Don Vega v1 by Pierre Alary
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Don Vega, v1: “Zorro” on the Border

“Don Vega” is a good introduction to the mythos of “Zorro,” taking classic parts of the character, setting it in a very specific time frame, and adding interesting pieces as the book goes along.

Since it has the amazing Pierre Alary handling the art, it’s an easy book to recommend.

Alary Credits in America

Don Vega v1 cover by Pierre Alary
Writers: Pierre Alary
Artist: Pierre Alary
Colorist: Pierre Alary
Letterer: Cromatik Ltd.
Translator: Matt Madden
Published by: Dargaud Benelux/Europe Comics
Number of Pages: 95
Original Publication: 2020

Some Background on Zorro

The Mask of Zorro movie title

The sum total of my Zorro knowledge comes from the 1998 film, “Mask of the Zorro,” which I’d argue is really good. Coincidentally, Patrick H. Willems did a video essay on the movie earlier this year in which he praised its virtues. I couldn’t disagree with any of it.

As it turns out, the movie and this book, “Don Vega”, share a lot in common. It’s something that writer/artist Alary even mentions in an interview. He says he had written the story before seeing the movie, and chalks up the coincidences to deriving the story from similar sources.

In other words, I went into this book mostly free from any expectations. I have no particular Zorro nostalgia nor even the most basic knowledge of the mythology past the horse and cape.

Much like the second season of “The Mandalorian,” I enjoyed it a lot even if it sometimes felt like I was missing out on something because I wasn’t completely familiar with all the background materials. At least that kept me from expecting things from characters I “should” know in advance…

What’s Going On?

The book, thankfully, begins with a text page to set the story in a specific place at a specific time.

This is something I normally wouldn’t say. Who wants to start a comic with a history lesson? I agree with that, but as someone who studied American History in college, this is the kind of history lesson I can appreciate.

Zdoesn’t ever need to stop the story to jam in a page of awkward exposition or caption work to explain to the reader what’s going on.

It’s the beginning of the 1849 gold rush in California, and one local greedy businessman (always the villain in North American stories) is taking advantage of the shift from Mexican-owned territory to U.S.-controlled land by grabbing up as much land (and the gold mines underneath it) as possible before the rule of law is established in the state of California.

The legend of Zorro serves to inspire the locals in their fight against him, but it’s ultimately unsuccessful. None of the would-be Zorros can stand up to a single foe for longer than two panels.

Zorro rides his horse away from hacienda

Until, one day, Zorro shows up.

It’s a bit of a weird story. There’s a lot of set-up at the top to dramatize what’s going on. Alary holds off on introducing the “real” Zorro for more than 30 pages. And when he does, there’s not a huge amount of weight behind his actions. We get his background story eventually and we can piece together from the text page why he does what he does, but there’s something about the pacing that bothers me. The story goes where it needs to go and does what it needs to do, but there are times when it feels a little too paint-by-numbers for me.

That said, there’s a lot to recommend in this book. The story is still good, even with my quibbles over some pacing. The hero is heroic and gets in some good (and well-explained) sword fighting skills. The villain is a real moustache-twirling jerk who you want to see taken down.

There are a couple of nice twists in the story, one of which will lead you to read some earlier scenes in the book in a new way when you go back to reread the book. I love when that happens.

And, of course, there’s Alary’s art.

The Art of Pierre Alary

A fake Zorro takes it on the chin, nearly literally, in Pierre Alary's "Don Vega" v1

Alary worked at Disney Features Animation in the days when Disney had a studio in France. He worked on “Tarzan,” amongst other films. His style shows some of that influence. It’s not as strong here as with some of his earlier works, like “Belladonne” and “Sinbad.” This book is a little less “cartoony.” The characters are well designed, but don’t go quite as far in their actions as with other books. There’s a stronger emphasis on staging and camera placement, it feels like to me. Of course, these are also skills that work well in the world of animation.

In comic book terms, this book feels more like Darwyn Cooke’s “Parker” or Chris Samnee’s “Black Widow” than Jeff Smith’s “Bone.” There’s movement, but not exaggeration.

The big bad man wants to break the will of the Zorro believers

Even with all the Zorro-related action moments, the book is still mostly not an action book. It’s mostly talking heads interspersed with very short action sequences. The first lengthy one that runs ten pages doesn’t even start until page 34.

It’s still very impressive art and super impressive storytelling. Reading an Alary book feels a lot like looking at a “Matrix” movie and being able to picture how how the storyboard must have looked. Every shot is choreographed and blocked perfectly.

In a few panels, I’m reminded of Ralph Meyer’s work on “Undertaker.” In a way, this is a western comic, so it would fit in with that series, which is set a few decades later, I believe. But there are some specific panels, particularly with the horse chase near the end, where I could see Meyer making similar storytelling choices. (Meyer would just use thicker ink lines and more solid black areas.)

Alary’s Screentoned Shadows

From a strictly technical point of view, Alary went old school in making this book. He added screen tones to the entire book. He didn’t add those in Photoshop, either. He cut them out with an X-Acto knife. Watch this video to get a glimpse into that working process:

On one hand, I can’t believe anyone would go through that tedious process when Photoshop exists. You can get pretty darn similar results in a fraction of the time.

On the other hand, I love seeing this old school craft still at work. And you can’t argue with the results! The tones generally express areas that get colored in separately from the blank spots around them, but they still show through. They’re awesome.

Screentone process by Pierre Alary for "Don Vega"

Here’s a quick example. You almost don’t notice the dots on the screen tone at first. They’re packed in there pretty tightly, and Alary’s coloring process let the screentones handle the work of creating “shadows,” anyway.

But look closer:

Now you can see it better. That’s not just a shadow on the side of his face drawn in with a Photoshop Paintbrush and Lasso tools. That’s serious old school screentone awesomeness. I haven’t seen someone embrace it on a project like this so hard since John Byrne’s “Namor” 30 years ago… He used whatever tone usad diagonal lines instead of dot patterns.

Both patterns come stock with Clip Studio Paint, though. Progress!

Limited Colors

Alary’s attention to detail carries through the colors, which he did mostly by himself. (In this thank-you note at the end of the book, he mentions someone who helped him finish the colors as he approached the deadlines.)

Lettering sample from Don Vega v1

The book is mostly colored in yellows, drawing from the sun-drenched lands in which the story takes place. But watch carefully and you’ll see how he changes color palettes entirely as it suits the story. Most notably, when Zorro makes his grand appearance, the book goes black, graye, and white. Scenes set in the mines get a more brown tone to them. And night scenes have a steely blue color mapping.

It’s a very limited set of colors that Alary works with. Each works for specific scenes for specific reasons. When there’s a moment of high drama or a big twist, Alary will add an extra tone or an extra complication to the color to let you know. A brighter set of tons from when flames fill the scene disappear to a flatter color scheme in the flashback that the story segues into.

The Only Problem I Have with the Book Is…

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, it’s the lettering.

First, it’s the font. I don’t like this font. There’s something about it that annoys me. But that’s a preference on my part, not a technical problem.

Don Vega gets a ten yard penalty for Illegal Use of the Crossbar I

The technical problem comes with the crossbar-I character showing up too often. It doesn’t happen all the time, but there are a few times when a sentence begins with “IT” or “IT’S” that the crossbar shows up.

It looks to me like the letter cut-and-pasted the script into Illustrator. The capital “I” forms in standard sentence case would automatically get the crossbars, even at the start of a sentence where the word isn’t “I”.

I’m likely the only person who will notice it enough, but this is my website, so I get to complain here.

Recommended?

Yes.

As always from Pierre Alary, it’s an impressively drawn book. I hope it turns out to be very popular, just so Europe Comics has the right incentive to dig back into Alary’s catalogue. This is Alary’s first translated work, but there’s a lot more beautiful work I’d love to read next. (I like his style so much that I have a couple of his books in the original French.)

While the story’s pace feels a bit uneven in a couple of spots, it’s still a good story, well told. Pierre Alary’s artistic style and storytelling are always worth looking out for, and this is your first chance too see it in English. Be your best comics hipster self and dig into Alary’s work now before everyone else stands up to take notice of it after another couple of books.


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2 Comments

  1. This is to me another one of those european books that feels like it would look better in B&W than in color.
    Are you telling us that you’ve never read the wonderful Alex Toth Zorro strip from Dell/Gold Key based on the first few episodes of the Disney show from the 50s ? It’s a must-have for any collector and the French version from Futurolpolis is so gorgeous.
    http://www.gallimard.fr/Catalogue/GALLIMARD/Futuropolis/Futuropolis-fonds-ancien/Copyright-bande-verte/Zorro

    1. Unfortunately, no, I never saw those Zorro strips. I think the last time they were reprinted in North America was about 20 years ago, so I missed my chance. I would love to see them. My appreciation for Toth has only grown over the years.

      Wait, I just checked Amazon. There was a reprinting of them five years ago. You can get a copy there for just over $800 now. The digital version is available for $15, so maybe I’ll treat myself to that someday.

      Wait (again!), I just checked eBay. The book I’m thinking of is from 2001 and is available on eBay for about $20. I think I’d like to have it in print, so that’s a definite option there… These reviews aren’t supposed to cost me money! 😉