Raven v1: “Nemesis”

Mathieu Lauffray is back, and he’s bringing pirates along with him again! This is an exciting start to a new series, with stunning art and panel designs.

Shiver Me Credits!

He’s Not a Bad Pirate; He’s Just… Unlucky

“Raven” features two key characters, one of whom has an almost spooky power.

That’s the titular Raven. He’s a pirate who brings a streak of bad luck with him.

Or maybe he’s just not a great pirate?

No, he really catches every bad break possible. It’s so well known in the pirate community that nobody wants to work with him for fear that he’ll accidentally bring down their ship. He’s a complete jinx! (For X-Men fans, he’s the anti-Longshot, minus the mutant power.)

Circumstances and a few choice friendships keep him in action, though, but it’s his own initiative that takes him on his greatest adventure in this new series.

His foil for this book is Lady Darksee, the dreaded pirate who everyone fears. She’s smart, takes no prisoners, and controls all in her command. When Raven does his due diligence on her, he doesn’t like what he sees. When they do finally meet, her reputation precedes her, and his reputation precedes him. Put those two strong personalities together, let them bounce off each other, and watch the sparks fly…

You’ll root for Raven, despite himself. You’ll know when he’s pushing his luck too far, but he’s not self aware of that. He’s just a bit too overconfident with himself, which is really what tends to get him in trouble.

Yes, there’s a bit of a comparison to be made here to the pirates in Asterix, who know his presence means they’ll be sunk within minutes. It’s slightly less comedic here, but Lauffray’s timing in his storytelling is strong enough that I’m sure he could pull one off someday.

The plot in the book is easy enough to follow. There’s one info dump, but Lauffray has proven in previous books that he’s really good at handling such things with visually impressive double page spreads. “Raven” is no exception. Lauffray is drawing a textbook in his various series in how to use a double page, well-designed montage to give visual interest to exposition.

While it’s a serious book and bad things happen with bad people, there’s also a thin layer of humor over top of all of it. It gives the book a little sparkle without turning it into a contest of one-liners between antagonist and protagonist.

It makes sense — Raven’s situation is so messed up and unusual that his reactions to it are just as darkly amusing as it takes to keep his sanity. He’s a gruff pirate, but he’s also occasionally sarcastic and quick with a put-down.

This book is attempting to set up a lot of stuff for the rest of the series. It keeps things relatively contained, but the book does seem to start off with three unrelated plots entirely before they eventually come together.

It’s not a boring origin story and it’s not a rundown of characters who don’t do anything in the book. Everyone is active and things do tie together by book’s end, while leaving enough mysteries up in the air to propel you to the next book.

I’m hooked and I want the next volume immediately, but —

The One Down Side to This Book

All of the other Lauffray books/series I’ve read were complete when I read them. (“Long John Silver,” “The Book of Chaos“, “Valerian: Shingouzlooz Inc.“)

This is the first book of a series currently in progress. Honestly, I don’t even know how many books it’s going to be, though I’d suspect it’ll be three or four.

I’m excited that there’s more coming, but waiting a year between books is going to be strange. On the bright side, that schedule means I’ll have an excuse to re-read this book every year for the next few years until the series finishes.

What can I say? I try to look on the bright side of good comics..

The Art of Lauffray

Lauffray is one of those European artists who you may not have heard of before, but professional comic book artists you enjoy have, and overwhelmingly enjoy his work.

His style is very organic, filled with scratchy lines and heavy black areas to balance the pages out. He can draw anyone and anything and make it look interesting.

The closest American comparison I can think of would be to Marc Silvestri. That fits double in that Raven does bear a slight resemblance, facially, to Conan, who Silvestri began his career drawing. But there’s also that conspicuous line work and detail in his backgrounds. Looking at this faces, I can see a little Rick Leonardi (as inked by Al Williamson) thrown in there, too.

I could pick apart all of the storytelling tricks that Lauffray uses in the book, from guiding the eye to open areas to the rule of thirds to the golden ratio to employing strong foreground elements and beyond. I analyze the artwork in more depth in “Raven: The Art of Mathieu Lauffray.”

Lauffray is one of the most exciting cartoonists currently working in France. He’s definitely one of a select few who I think could break through in the North American market amongst readers who want something closer to the standard superhero stylings they’re reading now. Not that he’s stuck drawing a single body type and drawing everyone in spandex, but that his ability to dramatically draw a story with a style that’s not Franquin- or Herge-influenced will do him well here.

For those who only want to read stuff in print, you’re in luck. Most of his stuff is in print, including everything I showed you above. I’d start with the “Long John Silver” series, which I could write a book about how good it is. (OK, maybe not a book, but a longform article, for sure.)

One Quick Lettering Note

Yes, there are a couple of incorrect crossbar-I letters at the beginning of sentences in this book. And that’s in a font that uses the lowercase “I” in the middle of words, like how Asterix did it.

But I’ll forgive them because I like the font and the various word balloon shapes so much. The font has a lively bounciness that you’d normally expect to see only in hand lettering. Everything isn’t perfectly straight or round or parallel. Some letters are slightly taller or wider than others. That irregularity gives the lettering a great hand drawn feeling, even though it obviously isn’t.

Lauffray’s word balloons fit in well with that. There’s nothing regular about any of them. He draws everything from ovals to rounded rectangles to irregular jagged-edged rectangles. They even knock out the panel borders.

That all said, check out Lauffray’s actual hand lettering:

It’s glorious, isn’t it? It’s loose, playful, large, bouncy, irregular, and slightly out of control. You can see the thick and thin edges of the letters from the hand-drawn strokes of his pen.

It’s like Lauffray is lettering for me with this book. He knows all the tricks I like….

Cromatik Ltd. handles the lettering on this translated edition. They picked a good font that follows the feeling of Lauffray’s hand lettering style about as close as you’re going to get. They never stood a chance at replicating it.

Recommended?

Absolutely.

Any new Mathieu Lauffray book is worth dropping everything for, and this one doesn’t disappoint. Not only is the art some of the most gorgeous stuff in comics today, but the story has a great balance between menace and comedy. Lauffray can do both with crazy skill, like few others in comics. (Even Kevin Maguire — he can do great comedy, but I can’t picture him drawing something terribly dark and this foreboding.)

You can pick up the book at either Izneo or Comixology.

Or, if you’re a really big fan, there’s a special edition book out of France. It’s oversized, hardcover, and includes bonus art and three pages from book two. You can get it from StuartNgBooks.com. If you do, send me a picture and make me instantly jealous.