Grandville Mon Amour annotations

Go to any of the Grandville Mon Amour annotations pages:

- Batch 1 for pages 1 to 20

- Batch 2 for pages 21 to 40

- Batch 3 for pages 41 to 60

- Batch 4 for pages 61 to the end

 

Also see the annotations for all of the other Grandville graphic novels:

- Grandville

- Grandville Bête Noire

- Grandville Noël

- Grandville Force Majeure


Grandville Force Majeure original art and other Bryan Talbot artwork now on sale

Page 54 of Grandville Force Majeure by Bryan Talbot

Grandville Force Majeure original artwork is now available to buy.


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New Grandville miniatures are now available

Grandville miniature figures on sale at Crooked Staff

The Crooked Dice site now has not only LeBrock and Ratzi and Billie miniatures - but also Chance Lucas, Hawksmoor, Koenig and more!



Buy the Heart of Empire Directors Cut

This labour of love from Bryan and myself contains every single page of Heart of Empire in pencil, ink and final full colour format - as well as over 60,000 words of annotation, commentary and explanation from Bryan... - as well as the whole of the Adventures of Luther Arkwright!

Or see the Heart of Empire Directors Cut page for more details.



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But the whole of the original Bryan Talbot fanpage is still online


Grandville Mon Amour annotations - batch 4

Grandville Mon Amour annotations - page 4

This is similar in concept to the Directors Cut of Heart of Empire that Bryan and myself created: it is an attempt to answer the eternal "where do you get your ideas from?" question, and a way to showcase the influences and images that went into the creation of Grandville.

Below are the annotations for the Grandville Mon Amour, pages 61 to the end..

We are publishing updates to this page every Sunday and we will cover the entire Grandville series. Also see the annotations to the first Grandville Graphic Novel.

Start reading the annotations below, or jump to page 62, page 64, page 65, page 68, page 73, page 77, page 81, page 86, and page 94.

Page 62

Panel 9
In Hansel and Gretel, the famous children’s fairy tale, chronicled by the Brothers Grimm, the two children leave a secret trail of white pebbles as they are taken through the wood, enabling them to return home by following it.

Page 64

Panel 6
This is a 19th century map of Montmartre, where we can see the church of Sacré-Coeur and the reservoir LeBrock walks past on the following page. Incidentally, the “place” that you can also see on here is now named “Square Louise Michel” after the anarchist heroine and teacher who was the subject of Mary and my third graphic novel collaboration, The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia.

This is a 19th century map of Montmartre, where we can see the church of Sacré-Coeur and the reservoir LeBrock walks past on the following page.

Page 65

I’d already scripted the whole book and was in the process of drawing it when I reached this page and suddenly realised that I had no idea of what the factory in this next scene looked like or how it was laid out. I’d just had the idea that a dramatic sequence in a steampunk factory would be pretty cool. I already had many photos of steam-powered machines that I’d been collecting during research visits to the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and similar institutions, but desperately needed to get my head around how this factory was constructed, and exactly what it looked like. I went straight to Goole image search and began looking for “Victorian factories”. I must have spent an hour looking at factories all over the world, from Chicago to Hong Kong without finding anything suitable, save for the occasional piece of interesting machinery. I suddenly saw this photo of what looked like a photo of a gothic nave – with machines!

I suddenly saw this photo of what looked like a photo of a gothic nave – with machines!

Going to the site, I discovered that it was a shot of part of the Ryhope water pumping station, closed down since 1967, but now called the Ryhope Engines Museum and only open to visitors on bank holidays, staffed by volunteers who run the Victorian machinery.

I couldn’t believe it. Ryhope? That’s just down the road from where I live! Not only that, but it was a bank holiday Monday! I jumped in the car and was there in under 10 minutes. It’s an incredible building and I took dozens of reference photos. It gave me a great sense of place, smelling the hot oil and listening to the loud clanking and the whooshing sound of the giant pistons. I based the whole layout of the factory in this sequence on it, making it a fantasy version of the original – adding machines, increasing the size of others.

 

Page 68

Mastock’s “harmonica gun” is based on this one in the Paris Prefecture Police Museum.

Mastock’s “harmonica gun” is based on this one in the Paris Prefecture Police Museum.

Here’s a better quality photo of one.

Here’s a better quality photo of one.

Come to think of it, Mastock’s gun on page 39 was also based on one from the same museum. Should have mentioned this earlier. That’s the problem with writing and posting these annotations weekly.

Come to think of it, Mastock’s gun on page 39 was also based on one from the same museum.

Page 73

If certain scenes in Grandville are Tarantinoesque, this volume is definitely Hitchcockian. This whole dramatic set-piece in the factory is certainly inspired by Hitchcock, especially this page.

Page 77

The reason many of the French policemen in the Grandville books are swallows is that “Les hirondelles” (Fr. “the swallows”) is old French slang for the cops who wore capes, like the ones on this page. When they rode their police pushbikes, the capes supposedly flapped like wings.

Page 81

Belier: Fr. “Ram”. Should have mentioned this earlier too!

Page 86

This whole Westminster Abbey sequence – the public event interrupted by the killer being denounced on stage, and the chase to the top of the tower - is a very Hitchcock-like finale.

The version of the union flag, in the world of Grandville, is the pre-Napoleonic one.

Page 94

The final scene is set in the street outside and inside the grand Père Lachaise necropolis is Paris, last resting place of many famous people, including Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Yves Montand, Édith Piaf and Jim Morrison.

That's the end of the annotations for Grandville Mon Amour - but we have also published the annotations for Grandville Bête Noire.