Blacksad by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido
Let me begin by saying that Blacksad is a fantastic romp that had very few drawbacks. I'll start with the art. As you can see by the picture above, it's good, it's accomplished, and most importantly it was done in watercolor, appearing to be completely created in the real world. I'm a huge fan of traditional media and Blacksad spoke to me instantly because of this. The character designs are inventive, the expressions are spot on and the whole endeavor is just an absolute pleasure to look at. And that's no surprise as the illustrator, Guarnido has worked for Disney (Tarzan), and it shows. I love the fact that the book (which is a hardcover collection of three stories) feels like some kind of newly found Disney cartoon for adults. I can't express what a huge fan I am of the visual aspect of this book. As you can tell, I even went so far as to completely lift the boxy bubbles with the loopy tails for my own word balloons in Chandra.
This brings me to the only really glaring problem. While the stories are good, and a lot of the exposition can be gleaned from the visuals, there's definitely a feeling that something is lacking in the translation of the actual words in the book. This is not a knock on writer Canales at all. The fact that it's two Spaniards making it for the French market and then it was subsequently released in America may have something to do with it. I'm sure there were fine people working on the translation but for me it simple did NOT read well in that I felt integral pieces of each of the stories were being left out all along the way. A shame too because I want the writing to have all the verve of the art. All that being said, I definitely still recommend this book for anyone's shelf. I think it's popularity speaks for itself as it's sold well over 200,000 copies.
Grade: 90/100
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