Ekho v8: “The Siren of Manhattan”

A sommelier is killed, but why? Welcome back to New York City, Fourmille and Yuri!

I really liked this one…

A Bottle of Wine With Your Credits

What’s Going On?

After volume 7‘s lack of a murder mystery or the traditional Will They/Won’t They romantic tension between Fourmille and Yuri, this book gets immediately back to business. Fourmille transforms into the murder victim at the bottom of page three and we’re off to the races.

This book is a non-stop delight. It gets straight to the point, putting the characters on the trail and then on the run through the Ekho version of New York City, mixing well-known landmarks with reinvented architecture and creative creatures on the land, sea, and air.

It all leads up to a third act that’s as big and bold and crazy as anything the series has done to date.

We start with Yuri wining and dining Fourmille. Flush with cash from his bluebird social network sale (from volume 6, which I’ll review someday, I promise), he wants to buy into her agency. And, under that cover story, there might just be hints of further romantic entanglement. It’s never spoken out loud, but if you know the history between these two, you can’t help but read between every line of dialogue and wonder where that conversation is going. Christophe Arleston’s story does a good job of milking that tension for all it’s worth without making it the center of the book.

The conversation is derailed pretty quickly, though, when the popping of a cork leads Fourmile to be possessed by the spirit of the recently murdered Alexandre, the restaurant’s sommelier.

Yuri handles it with a great matter-of-fact spirit. He’s been through this before. It’s not a big deal for him anymore. He’s going to work the room to make sure Fourmille is comfortable and can do what she needs to do so she can get back to her own life.

In a way, it’s a very caring thing for him to do for her. Whatta guy!

He quickly guides her through what she’s thinking and what’s going on with this new person. This leads them into the kitchen and to the wine cellar, where they find Alexandre’s body.

Further investigation into the sewers of New York leads to their arrest, but they manage to escape and have an aerial chase through the city en route to finding the real story behind this man’s needless death. It’s strange enough that there’s no way you’ll ever see it coming.

I love this panel showing Fourmille and Yuri entering the sewer system of New York City. It’s beautifully composed, with multiple layers and a nice framing effect. The bright spot of color (from Nelwenn Lebreton, as always) from Fourmille’s lantern as they climb down the stairs is perfect, too. It’s all the parts of the panel working together to tell the one story.

Nothing is left unadorned, either. That pipeline (hey!) in the foreground is covered with moss or dirt of some kind, not to mention the mice crawling across. The great arch in the mid-ground leading to the characters in the background helps to frame the shot. The little waterfalls and even that steam in the lower-left corner all add points of interest and vertical space, as well.

This panel is not nearly as big as it looks — it’s the art doing its job to move your eye around.

Along the way, there are fun conversations about classic tall tales about New York City, as well as some callbacks to previous books in the series, most notably the crazy world of Central Park that we were introduced to in the very first “Ekho” book. Nothing is wasted, though, and it all has a point in this particular story.

I enjoyed the speed of this one and the focus on the mystery at the heart of everything. The creativity of the landscapes and the characters in the city — particularly with a couple of new preshauns we meet — continue to be a strong draw of the series.

Weak Spots in the Writing

That all said, it’s not perfect. First, in order to keep the reader abreast of what’s going on, there are a few places in the script where we get extended caption boxes to explain what’s going on. It’s not altogether bad. It’s a nice explanation for what you’re seeing, as the reader, but it does feel a bit like the exposition hammer just came out to hit you on the head, if only for three relatively large text blocks at a time.

The bigger problem in this book is that the translation was way off in a few places. There are many moments in the book where I got pulled out of reading it because something didn’t sound right. A word is weirdly repeated, or the wrong word entirely is used.

I don’t often review translations too thoroughly, just because I can’t read the original French to make an educated comparison. However, it’s easy to see when something should have had an extra editing pass or two. This book needed that.

The Changing Art of Alessandro Barbucci?

There’s something slightly different about Alessandro Barbucci’s work in this book, too. It feels a little looser and sketchier.

I’m not saying it’s rushed (that’s far too loaded a word), even though this is the second book in the series to be released in the same year. I think it’s a choice he made to loosen up with his artwork a little bit. The meticulously detailed backgrounds aren’t as perfectly drawn as in the past. The perspective is still good and all the windows are there, but they’re often not completely drawn in. They’re suggested enough that you follow them. The lines are a little thinner. Things look a little lighter on the page.

If this is your first Ekho book, you’ll think I’m crazy. This book is beautifully rendered. It doesn’t look like any corners have been cut. There’s nothing to complain about.

If you’ve been reading since the first book, though, you’ll see the difference. It might not even dawn on you at first what is going on. It took me a few pages before I realized what I was seeing. It is not a major change or a reinvention of Barbucci’s style. It’s a slight loosening of it, perhaps on purpose to keep the book from feeling too repetitive for the artist. Perhaps it was done to speed up production. Or maybe it’s just how he felt like drawing and that’s how it came out.

I flipped back to some earlier books and can instantly see the difference. There’s something that’s brushier about the linework in this book. The lines aren’t so delicate and perfect here. There’s a sense that Barbucci maybe used different inking tools for this book, or made a conscious decision to not be as precise as in the past.

It also feels like the pages aren’t as fully packed as they were in earlier books. There are times when Barbucci lets the colorist fill in the backgrounds when his half-page splashes aren’t needed. Those panels in between the larger moments have more negative space in them, whereas the older books would pack in all the detail behind the speaking character as possible.

Things are drawn larger on the page, like there are more medium and close-up shots, maybe?

I don’t know. I can see the difference, though, and had to point it out. I’m not saying it’s worse. In fact, I can argue in favor of it.

There’s a lot of character work that feels looser than usual, but it’s in an animated way. Characters run around a lot in this volume, and Barbucci emphasizes that with their less rigidly detailed appearances. It’s fun to see, and it works.

He’s pushing his characters a bit more. They pull more faces in this book, like a Jim Carrey performance rather than a more staid “serious” actor. He’s stretching himself as an artist to tell more story with faces than he might have done previously.

On the other hand, though, there’s this sequence where Fourmille, channeling her inner sommelier, gives a thorough description of the wine she’s drinking.

Barbucci’s style changes here again. This feels less ‘cartoony’ than anything I’ve ever seen in the series to date. Fourmille almost looks like she’s been modeled after a real person here. Fourmille looks more serious and more ‘realistic,’ so to speak. It jumped out at me.

It would make sense to do it on purpose for this moment, though. It’s Barbucci visually showing how much Fourmille changes when she’s thoroughly possessed by the dead’s spirit. Everything about her changes, not just her hairstyle.

Am I overthinking this? Perhaps. I love this series so much that I’m probably hyper-sensitive to any changes. I still love Barbucci’s art. Don’t mistake my noticing little things for any displeasure in the book, at all. This is probably my favorite book of the last three, for example.

Wait until you see the stuff Arleston and Barbucci pull off in the third act of this story. It’s huge and it’s hilarious. But I don’t want to spoil it on you…

Recommended?

Yes, absolutely and without reservation. This is a big crazy self-contained story that I enjoyed a lot and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to any Ekho fan.

Buy It Now

Sadly, Ekho is only available in English on Amazon. Izneo only has the French edition. It’s very hit and miss with Soleil comics, and this is one of the casualties of their decisions. I can’t believe there isn’t an English language print edition of this book by now, either.

Also, the price is only $4.99 since it’s not the latest volume. Volume 9 goes to the $5.99 price point. Volumes 10 and 11 (just released, as I publish this), alarmingly, have not been translated. Let’s hope that’s a temporary oversight and not a new policy.