Louca v2: “Face-off”

Following the successes in volume 1, will things go to Louca’s head?

Of course they will.

The Events of the Volume

Louca might be the star of the school from his successful antics on the soccer field in the first volume of this series, but he’s still the hapless loser with no luck.  He may rock a trendier hairdo and dress like the more popular kids, but he can’t help himself.  He fails at art class, he can’t train for soccer with hurting himself, and then he does something really stupid:

Louca challenges the rock star player of the rival school’s soccer club to a one-on-one soccer battle. Without Nathan’s help, does he stand a chance against the highly skilled Hugo? That’s the question that drives the middle third of this volume. The final third features the big game against Hugo’s team.

And that’s when his soccer game is delivered the killing blow.  The odds are stacked against Louca to begin with, but when new limitations on Nathan’s powers are discovered, is Nathan doomed to look like the fool on the field again?

Those are the big questions. We still have plenty of subplots going on, too.  Those range from the relationship between Louca and Julieto the expectations of Louca’s little brother that might prove impossible to fulfill, to some other things I don’t want to spoil in this volume.

There’s a lot of stuff going on. It’s all centered on Louca and his soccer skills, but it’s far-ranging.  Dequier starts off with a soccer story and delivers all the goods there with the action moments. It’s the trickle down effect, though, that the soccer puts on his relationships with this younger brother and the girl he has a crush on that delivers the goods.

The “Louca” Mythology

In the first volume, we had cryptic hints of dialogue towards things that went back in the past.  No doubt, it’s all connected to Nathan’s (the ghost soccer player) death.

In the second volume, more of that comes out, as we get flashbacks to start laying out the story.  The dialogue works around the story a bit, but as the book continues, things clear up a bit.  This isn’t the book where everything is explained, but you can certainly start to piece it together for yourself.

And the question of the limits on Nathan’s powers start to come out, too, and how he’ll be able to overcome them, if need be.

Dequier is piecing together the puzzle now in such a way that it isn’t confusing and frustrating. Yes, you want to know the full story, but you know more than the characters do, and you are getting enough to be satisfied that Dequier knows what he’s doing for and isn’t dragging you along as a cheap storytelling stunt.

It’s also not interrupting the main thread of Louca’s story.  That’s still front and center, but these short branches into Nathan’s story will crossover into his life soon enough.

The Art of Dequier

I said in my review of the first volume of the series that I was slightly worried that Dequier would start taking more artistic shortcuts as the series wore on and deadlines tightened up on him.  I was concerned that his animation skills translated well to the page, but they didn’t solve all the problems of telling a story in the comic book format.  Could he maintain the level of the first book, and learn a few things as he goes along?

While there’s still a lot of speedlines and more close-up angles than I feel comfortable with, Dequier’s art is great in this volume.  There are lots of scenes with a larger number of people and lots of back-and-forth dialogue.  Dequier solves those storytelling problems smartly, mostly by using a lot of smaller panels.

Rather than the more traditional wide angle highly detailed backgrounds, Dequier relies on the acting of the characters to tell the story, and to use panel breaks to break up the dialogue into manageable chunks.  That kind of rapid storytelling cutting works well for this book.

He also uses a few other storytelling tricks in this book, like this progression of panels featuring Louca in the center of the panel as different backgrounds surround him to indicate the passage of time and another event after each gutter.

He’s using the medium well to tell his story, partially in ways you might pick up from Hollywood, whether from studying storyboards or watching movies and taking lots of notes.

I also like the way he draws the soccer games.  There’s a lot of energy in those drawings. He uses not just the speedlines but also some extreme angles and interesting color choices. You feel like you’re on the field in the middle of the team during the games.  It’s a lot of fun.

The Cliffhanger

Warning: This book has a cliffhanger.  It’s a good one.  I flipped straight to the third volume once I hit the cliffhanger on this one.  I had to know what happened next.

So, yes, it worked.  I am happy, however, that I’m reading these books long after they were originally published.  I get a faster publication schedule for that, and won’t have to wait a year for the next part.  We live in an era where lots of “back list” material that is pretty great is available now.  Why drag yourself through the monthly grind?  Get the whole story now…

Recommended?

Yes, while I was hesitant at some aspects of the series after the first volume, I see that now as the introductory book it was meant to be.  Dequier had to set everyone up with that first book.  To keep things from getting confusing, he held back on the complications and interrelationships that will make this book so much fun to read, and give you characters to root for.  That starts with this book, and only gets better as the book goes along.

— 2018.058 —

Bonus: Who Did It Better?

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