Blacksad

 Blacksad

There’s something immortal about anthropomorphic animals. Why does it work? Why has it become so widespread and accepted? It’s a weird thing to do, right? I think it works because for a few reasons: Expressions can become exaggerated without becoming ghoulish. If you distort a human face into extreme positions, you enter the uncanny valley, where you think this should be human, but it isn’t any more. If you slap a monstrously wide grin on a dog, its still a dog. Certain animals have an expected cultural stereotype attached to them. Sly Fox, Dirty Rat, Proud Lion, etc. This does a lot of character work without needing much investment, and it allows the creator to play with these expectations. The form and size of the animals allows for interesting dynamics and world buildings.

I think most of all though, is that it creates a level of distance between the consumer and the message or theme of the piece, making it all the more palatable. For example, Zootopia (2016)* is a Disney movie about race relations, authoritarian regimes and culture wars. It’s a thinly vailed adaptation of the conspiracy that Crack Cocaine was developed by the U.S. government in order to insight hatred towards the Black community… A Disney movie, about A-Class drugs and racism, buried beneath a story about a rabbit and a fox. It allows for important topics to be displayed without making them overly depressing.

We definitely wouldn’t have Zootopia, without Blacksad.

*Zootopia in the UK, Zootropolis in the rest of the world… no idea why the UK has a different name.

What am I reading? Blacksad – The complete run so far. Written by Juan Díaz Canales, illustrated by Juanjo Guarnido.

What’s it about? John Blacksad is a big black cat in a big black world. 1950’s America is a noir dog-eat-dog landscape, ripe with corruption and crime. We follow John’s gumshoe footprints through his various cases and capers.

I reread the entire run as printed so far, I’ll talk through the titles separately. However, I won’t cover They All Fall Down, as the case is still open for at least another two volumes.

Somewhere Within the Shadows – The famous actress Natalia Willford is dead. Murdered in her bed. NYPD Commissioner Smirnov calls Blacksad in to identify the body. As her former bodyguard and lover, Blacksad investigates her death himself. The threads lead him right to the top of New York’s elite. But what is John seeking? Justice, or vengeance?

Artic Nation – Blacksad is called into the suburban ghetto known as The Line, to track down a missing child. The neighbourhood is fraught with racial tension and segregation. Fingers are pointed at the local police chief. Rumour has it, he has a dark taste and a darker past. John is joined by a new friend, journalist “Weekly”, a quick-witted ferret. Can they find the girl before it’s too late?

Red Soul – Blacksad is hovering just above rock bottom, taking a gig as a bodyguard in Las Vegas. Chance or providence has him cross paths with an old friend; a renowned nuclear physicist and philanthropist. The world soon starts to spiral. Conspiracies, which hunts, assassination attempts and government meddling. Can John protect his friend? And should he?

A Silent Hell – John and Weekly are shipped down to New Orleans to track down an AWOL jazz pianist. The romance of Mardi Gras hides a brutal battle between the wilful musician, his corporate representation and those who want him gone. The city holds many secrets. Can the pair find their way through the parade?

Amarillo – Blacksad embarks on a road trip across Americas heartland. A chaotic sequence of chance encounters and mishaps lead to John’s car being stolen and used in the disposal of a body. Blacksad is then mistakenly hunted by the FBI for a murder he did not commit. John is on the trail of the thief, and the feds after John, but who wins this game of cat and mouse?

What’s good about it? There is a quote from Stan Lee on the back of most of the books; “As good as it gets!”, and to quote Stan again… nuff said. Very few comics look as good as these. Very few comics feel as real as these. This is a triumph of the medium. I love a comic done in water colour. It’s so outrageously gorgeous. Each panel is a stunning glimpse into the world.

I don’t often talk about artistic techniques, not being trained or educated in these matters, but I think I need to explain something here. Hergé pioneered a comic approach coined as linge claire, or the clear line, in his adventures of Tin-Tin. What this means is that everything, everything, should be within focus for the reader through the use of clean, strong, linework with bold and precise delineating colours. Every layer should be as discernible to the reader as the focus subjects. This allows for an immense level of detailing and visual story telling. Absolutely perfect for the mystery genre: if you pay attention, you will see the story unfold before your told.

Guarnido was also an animator at Disney during the renascence. He worked on Tarzan (1999). This Disney training, mixed with the clear line approach, makes each page a feast for the eyes. The movements are so fluid, the expressions so perfect, the lighting so real, detail on detail on detail without becoming overwhelming through clear non-aggressive colouring… its superb. Genius.

I spoke earlier about animal characters creating distance from the themes or messages, but I think the fact that each of these stories are an unflinching, unromanticised look at fifties America could only be achieved by not being written by an American. Canales has that true Spanish style of No tener pelos en la lengua, something I’ve been accused of in the past. Its sad to say that most of the darker themes addressed in these books are still relevant today: race relations, white supremacy, the untouchable wealthy few, company towns, McCarthyism and the fear of socialism, cultivated culture wars, substance abuse, child abuse, strategized poverty, how veterans are treated, corruption of drug administration. He covers so much ground on the critical issues that still plague America.

Not only does Canales do all this within the themes, but he also captures them in damn good noir mysteries! First time I read these my jaw hit the floor with a few of the revelations. Rereading them, it was all there if you looked for it. Fantastic!

I’ve thought long and hard on if I could pick a favourite. I’m not overly sure if I can. I think Artic Nation, Red Soul and A Silent Hell are the better three. Artic Nation has the best twist – I did not see that coming when it was all there to see. Red Soul has my favourite messaging – America needs to take a good hard look at what it wants to be and how it wants to get there. A Silent Hell has the best story telling – this story is the only one not told in a linear manner, and that allows for some wonderful world building.

I want to end by talking about Blacksad himself. He is an icon in the truest sense of the word in my view. An intelligent, simplistic, recognisable design that sticks in the mind. A big, shorthaired, black cat, with a white muzzle, in a trench coat, smoking a cigarette. Instantly visible on the page even when not the object of the image. Then as a character he is charismatic, compassionate, commanding and compelling.

What did I struggle with? I love these books, but I do have a few issues with them.

I outlined the stories I preferred, and please don’t think the other two books I covered are bad, I just think they are weaker than the other three: I found Somewhere Within the Shadows a bit over written. I guess it needs to be as it’s the introduction to John and the world, but the narration got a bit too much at points. Amarillo is a romp. It’s good to see more sides to Blacksad however I feel it does loose something by not having a mystery at its centre. The switching viewpoints allows for some cohesion in the chaos, but it turns Amarillo into a fable more than anything.

There are some inconsistencies between the world they’ve created and the world they are trying to mirror; World War II canonically happened in the world of Blacksad, John even fought in Europe, you even see photographs of Nazis and Hitler (albeit in animal form). The American Civil War also happened, General Lee is named, and the confederate flag shown. If we have acknowledged such atrocities and the specifics of the victims and perpetrators, why do we have an analogue of the KKK? The Artic Nation are neo-Nazis in uniform and action on the streets, and dress in the white hoods with burning crosses behind closed doors, they are also deeply intrenched in the church and police force,  so why aren’t they just the Ku Klux Klan… why only change the name? A similar thing happens in A Silent Hell, where heroin is named but thalidomide is not. I think these discrepancies are probably legally advised to not tempt litigation from an offended party… whoever that party may be if they see themselves represented by villainous cartoon animals.

There is a moment in A Silent Hell that really took me out of the book. There is a piece of magical realism that baffled me. I appreciate that the point of this sequence is to rattle the reader, to make you ask questions, especially with the implications of the closing cover image, but damn did it confuse me. If I were writing it, I think I would have grounded it a little more in the real world. Maybe tie it to John’s time in the war, rather than his childhood.

My biggest bugbear with this series: pick a lane with the rules of being an animal. Take Zootopia, all the characters are the relative size of the animals they happen to be, and the world is designed to accommodate for these size and shape differences. The characters use the genetic attributes associated with the animals. Then compare that to older Disney movies such as Robin Hood (1973) or the Mickey Mouse cartoons or Duck Tales, where fundamentally everyone is human apart from their features. Blacksad kind of flits between the two. John uses his cat abilities such as claws, reactions, sense of smell and balance, but no one else does. The sizes are also inconsistent. Blacksad the cat is somehow simultaneously dwarfed by a hippo and taller than a horse? So, all animals that share an order, family or genus are roughly the same size: A cat is the same size as a lion or a tiger, a dog is the same size as a wolf or a fox, a rhino is same size as a hippo, but this doesn’t hold true to some animals like bears, birds or primates. It wouldn’t bother me if the fact they are animals didn’t play into the mechanics of the stories.

That brings me to another one of my favourite niggles in comics, the sexualisation. The noir genre rarely treats female characters as anything other than sex objects. Femme fatales or damsels in distress. However, Blacksad gives strong characterisations and agency to all the ladies it depicts. That being said, the way they are drawn is ludicrous. John looks like a cat, Weekly looks like a ferret, Smirnov looks like a German Shepard, but their female counterparts of Alma, Rose and Dorothy just look like women with animal ears and tales. Even within that design choice though its inconsistent, you see plenty of male reptiles and birds but no females… probably because its difficult to make an owl or a tortoise sexy. It’s so strange. Its like they couldn’t think of any other way to make them look feminine without giving them an hourglass figure, and you can’t stick tits on a crocodile.

Would I recommend? I think Blacksad is up there as one of my favourite comic series. It’s a truly timeless classic due to its period setting and phenomenal art. We need to remember Blacksad. American comics could learn a lot from it. Dark Horse published a collected edition that pulls the first three stories into one hardback. I’d seek this out. If you’re not grabbed by that, its not for you.