Blacksad

The most inspiring demonstration of art in graphic novels I've ever seen. Mastery is visible on every page. 

Great detective stories! I liked episode #2 the best followed by Red Soul.

Blacksad is, without a doubt, a beautiful collection of stories to look at. Its setting and characters are meticulously detailed and as emotive as it gets – but this beauty is largely skin-deep, and held back by a story that struggles to move past the clichés of the noir genre. Sometimes this pays off, creating a moody atmosphere that will almost certainly make you want to listen to a jazz saxophone whilst staring out of shadow-drenched window blinds at a rainy, downtown street. But other times, it makes for boring reading, and the mystery of each story tends to fall flat as you find that John Blacksad doesn't investigate so much as repeatedly beat up the bad guys until they give him the name of someone else to thrash, and so on until he stumbles onto a solution. While there is certainly a brilliance in the way each character's species reflects their attitude and part to play in the episode, the characters themselves are largely stock and uninteresting. That said, Blacksad hits its stride mid-way through the second episode, when the story dares to explore more complex themes such as race and revenge, and livelier characters are introduced to give Blacksad opportunities for more offbeat interactions. It's a treat to explore the many elaborately crafted environments, from a dilapidated aircraft factory blanketed in snow to a shiny, beach-side mansion, and I often found myself pausing to soak in the clean, colourful world presented by Guarnido.

Overall, Blacksad is veritable treat for the eyes, but is constrained by its derivative characters and story.

It's one of those things where I will continue to read these because the art is so fucking fantastic. Wonderful water colors for character and backgrounds. The story is meh, just enough to get me to finish. There is A LOT of potential here which gives me hope.

So, this would get 5 stars if it didn't fall for the typical pitfalls of noir mystery genre, come on let's be a bit modern here. It has everything going for it... interesting time period with enough historical perspective to throw in more interesting events or commentary, animal characters to show natures of characters, fun scenes (like the turtle in the hare playing poker), and for the audience to connect. Best of all the art!!!

What's holding this back - the story to me is lacking. There's not much of a mystery element for me here, it's one of those where it's a mystery BUT you just kinda stick around and watch Blacksad solve it. Additionally, there isn't world building...when I first saw the arctic clan I thought this world was going to based on our world/time period with artistic liberty and inspiration. They instantly toss with what they created with the Arctic Clan when they establish Hitler. Why bother making a fictional kkk when a real one exists? Just use that!
To me it seems one sided and sloppy, but to give the benefit of the doubt maybe they just didn't know what they wanted from the world yet?

The world currently revolves around Blacksad, which is boring. I think this would work much better - like mad max fury road - if Blacksad was an explorer in the enriched world. Following Blacksad sets up only scenarios and doesn't give me much satisfaction.

The biggest pit fall is the sexism. Look at the diverse animals, nature, and design ...of the male characters! Seriously, in the Arctic Klan series you have a polar bear husband/wife. The husband is a fucking polar bear and I thought the wife was a mouse - NOPE! She honestly looks like just some lady. This is ridiculous, just lazy designs. There was a stork and a hippo background women getting shoes that had more character and design than the main women in the story.

Anytime you see a woman involved in the story she will be used as a plot, killed, to show weakness, heartbreak over blacksad, or sexualized (even by our Blacksad has no respect for them). The ladies that are introduced, might as well not bother putting them in...oh wait we need some tits. It seems the more human they look the more likely they will be naked, that's the only point of designing them this way.

It's old & tiresome...it's a shame in a beautiful and modern written noir novel that it's so prevalent. I have high hopes that this will be get better, because it really was worth the read and I do plan on reading a bit more before I'll probably drop it.

Worth it for the art alone, but I wish the writing was more dramatic. The amount of exposition was mildly insulting.

Es todo bestial, el dibujo, la ambientación, los personajes. Normal la fama que tiene. Me ha flipado.

Un dibujo espectacular, muy expresivo, y una buena historia de detectives. Recomendable.