July 9, 2012
If Walt Disney ever made an adult-themed, anthropomorphic Philip Marlowe movie, it might resemble this popular series. In this fourth outing for the titular feline detective, Blacksad is enlisted to locate a missing, drug-addicted blues musician in 1950s New Orleans. He uncovers an old conspiracy involving a poisonous “miracle medicine” and its effect on the musical legacy of the Big Easy; the story parallels the history of drug abuse among great American blues and jazz musicians. Canales’s plot is populated by a colorful mixture of Americana: burlesque houses, snake-oil merchants, Mardi Gras, and the haunted soul of the blues are all key elements in this vibrant, atmospheric noir mystery. The authentic local details of Guarnido’s art are balanced by whimsical character design and humor reminiscent of early Disney animation. The volume also contains a lengthy “behind the scenes” feature in which the creators present early watercolor roughs of the story paired with text describing their process and the particular challenges—both narrative and visual—posed by this story. Informed by deep reading of genre fiction and American cultural history, it’s another hit for Blacksad.
Starred review from July 12, 2010
First making waves a decade ago, Blacksad, created in Spain, published in France, has since garnered well-deserved critical success and status as an international bestseller. Writer Díaz and illustrator Guarnido take the detective noir genre and breathe new life into it with a trio of anthropomorphic animal gumshoe dramas centering around John Blacksad, a methodical PI who conducts his investigations in early 1950s America, a post-WWII society deals with upheavals involving racism and the "Red Scare." Within this atmosphere of ready-to-explode tension, the creators weave what can only be called narrative magic. This current edition collects the three graphic novels that have been released to date, the first being a standard (though beautifully executed) murder mystery, the second centering on the machinations of a white supremacist organization and those whose lives it has thrown into a very personal bedlam (perhaps the most affecting of the lot), and the third addressing the perceived threat of communism within the United States. All of this material is riveting, and Guarnido's artwork is atmospheric and full of indelibly captured characters—he's a true master of the form. Blacksad is a comics classic, and American readers are fortunate to have these first three in one volume.