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Grandville Noël annotations - batch 3
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 and Grandville Bête Noire.
Start reading the Grandville Noel annotations below, or jump straight to page 41, page 42, page 43, page 44, page 46, page 48, page 49, page 50, page 53, page 54, page 57, and page 59
Page 41
Homage to a classic Tintin panel from The Secret of the Unicorn, showing Marlinspike Hall.
Page 42
Panels 6 – 8
Here, I was trying to do a comic panel equivalent of a reverse tracking shot, or dolly zoom. First used in Hitchcock’s Vertigo and with stunning effect in Speilberg’s Jaws. I drew the foreground and background separately, then matched them together on the computer, zooming in on Billie’s face and zooming out from the background. I also added a slight zoom effect and put the foreground in the first panel out of focus.
Page 43
Panel 7
Unicorns are famed for having a weakness for virgins. In myths and fables, unicorns can only be caught by using a virgin woman as a lure.
Page 44
As stated earlier, Chance is a homage to Lucky Luke. As I write this (2nd November 2018) the 80th volume of his stories is released in France today and it’s about – Lucky Luke being in Paris!
Panels 3 & 1 next page
This is exactly how religious cults operate.
You’ll notice that quite a high proportion of the followers are sheep. One acolyte comforting Billie is Disney’s tacky version of Winnie the Pooh.
Page 46
André Pegasus and his chums return. LeBrock first meets them in Grandville.
I can’t remember which classical nude painting I anthromophosised (if that’s a word!) to decorate Pegasus’s apartment.
Shish is reading a book about Arsène Lupin, a fictional gentleman thief and hero of many prose stories written by Maurie Leblanc (1864 -1941) and others. There have been films, stage shows and comics, including manga, based on him. Leblanc is often described as the French equivalent to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Clock is reading Modesty Blaise. A long-running comic strip about a female adventuress, created by author Peter O’Donnell and artist Jim Holdaway, and first published in the London Evening Standard, but serialised all over the world. There have been film versions and novelisations. Notably, John Travolta’s gangster character is seen reading a Modesty Blaise book on the toilet, shortly before he’s shot in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1999).
Page 48
Panel 3
Lucky Luke never shoots to kill.
Page 49
Here LeBrock sets the trap for Tiberius Koenig, using himself as bait, precipitating the events in the final volume, Grandville Force Majeure.
Page 50
Panel 2
There did actually used to be a theatrical costumiers at the Carrefour de l’Odéon (literally “crossroads of the Odeon”) in Paris up until a few years ago. It was where I bought my “big shirt”.
Panel 4
Clockwork orang (utan)!
Page 53
Panel 7
Loosely based on The Turkish Bath by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780 – 1867).
Page 54
I was particularly pleased with the voice of Doc. To make sure it sounded authentically American, I ran it by top US comic author Kurt Busiek, who kindly suggested a few improvements.
Page 57
Panel 8
Astraea: The Ancient Greek virgin goddess of innocence and purity who left the earth when humanity became wicked to become the constellation Virgo.
Page 59
Panel 1
The building is The Grand Palais, close to the Champs Élysées.
This fascist speech is even more relevant today than when I wrote it, six years ago, given the on-going rise of the extreme right all over the world. Just this week we’ve seen the election of a Hitler-wannabe maniac as president of Brazil. It’s frightening, not just with Trump and Brexit, but countries in Europe are turning far right, one-by-one, backed by big business. It’s like a return to the 1930s, with small-minded, mean-spirited racist ideology growing like a cancer.
Panel 4
The Arthur Sarnoff dogs return from volume 1, this time joined by a female poodle, an occasional member of his canine cast. See Grandville annotations, page 97.
Now go to the fourth and final batch of Grandville Noël annotations.