Grandville Force Majeure annotations

The annotations for Grandville Force Majeure by Bryan Talbot

Go to any of the Grandville Force Majeure annotations pages:

- Batch 1 for pages 1 to 20

- Batch 2 for pages 21 to 30

- Batch 3 for pages 31 to 40

- Batch 4 for pages 41 to 60

- Batch 5 for pages 61 to 80

- Batch 6 for pages 81 to 100

- Batch 7 for pages 101 to 120

- Batch 8 for pages 120 to 145

- Batch 9 for pages 145 to the end

 

We are still in the process of posting the Force Majeure annotations - new updates are published here every Sunday.

 

All of the previous Grandville graphic novels annotations are now complete:

- Grandville

- Grandville Mon Amour

- Grandville Bête Noire

- Grandville Noël


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.


Join the Facebook group for Bryan Talbot fans for lots of discussions and special offers announced on Facebook first.

 

The Bryan Talbot fanpage is also on Twitter - so give us a follow and join in the conversation!

 

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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.



Also see the Bryan Talbot t-shirt shop! - we've got a vast array of Bryan's images on lots of different t-shirts, as well as other items like mugs and fine art prints: - but if there's anything else you'd like just let us know on Twitter or at the Facebook group.


This is the only place you can buy original Bryan Talbot artwork - except from Bryan in person at a convention.


This is the new version of the Bryan Talbot fanpage
But the whole of the original Bryan Talbot fanpage is still online


Grandville Force Majeure annotations - batch 6

Grandville Force Majeure logo
Grandville Force Majeure
annotations - batch 6

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.

We are publishing updates to this page every Sunday and we will cover the entire Grandville series: we have already completed the annotations for Grandville, Grandville Mon Amour, Grandville Bête Noire and Grandville Noël - and in case you missed them, check out the first batch of Grandville Force Majeure annotations.


Start reading the Grandville Force Majeure annotations below, or jump straight to page 80, page 81, page 82, page 84, page 85, page 91, page 94, page 96, page 97 and page 98.

Page 80

Panel 1
“Farters Parters”: I’m almost certain that this name comes from an episode of Blackadder, arguably the best TV comedy series ever made, but, again, memory fails me. Please enlighten me if you know via the site’s Twitter feed.

Panel 5
“Robert’s your pater’s male sibling”: A U.K. expression to mean “there you go”, “it’s sorted”, “it will be done” etc. is “Bob’s your uncle”. I think this posh version is also from P.G.Wodehouse.

“Jenny” is a wren. Jenny Wren is the nickname of the character Fanny Cleaver in Charles Dicken’s Our Mutual Friend (1864/1865), but is predated in medieval nursery rhymes, one of which is quoted in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602).

Page 81

Panel 6
“Roger the Bull”: “Rodgering” is a term that used to be used by U.K. farmers to describe the mating of a cow with a stud bull, but seems to have since gone into common parlance to mean rough sex.

 

Page 82

The Hell Club: Koenig’s nightclub is a fantasy version of the real Le Cabaret de l’Enfer (“The Hell Cabaret”), founded in the late 19th century in Montmartre.  The waiters dressed as devils and the drinks had satanic names.

The Hell Club: Koenig’s nightclub is a fantasy version of the real Le Cabaret de l’Enfer (“The Hell Cabaret”), founded in the late 19th century in Montmartre.  The waiters dressed as devils and the drinks had satanic names.

Exterior of the Hell Club, Montmartre

Interior of the Hell Club, Montmartre

Interior of the Hell Club, Montmartre

The proprietor, one Antonin Alexander, also owned another nightclub next door  - Ciel (“Heaven”). L’Enfer existed as late as the early 1950s, when I think this rather amusing photo was taken.

The proprietor, one Antonin Alexander, also owned another nightclub next door  - Ciel (“Heaven”). L’Enfer existed as late as the early 1950s, when I think this rather amusing photo was taken.

Page 84

Panel 1
The nurse is a frilled lizard. She only raises her frill when she smashes LeBrock on the head on page 137.

Panel 4
“I could dash their brains out right now…”:

“I have given suck, and know how tender tis’ to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash’d the brains out, had I sworn As you have done to.”

Macbeth, Act 1, scene 7

William Shakespeare

Panel 6
Pickaninny: an old-fashioned racial slur, once used in the Southern American States to refer to the children of African slaves, and still used by some aging racists to describe any dark-skinned children.

Page 85

Meerkats come from the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, hence the name of the gang, and really do live in extended family groups, called “clans”.  The gang’s belief system, as touched on here, is based on the religion of the Kalahari Bushmen, the oldest surviving cultural group in the world, genetically very close to the original inhabitants of Africa, the first homo sapiens. Like many others all around the world, their creation myth involves a great flood that covers the earth. Mantis is their supreme being and his beloved sister is Blue Crane. The All-Devourer is a devil archetype, an evil monster.

Meerkats come from the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, hence the name of the gang, and really do live in extended family groups, called “clans”.  The gang’s belief system, as touched on here, is based on the religion of the Kalahari Bushmen, the oldest surviving cultural group in the world, genetically very close to the original inhabitants of Africa, the first homo sapiens. Like many others all around the world, their creation myth involves a great flood that covers the earth. Mantis is their supreme being and his beloved sister is Blue Crane. The All-Devourer is a devil archetype, an evil monster.

Panel 5
In the world of Grandville, Darwin was a chimp, often caricatured as such in real life.

In the world of Grandville, Darwin was a chimp, often caricatured as such in real life.

In the world of Grandville, Darwin was a chimp, often caricatured as such in real life.

Page 91

We’ve already met Korky the Cat (see page 78, panel 1 annotations). Beryl the Peril was another character in one of The Dandy’s sister comics, The Topper.

We’ve already met Korky the Cat (see page 78, panel 1 annotations). Beryl the Peril was another character in one of The Dandy’s sister comics, The Topper. Fred is a reference to Fred Basset, whose daily newspaper strip first appeared in the Daily Mail in 1963, written and drawn by Alex Graham, and since syndicated around the world. There have been book collections of the strips and, in the mid-1970s, there was a short-lived TV animated series. After the death of Graham in 1991, the strip continued, drawn by Michael Martin and Graham’s daughter, Arran Keith.

Fred is a reference to Fred Basset, whose daily newspaper strip first appeared in the Daily Mail in 1963, written and drawn by Alex Graham, and since syndicated around the world. There have been book collections of the strips and, in the mid-1970s, there was a short-lived TV animated series. After the death of Graham in 1991, the strip continued, drawn by Michael Martin and Graham’s daughter, Arran Keith.

Page 94

The morgue attendant HAD to be a vulture!

The morgue attendant HAD to be a vulture!

Page 96

Panel 1
“I’m going back to my ferrets”: I should have mentioned this on page 59! That’s one of the problems of being so busy trying to finish a book (Rain) that I’m writing these annotations on the last minute each week, just before James posts them on the site. When he retires, Hawksmoor says “I’m off to breed ferrets in Suffolk”. This is a Holmes joke. In 3 of The Conan Doyle stories, including His Last Bow, it’s stated that Holmes retired to Sussex to keep bees.

Page 97

Panel 1
“The Flying Squad”: In our world, this is a nickname for a branch of the London Police Force that deals with commercial robbery. In the world of Grandville, we see in a few pages that it literally means an airborne unit.

Page 98

Panel 2

The 3 chimps to the right really should have been Japanese macaques, as they are a reference to a famous ancient Japanese maxim. To quote Wikipedia: The three wise monkeys are a pictorial maxim, embodying the proverbial principle see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The three monkeys are Mizaru, covering his eyes, who sees no evil; Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil; and Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil.

The 3 chimps to the right really should have been Japanese macaques, as they are a reference to a famous ancient Japanese maxim. To quote Wikipedia:

“The three wise monkeys are a pictorial maxim, embodying the proverbial principle "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". The three monkeys are Mizaru, covering his eyes, who sees no evil; Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil; and Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil.”

The three wise monkeys are a pictorial maxim, embodying the proverbial principle see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The three monkeys are Mizaru, covering his eyes, who sees no evil; Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil; and Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil.

They were referenced in the trial scene in The Planet of the Apes (1968)

They were referenced in the trial scene in The Planet of the Apes (1968)

Panel 3
The “dog biscuit factory” where the gangs are meeting is loosely based on the real one in Limehouse, the old Spratt’s building, since converted into offices and apartments.

The dog biscuit factory where the gangs are meeting is loosely based on the real one in Limehouse, the old Spratt’s building, since converted into offices and apartments.

Now see batch 7 of the Grandville Force Majeure annotations.