanc-Sec volumes has also been published.
->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_...
After graduating from the École nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris, he started writing comics in 1969, at the age of 23, in the comics magazine Pilote, initially illustrating short stories written by Jean Giraud and Serge de Beketch, before creating the political fiction story Rumeur sur le Rouergue from a scenario by Pierre Christin in 1972.
A highly versatile artist, Tardi successfully adapted novels by controversial writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline or crime novelist Léo Malet. In Malet's case, Tardi adapted his detective hero Nestor Burma into a series of critically acclaimed graphic novels, though he also wrote and drew original stories of his own.
Tardi also created one of French comics' most famous heroines, Adèle Blanc-Sec. This series recreates the Paris of early 20th century where the moody heroine encounters supernatural events, state plots, occult societies and experiments in cryogenics.
Another graphic novel was Ici Même which was written by Jean-Claude Forest, best known as the creator of Barbarella. A satire, it describes the adventures of Arthur Même who lives on the walls of his family's former property.
Tardi has produced many antiwar graphic novels and comics, mainly focusing on the collective European trauma of the First World War, and the pitfalls of patriotism spawned several albums (Adieu Brindavoine, C'était la guerre des tranchées, Le trou d'obus, Putain de Guerre...). His grandfather's involvement in the day-to-day horrors of trench warfare, seems to have had a deep influence to his artistic expression. He also completed a four-volume series on the Paris Commune, Le cri du peuple.
Fantagraphics Books translate and publish in English a wide range of Tardi's books, done by editor and translator Kim Thompson.[3] The books released so far are West Coast Blues (Le Petit bleu de la côte ouest), You Are There (Ici Même), and It Was the War of the Trenches (C'était la guerre des tranchées); a single album collecting the first two Adele Blanc-Sec volumes has also been published.
->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_...
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 19, 2024
Dark Horse ¦STAPLED¦ ISSUE SIZE Edition = 03/1992 = No ISBN
->translated = Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier
Anglophones: besides all of the English Adele titles, "Adieu Brindavoine" should be read before this because it, and them, are copiously footnoted by the narrator. The latter is not mandatory to properly understand all of the characters and context-as I believe hers are- but I would have waited had I known.
Reading a Tardi series can be needy:
He weaves them together so intimately and references so heavily that I strongly regret the time that has elapsed between this reading and that of her previous title (which followed the others in short order) because I only half-remembered all of the villains and less of their motivations->exploits.
->translated = Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier
Anglophones: besides all of the English Adele titles, "Adieu Brindavoine" should be read before this because it, and them, are copiously footnoted by the narrator. The latter is not mandatory to properly understand all of the characters and context-as I believe hers are- but I would have waited had I known.
Reading a Tardi series can be needy:
He weaves them together so intimately and references so heavily that I strongly regret the time that has elapsed between this reading and that of her previous title (which followed the others in short order) because I only half-remembered all of the villains and less of their motivations->exploits.
June 19, 2024
3.5 ⭐️
December 18, 2020
Adele is only awakened from suspended animation on the penultimate page, so the real protagonist is Lucien Brindavoine, a character from other books by Tardi.
(Spoiler alert.)
Brindavoine tries to get himself demobilised from the French WWI army by infecting himself with gangrene. While it takes effect, he seeks refuge in a tunnel from German bombardment, and finds a totemic statue that tells him to find Adele, and to remember Megalobatrachus japonicus. The cave collapses. He wakes up in hospital without his left arm: it’s been amputated by Adele’s nemesis Dieuleveult, who is now an army doctor.
Brindavoine returns to his home in a suburb of Paris, where his former photographic model visits him in widow’s weeds. In the meantime, based in Manhattan’s flatiron building, the capitalist Lindenberg joins forces with the mafioso Coppola to capture the secret of the apparatus which Mouginot used to keep Adele alive.
Brindavoine passes the days as a flaneur in Paris, drinking and getting into fights for condemning the war. He sees a plague of giant salamanders taking over a department store, which he blames on delirium tremens, but is really a vision sent from Egypt by Adele’s mummy.
Dieuleveult and the mafiosi converge on Mouginot’s house. Dieuleveult is about to shoot Adele through the glass of her life support machine, when he is himself shot by a mafioso, and burned by a jar of laboratory acid.
In the natural history museum, Brindavoine sees another giant salamander, labelled with its scientific name: Megalobatrachus japonicus. He smashes the glass case, rips off the salamander’s head, and finds a letter inside which directs him to Mouginot’s house. There, he is caught in crossfire between Inspector Caponi and the mafiosi, but survives to reanimate Adele.
(Spoiler alert.)
Brindavoine tries to get himself demobilised from the French WWI army by infecting himself with gangrene. While it takes effect, he seeks refuge in a tunnel from German bombardment, and finds a totemic statue that tells him to find Adele, and to remember Megalobatrachus japonicus. The cave collapses. He wakes up in hospital without his left arm: it’s been amputated by Adele’s nemesis Dieuleveult, who is now an army doctor.
Brindavoine returns to his home in a suburb of Paris, where his former photographic model visits him in widow’s weeds. In the meantime, based in Manhattan’s flatiron building, the capitalist Lindenberg joins forces with the mafioso Coppola to capture the secret of the apparatus which Mouginot used to keep Adele alive.
Brindavoine passes the days as a flaneur in Paris, drinking and getting into fights for condemning the war. He sees a plague of giant salamanders taking over a department store, which he blames on delirium tremens, but is really a vision sent from Egypt by Adele’s mummy.
Dieuleveult and the mafiosi converge on Mouginot’s house. Dieuleveult is about to shoot Adele through the glass of her life support machine, when he is himself shot by a mafioso, and burned by a jar of laboratory acid.
In the natural history museum, Brindavoine sees another giant salamander, labelled with its scientific name: Megalobatrachus japonicus. He smashes the glass case, rips off the salamander’s head, and finds a letter inside which directs him to Mouginot’s house. There, he is caught in crossfire between Inspector Caponi and the mafiosi, but survives to reanimate Adele.
April 5, 2023
***SPOILERS for this and other albums in the series***
Album 4 marks the end of the first part of the story of Adèle. She is shot and when this book starts she is frozen in a life-giving liquid. Outside, the First World War takes place.
A kind of protagonist this time is Lucien Brindavoine, and there are several people from the album "Farewell, Brindavoine" who appear here. In this sense, this book serves as a sequel to the Brindavoine story. Or the Brindavoine story can be seen as a prequel to Adèle.
Brindavoine has been asked by Adéle's mummy to bring her back to life. At the same time, Dieuleveult is just as determined that Adèle must die, he never got so far as to have the machine turned off before the war, and since then he has worked as a military doctor.
Large parts of the album deal with the industrial magnate Otto Lindenberg (from Farewell, Brindavoine) and his attempt to achieve world domination in the wake of WWII.
The story is apparently rambling, it can be perceived as complex and intricate - or messy - but Tardi is in full control, he visits many of the themes he is concerned with; the brutality and madness of the war, power-hungry politicians and business people, incompetent police, etc. He also has great sympathy for the victims of the madness, such as Brindavoine, who spends the whole war getting drunk after losing his arm. The album is full of dark humor and the drawings are still top notch.
Album 4 marks the end of the first part of the story of Adèle. She is shot and when this book starts she is frozen in a life-giving liquid. Outside, the First World War takes place.
A kind of protagonist this time is Lucien Brindavoine, and there are several people from the album "Farewell, Brindavoine" who appear here. In this sense, this book serves as a sequel to the Brindavoine story. Or the Brindavoine story can be seen as a prequel to Adèle.
Brindavoine has been asked by Adéle's mummy to bring her back to life. At the same time, Dieuleveult is just as determined that Adèle must die, he never got so far as to have the machine turned off before the war, and since then he has worked as a military doctor.
Large parts of the album deal with the industrial magnate Otto Lindenberg (from Farewell, Brindavoine) and his attempt to achieve world domination in the wake of WWII.
The story is apparently rambling, it can be perceived as complex and intricate - or messy - but Tardi is in full control, he visits many of the themes he is concerned with; the brutality and madness of the war, power-hungry politicians and business people, incompetent police, etc. He also has great sympathy for the victims of the madness, such as Brindavoine, who spends the whole war getting drunk after losing his arm. The album is full of dark humor and the drawings are still top notch.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 2, 2024
Despite being the fifth album in the series, Adèle Blanc-Sec is mostly out of the picture here and Tardi leans on another recurring character in Lucien Brindavoine to carry this adventure. Brindavoine is tasked with bringing Adèle's lifeless form back to life from a vision received from her mummy and so he goes against Adèle's nemesis Dieuleveult in this story. Brindavoine, for his part, has become a listless idler as he drinks for much of his days due to injuries and trauma incurred during his service period in the trenches. It takes an extraordinary vision for him to spring into action and ensure Dieuleveult does not succeed in actually killing Adèle.
A lot of this is kind of rambling storytelling but Tardi's energy is felt throughout making it more frenetic than anything else. The story isn't as imaginative as some of the other Adèle Blanc-Sec stories I've read, but it's still pretty engaging. Those who might be more invested in the other Tardi works will probably enjoy the referential aspect more, but it mostly had an inert effect on me.
A lot of this is kind of rambling storytelling but Tardi's energy is felt throughout making it more frenetic than anything else. The story isn't as imaginative as some of the other Adèle Blanc-Sec stories I've read, but it's still pretty engaging. Those who might be more invested in the other Tardi works will probably enjoy the referential aspect more, but it mostly had an inert effect on me.
January 22, 2020
(PT) Depois de ter sido esfaqueada no final da aventura anterior, Adéle Blanc-Sec está congelada graças à técnica de Mouginot. Mas ele é abatido por Thomas Rove, que por sua vez, é morto por Dieuleveult, que tem a obsessão de abater Blanc-Sec. Ele quer destruir a máquina que a pretende manter viva, mas a 2 de agosto de 1914, a França tem mais com que fazer...
"O Segredo da Salamandra" é a quinta aventura de Adele Blanc-Sec, e essencialmente, ela fica adormecida enquanto o mundo muda a olhos vistos. A Europa enlouquece, mergulhando numa guerra sem sentido que dura quatro anos e novas personagens irão surgir para a ajudar a... primeiro, acordá-la, e depois mostrar a ela que as coisas podem ser um pouco diferentes do que tinha visto antes. Mas continuam a querer matá-la, apesar dos vários "plot twists"...
Mesmo assim, tem o seu quê de divertido e surpreendente!
"O Segredo da Salamandra" é a quinta aventura de Adele Blanc-Sec, e essencialmente, ela fica adormecida enquanto o mundo muda a olhos vistos. A Europa enlouquece, mergulhando numa guerra sem sentido que dura quatro anos e novas personagens irão surgir para a ajudar a... primeiro, acordá-la, e depois mostrar a ela que as coisas podem ser um pouco diferentes do que tinha visto antes. Mas continuam a querer matá-la, apesar dos vários "plot twists"...
Mesmo assim, tem o seu quê de divertido e surpreendente!
June 26, 2025
See volume one for comments on the series. This one goes off on a tangent by introducing many characters from another one of the author’s series, Brindavoine, who ends up being the main protagonist of this episode. That was unexpected. I’ll have to read that series to understand what’s going on in this crossover / fusion.
March 4, 2021
Comme je ne connaissais pas Adèle Blanc-Sec avant le film de Besson (en même temps la BD est moi ça fait deux !)et comme je suis curieuse...Enfin pas de chance, j'emprunte le seul album où on ne l'a voit pas (elle est momifiée !)
Donc bof...J'aurais du lire le premier !
Donc bof...J'aurais du lire le premier !
July 20, 2025
Despite Tardi’s distinctive art style, The Secret of the Salamander lacks spark. The plot feels like a disjointed parade of eccentric characters that fail to come together into a coherent or engaging story. What could have been an atmospheric adventure ends up feeling hollow and directionless.
March 8, 2025
J'avoue avoir été un peu perdu dans le récit, les personnages, les descriptions, heureusement le dessin est beau et on ne s'ennuie pas...
May 27, 2020
Qui n’aimerait pas Mlle Blanc-Sec? Elle est fascinante, flamboyante, a un côté loufoque-sardonique; un sens de l’humour décontracté qu’elle assume pleinement (pas étonnant que Dieuleveult l’en veut); L’univers d’Adèle Blanc-Sec est tellement convaincant qu’il transcende le spatio-temporel. Et les autres personnages, aussi singuliers avec leurs manies -leur fixation démesurée de l’hétéroclite; ils sont si réels qu’ils contrarient l’homme moderne qui porte généralement un œil critique et condamne tout ce qui lui semble ‘atypique.’ Dans un monde de ‘normal’, l’univers de Tardi est le canard dans le café qui n’existe qu’en hypothèse. Bref, viva au charme de la Blanc-Sec!
November 24, 2024
Pendant qu'Adèle échappe à la guerre de 14-18, c'est Brindavoine qui devient le personnage principal de ce cinquième tome des aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec.
Pour un souci de logique et une meilleure compréhension, il est je pense nécessaire de lire "Adieu Brindavoine, suivi de la fleur au fusil" avant de lire ce tome. Cette bd à été réalisée par Tardi entre les tomes 4 et 5 de Adèle Blanc-Sec, et bien qu'elle ne fasse pas partie des aventures d'Adèle, elle s'inscrit dans leur temporalité et on y retrouve des personnages du récit.
Pour un souci de logique et une meilleure compréhension, il est je pense nécessaire de lire "Adieu Brindavoine, suivi de la fleur au fusil" avant de lire ce tome. Cette bd à été réalisée par Tardi entre les tomes 4 et 5 de Adèle Blanc-Sec, et bien qu'elle ne fasse pas partie des aventures d'Adèle, elle s'inscrit dans leur temporalité et on y retrouve des personnages du récit.
May 23, 2010
Tardi maakt er een zootje van in dit album.
Read
December 24, 2015** read the translation
November 10, 2008
J'ai dit oui, alors!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews