Infinity 8 #1: “Love and Mummies” is Retro Sci-Fi by Trondheim, Zep, and Bertail

Big ideas, big images, retro sci-fi fun.

What Is “Infinity 8”?

Lewis Trondheim and Olivier Vatine mastermind this series.   It will run 8 albums in all.

To help capture the feel of the pulp comics it’s trading on, they’re releasing the books as 32 pages comics first.  So far, 5 albums (each collecting three comics) have seen print.  Two more will be released this year. One of them features America’s favorite French cartoonist on Twitter, Boulet.

Lewis Trondheim wrote the first story with Zep, famed cartoonist of “Titeuf.”  It’s drawn by Domique Bertail, artist on “Ghost Money,” another series the Magnetic Collection is currently publishing.

What is “Love and Mummies”?

The series kicks off by introducing us to Agent Yoko Karen, who’s part of the security squad on a spaceship that’s currently two weeks into a six week trip through space.  She’s quick with her blaster, and can fight her way out of any situation.

On the personal life side, she’s looking for someone to father a child with her, but she’s very picky.  A tri-corder of sorts can tell her what’s wrong with every guy she comes across. She dismisses all the depressives, the alcoholics, the heart diseased, etc.  It’s a nice, light-hearted way to introduce both her character and the ship she’s on, The Infinity.

The ship is filled with aliens, most of which aren’t humanoid at all.  The aliens are very alien looking, beyond just the usual human-with-Rick-Baker-makeup on.

If you’re looking for a diverse universe in a comic book, this is the one.  There’s over 200 races on the ship and Bertail delights in showing us as many of them as possible.

When the Infinity comes across a collection of questionable debris in space, she springs into action to investigate just what it is and how it might impact the ship.  The exploration off the ship leads to strangeness and an uprising inside the ship.

The Throwback Part of It All

Her outfit is functionally questionable.  It bares her midriff and her breasts spill out over her top.  The pants are skin tight, of course.  The boots have heels.

It all fits with the pulp history this book is calling on, though.  She’s a classic Space Girl pulp character, though with shorter hair and Asian features.  This feels like a male power fantasy serial you’d find in the pages of a classic “Heavy Metal” magazine, but with a woman in the lead role.

Yes, this means she’s also topless for a page.  Because the classic artists of yesteryear loved drawing that kind of stuff, too.

It’s a book that pays great homage to its roots in the way that it’s styled.  It’s an immersive experience that  way.

Some of the compositions and body language reminds me of Moebius, even, but that might just be his Silver Surfer graphic novel with Stan Lee calling….  It also mixes in a bit of Richard Corben.

(This is her Silver Surfer look, but on some kind of anti-grab shield device.  It works well in the comic.)

Why You Should Read This Comic

That said, there are a lot more — and I would argue better — reasons to read this comic.  Bertail outdoes himself with large and memorable images.

The ideas on these pages are almost tiring, they come so frequently.  There are many very memorable panels in this book, particularly in areas when Bertail pulls the camera back a bit and gives us an image of Karen in a new and more alien environment.  It’s a book packed with big ideas, which is a little easy to forget when you get caught up in the plot.

It’s all about the imagery, though.  Some pages looks very spartan and simple, but that’s often serving the artist’s attempt at scale.  When Karen leaves the ship to float through space and examine the debris field, she finds a series of interesting things, some of which might be obvious allusions to the female anatomy.

It’s the kind of stuff you might expect to find forced into a story in one of those hyper-sexual “Heavy Metal” stories of yesteryear. Here, it works half as parody. It feels like a similar style, yet this work stands on its own.

A Short Note on the Lettering

The lettering in this book looks like some sloppy hand lettering.

It’s still a computer font, but it does a great job in the way it mimics the chaotic and irregular way a human would draw letters on an artboard.

It looks like they used the same or a very similar font to what the original French production used. They went with the same look. I’m glad to see they kept the style in the translation.

There once was a time when all Franco-Belgian translations showed up in Whizbang font, and that drove me nuts.

Recommended?

It may be too early to go all in on this, but I’m enjoying it so far. The folks at Magnetic Collection list the series as a mature readers title for some nakedness and sexual references, so that might eliminate one or two of you.  But for the sheer power of the visuals and their composition, as well as the humor in the book and the retro feel, I’m all for it.

The book ends on a good cliffhanger, so I know I’m definitely reading the rest of this arc, and am excited about some of the future arcs, particularly the Boulet-drawn one that’s still way in the future here in North America.

One final note for long-time readers of this site: If “Infinity 8” sounds familiar to you, I’ve mentioned it before. It was on the list of 12 Franco-Belgian comics I wanted to see translated. Five of those book remain untranslated at this time, 10 months later.

— 2018.031 —

Buy It Now

Izneo does not distribute Lion Forge’s Magnetic Collection, unfortunately, so I don’t have a preview for you. Click through to the Comixology link to see a couple pages from the beginning of the book, though, and buy it if you’d like, digitally.  The paper version is available through the Direct Market today.