Jack Wolfgang v1: “Enter the Wolf”

The Elephant in the Room

This is not “Blacksad” and that’s OK.  It’s a crime comic, of sorts, with talking animals.  That’s it.

Yes, Juanjo Guarnido is a better artist, but “Jack Wolfgang” is still a good looking good with strong character designs that take advantage of the animals the characters are based on.

“Blacksad” is a noir private eye/crime comic.  “Jack Wolfgang” is a world-traveling spy book starring a wolf with roguish charms and a great cover story.

“Blacksad” is all animals.  “Jack Wolfgang” is humans and animals living together.

“Jack Wolfgang” feels very North American to me in its storytelling.  It uses some splashy images and fast-past storytelling bits. “Blacksad,” though set in America, feels more European in its storytelling to me, with carefully constructed tiers of panels and measured storytelling.

With that now out of the way….

The Origin

In writer Stephen Desberg’s world, humans and animals-who-act-like-humans live side by side.  That’s just the way it is.

Interestingly, there’s a text page right at the top of the book that explains how this came to be.  Stephen Desberg starts with some vague hand-wavey bits about how animals slowly gained their rights to live and operate in the human world.  They got the right to go to school with the human kids and their evolved literacy and speech abilities lead to greater acceptance.  They evolved to walk upright on their hind legs but still lived a life of second-class citizenry to the humans.

Peace finally came when meat and fish were replaced by a synthetic substance that could perfectly replace their flavors.

Of course.

It’s nice to know right off the top that this is a world that was slowly built, and that its creators know a lot about how everything works because they’ve used historical precedence as their jumping-off point — until the meat substitute comes up.  That’s where you get that one crazy difference that makes the book unique.

It’s good to see the relationships between humans and animals are as strained as any other kind of human relationship. And there’s a variety of animals represented across all the nations the book is set in, from cut bunny rabbits bundled in their winter coats to the dalmatian in police clothes.  Actually, there are a lot of cats and dogs in this book, but they’re not the overwhelming majority.

And we’re off to the races…

“Wolfgang.  Jack Wolfgang.”

He’s a globe-trotting food reporter.  But that’s just his cover. He’s really a C.I.A. spy.

He’s a wolf, so of course he uses his power of being irresistible to the ladies to help him get what he needs. At least, he tries to.  He’s not always successful.

After a failed mission puts the entire division of animal CIA agents under a dark cloud, Wolfgang goes out on his own to follow up on the case that lead to the death of his mentor.  That will take him across the globe and dead center into a global conspiracy involving hyenas, chickens, a polar bear, and maybe a puma?

Wolfgang is a cool cat, if you’ll pardon the feline reference for a dog character.  He’s easy to like and root for.  He’s in slightly over his head when it comes to this case, though, starting with the initial house break-in that goes awry (of course!), and leading all the way to the conclusion of the story. Every step of the way, someone else has the goods on him, and his supposed plans miss out on vital elements that dig his hole deeper.

He never stops trying, though, and he never doesn’t take an action. He’s in control of the narrative, even when he doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing.

Thankfully, he’s very resourceful.  Breaking out of restraints, evading gunshots, driving like a madman through the city, etc.  It’s all second nature to him.  That’s what makes this book fun. It’s the whole globe-trotting spy getting into scraps while trying to get the girl, solve the case, and bring justice to some small part of the world.

Wolfgang being a well-known and well-respected restaurant critic and food reviewer just gives him more excuses to travel the world and interact with interesting people.

Ultimately, what made me like this book is its third act, where everything come together and things get weird.  The ultimate showdown in this life and death gang involves Jack cooking for the villain to prove his chops, while his partner joins a camp that regresses to live like their natural animal selves.  In the midst of this silliness, you get the helicopters and the chase scenes and the hand-to-hand combat.  And, yes, explosions!

It’s wild and it’s entertaining.  It knows how far to push things with the story to live within its world, and it defines a pretty crazy world.

It’s much closer to “Zootopia” than “Blacksad,” now that I think about it.

The Art of Recule

Recule’s art, as I said before, feels more North American in its storytelling style.  It’s not a strict four-tier system with lots of panels bordered by straight lines and perpendicular gutters. There’s a full-page splash in here at a key moment, but there are also three-tier and five-tier pages, as fit the story being told.

It often feels like he’s bottling up the reader with lots of panels so he can unleash those peak moments where he opens up the page and draws much larger moments.  When he wants to magnify a moment, he’s good at carefully staging things to show the reader everything the reader needs.  There’s even a double-page spread in this book, with some inset panels along the bottom.

His character work is good, and only gets better when the animal characters leap into motion.  Here’s Wolfgang’s mentor, Rocky Dakota, leaping around, looking half Frank Miller and half Will Eisner.

The animal characters retain a lot of their natural animal look and feel while acting like humans.  They can change into more of their animal poses and motions when necessary.  It’s an interesting way that he straddles both sides.

His animal art often feels a little loose.  It feels a bit like he’s still searching for his style here.  It’s strong work and good work, but I’m betting we’ll see his animal work improve by leaps and bounds as this series progresses.

The Making Of

In the French edition of the second volume, there’s a little note in the margin on the first page that points out that the book was drawn in Clip Studio Paint and colored in Photoshop.  I found that interesting, having some interest in Clip Studio Paint, myself.

This lead me to an interesting rabbit hole, pun intended.  Recule maintains a YouTube channel, where you can see instructional videos as well as recordings of live videos where he draws pages from “Jack Wolfgang” on YouTube.  He is open about using Sketch-Up and other digital tools to get his job done.  It’s fascinating to watch him make and export his models, then make good use of cut-and-paste to move elements around in a scene as needed.

This is also where I learned that Recule and Desberg also created “Cassio” ten years ago, a book which is also just now coming out in English.

When it rains, it pours.

Recommended?

Yes.  It’s not as strong as “Blacksad” but it works well as a popcorn action thriller.  I like its sense of humor and the way it uses the animals.  There’s some fun absurd stuff in Desberg’s script, and nice art from Recule to look at.  That’s all I can ask for.

— 2018.069 —

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