Grandville Force Majeure annotations

The annotations for Grandville Force Majeure by Bryan Talbot

Go to any of the Grandville Force Majeure annotations pages:

- Batch 1 for pages 1 to 20

- Batch 2 for pages 21 to 30

- Batch 3 for pages 31 to 40

- Batch 4 for pages 41 to 60

- Batch 5 for pages 61 to 80

- Batch 6 for pages 81 to 100

- Batch 7 for pages 101 to 120

- Batch 8 for pages 120 to 145

- Batch 9 for pages 145 to the end

 

We are still in the process of posting the Force Majeure annotations - new updates are published here every Sunday.

 

All of the previous Grandville graphic novels annotations are now complete:

- Grandville

- Grandville Mon Amour

- Grandville Bête Noire

- Grandville Noël


Grandville Force Majeure original art and other Bryan Talbot artwork now on sale

Page 54 of Grandville Force Majeure by Bryan Talbot

Grandville Force Majeure original artwork is now available to buy.


Join the Facebook group for Bryan Talbot fans for lots of discussions and special offers announced on Facebook first.

 

The Bryan Talbot fanpage is also on Twitter - so give us a follow and join in the conversation!

 

Bryan Talbot fanpage on InstagramAnd we are also on Instagram: give us a like and a follow!


New Grandville miniatures are now available

Grandville miniature figures on sale at Crooked Staff

The Crooked Dice site now has not only LeBrock and Ratzi and Billie miniatures - but also Chance Lucas, Hawksmoor, Koenig and more!



Buy the Heart of Empire Directors Cut

This labour of love from Bryan and myself contains every single page of Heart of Empire in pencil, ink and final full colour format - as well as over 60,000 words of annotation, commentary and explanation from Bryan... - as well as the whole of the Adventures of Luther Arkwright!

Or see the Heart of Empire Directors Cut page for more details.



Also see the Bryan Talbot t-shirt shop! - we've got a vast array of Bryan's images on lots of different t-shirts, as well as other items like mugs and fine art prints: - but if there's anything else you'd like just let us know on Twitter or at the Facebook group.


This is the only place you can buy original Bryan Talbot artwork - except from Bryan in person at a convention.


This is the new version of the Bryan Talbot fanpage
But the whole of the original Bryan Talbot fanpage is still online


Grandville Forve Majeure annotations - batch 2

Grandville Force Majeure logo
Grandville Force Majeure
annotations - batch 2

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, Grandville Bête Noire and Grandville Noël - and in case you missed them, check out the first batch of Grandville Force Majeure annotations.


Start reading the Grandville Force Majeure annotations below, or jump straight to page 21, page 22, page 23, page 24, page 25, page 26, page 27, page 28, page 29 and page 30.

Page 21

Panel 1

The strange beer pumps here are draw from ones in the London Docklands Museum.

The strange beer pumps here are draw from ones in the London Docklands Museum.

The bottle of rum on the right has a joke label. “Rhum D’angeau” literally translates as “rum of lamb”. Lamb’s Navy Rum is a famous British brand, produced from 1849.

Panel 4
“Tasso”: Italian for “badger”.

Panel 7
“La mamma un vole…”: Tasso really is singing a traditional Tuscan song here, La Strada dell’amore. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have anything to do with voles.

Page 22

Page 22 of Grandville Force Majeure by Bryan Talbot

Panel 1

Craven A cigarettes used to be marketed with the slogan “For your throat’s sake”.

Craven A cigarettes used to be marketed with the slogan “For your throat’s sake”.

These two posters on the wall across the street were adapted from original French ones by Angus McKie.

These two posters on the wall across the street were adapted from original French ones by Angus McKie

The one to the right is based on the famous 1908 “Skegness is so Bracing” poster by John Hassall. It reads “Skegness est tellement vivifiant”.

The one to the right is based on the famous 1908 “Skegness is so Bracing” poster by John Hassall. It reads “Skegness est tellement vivifiant”.

Panel 2
The French-style mime artist is a reference to Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, of course.

The French-style mime artist is a reference to Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, of course.

He’s dressed as Ally Sloper, Britain’s first on-going comic character, invented in 1867 by Charles H Ross.

He’s dressed as Ally Sloper, Britain’s first on-going comic character, invented in 1867 by Charles H Ross.

Panel 3
Sergeant Trotter is the name of the Detective in Agatha Christie’s murder mystery stage play, The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history, premiering in 1952 in London’s West End and still showing nightly to this day.

Panel 4
The Old Bill: for the benefit of non-U.K. readers “The Old Bill” is originally London East End gangster slang for the police.

“Gladly” the cross-eyed bear: supposedly a misunderstanding of a line from an old hymn “Gladly the cross I’d bear (for Jesus)”. Probably an urban myth.

Mutton Jeff: a play on words: Mutt and Jeff was an American newspaper comic strip, created by Bud Fisher in 1907 and syndicated until 1983. “Mutt and Jeff” became cockney rhyming slang for “deaf”.

Mutton Jeff: a play on words: Mutt and Jeff was an American newspaper comic strip, created by Bud Fisher in 1907 and syndicated until 1983. “Mutt and Jeff” became cockney rhyming slang for “deaf”.

“Top” Katt: Top Cat, Big Ted was a teddy bear in the long-running U.K. TV children’s series Play School, and Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to be cloned (in 1996). All pretty obvious.

Page 23

Panel 6
The fictional 221B Baker Street is, of course, the residence of Sherlock Holmes.

Panel 7
The famous Madame Tussaud’s (now spelt Tussauds) wax museum was originally housed in this building, The Baker Street Bazaar, before it permanently moved around the corner.

Page 24

Harry Feathers is the name of the East End gang boss in Nic Roeg’s 1970 breakthrough film Performance. Roeg is one of my biggest influences.

For the benefit of non U.K. readers, these East End gangsters are speaking in a cockney accent and use cockney rhyming slang, originally the coded language of the London criminal underworld, e.g. :

China: China plate: mate

Porkies: Porky pies; lies

Page 25

Panel 3
John Dory
: a species of fish.

John Dory: a species of fish.

Page 26

Panel 1
Billy le Chevreaux: Billy the Kid. Chevreaux: young goat

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show toured Britain in the late 19th Century, and was extremely popular.

Panel 3

Leo Baxendale (1930 – 2017) was a famous British comic strip creator, and a good friend. I’ll copy here the section about Leo from the afterword to Grandville Force Majeure:

The Baxendales:

Leo Baxendale (1930 – 2017) was a famous British comic strip creator, and a good friend. I’ll copy here the section about Leo from the afterword to Grandville Force Majeure:

 You may have noticed that this volume is dedicated to the memory of Leo Baxendale. In the 1950s, exactly the time I was reading them, Leo, along with Ken Reid and Davey Law, reinvented the British children’s comic. Their protagonists were out-and-out anarchists. Figures of authority – policemen, teachers, park keepers, even parents – became, not only figures of fun, but sworn enemies. Leo's The Bash Street Kids and The Banana Bunch had pitched battles in the street with the massed ranks of the police force. His Minnie the Minx would use weapons of mass destruction when confronted with boy gangs. Even though D.C. Thomson forbade the use of artists' credits, with the notable exception of the legendary D.W. Watkins, each of the gang of three's styles was distinctively recognizable. In the early sixties, after Leo left the D.C. Thomson empire and produced, almost singlehandedly, the weekly comic Wham! for Odham's Press, featuring genius creations Eagle Eye, Junior Spy and the terminally creepy Grimly Fiendish (I still have the first issue), for the first time, we could see the signature of their creator.

 I was awed to briefly meet Leo at a small comics pro con in London in the late seventies, when I was a struggling underground comix artist. Around four years later, at the afternoon opening of a small exhibition of my comic artwork at the Harris Library and Museum in my then hometown of Preston, Lancashire, I was staggered to turn around to find that I was standing right next to one of my comic heroes. It turned out that, although then resident in the south of England, Leo was originally from Preston and frequently journeyed the couple of hundred miles north to visit his mother. To be brief, we became the best of friends and, for the next fifteen years or so, whenever Leo came to see his mum, he stayed with Mary and me, and we shared many a dinner, a movie and bottle of wine together. We had two touring comic art exhibitions with Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell. We even hosted in Preston, as committee members of the Preston Speculative Fiction Group, the official Bash Street Kids 40th Birthday party, complete with alternative comic creator Ben (Vogarth) Hunt's Indy rock group with Sonia on keyboards dressed as Minnie the Minx.

 We only saw Leo occasionally after his mother died, though we did stay in touch and we'd always send each other our latest books. Leo self-published a whole series of prose memoirs, but his short-lived 1992 Baby Basil for the Guardian was his last strip. His last published comic work was the one-page strip that he spontaneously and very generously penned for my graphic novel Alice in Sunderland (2007), which featured both of us as characters, and which I drew in a mixture of our styles (see below). Attending the Bristol Comics Expo sometime around 2012, I made an excursion to nearby Stroud and spent a pleasant evening with him and his wife Peggy. Despite having had various health escapades, they both seemed unaffected by them and happy in themselves.    

Leo died in April this year, aged eighty-six. In panel 2, page 26, you can see my homage to Leo in the form of characters from his anthropomorphic strips The Gobbles and The Three Bears, something I’d scripted when I wrote this book around five years ago. The page was penciled and inked in 2015.

The Gobbles by Leo Baxendale

The Three Bears by Leo Baxendale

Leo Baxendale's last published comic work was the one-page strip that he spontaneously and very generously penned for my graphic novel Alice in Sunderland (2007), which featured both of us as characters, and which I drew in a mixture of our styles

Panel 6
Sarah Blairow: See Grandville annotations, page 22.

In the Background, Vesta Filly: Vesta Tilley (1864 – 1952) was a legendary music hall male impersonator, famous in Britain and the U.S.A. for over 30 years.

Panel 7
In the left background is Le Petomane, the famous French farter. See annotations Grandville Bête Noire, page 30, panel 3.

To the right is a stage showing a glimpse of Fantomas.

To the right is a stage showing a glimpse of Fantomas. We also see glimpses of the waxwork and fragments of his name in panels 1 and 4 on the next page as we move through the chamber. This is intentional, as he was an enigmatic character. Fantomas, one of the most popular characters in French crime fiction, was a totally ruthless villain, whose face and real identity were never known because of his mastery of disguise, though he is often portrayed wearing an opera mask. Originally written by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre, he was created in 1911 and was the anti-hero of many a book, film and comic. I doubt many readers spotted him!

Page 27

Mastock, the “mad dog“ serial killer from Grandville Mon Amour, as he looked before the events in that book, before, as LeBrock puts it, “I rearranged his face”. He’s portrayed here as a Jack the Ripper-type character.

Panel 3
Mastock, the “mad dog“ serial killer from Grandville Mon Amour, as he looked before the events in that book, before, as LeBrock puts it, “I rearranged his face”. He’s portrayed here as a Jack the Ripper-type character.

Panel 4
The tableaux he’s part of is a reference to the picture from the Illustrated Police News (around 1888) of the discovery of the body of Ripper victim Elizabeth Stride.

The tableaux he’s part of is a reference to the picture from the Illustrated Police News (around 1888) of the discovery of the body of Ripper victim Elizabeth Stride.

Panel 5

“Famous Detectives”: Apart from DCI Stoatson, a character in the story, these are…

Blacksad, Hero of the on-going series of graphic novels by writer Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido, originally published by French publisher Dargaud and subsequently in several other countries. I thoroughly recommend these Chandleresque stories concerning a 1950s private eye based in Los Angeles. Guarnido is a great fan of the Grandville books and even tweeted this panel when the Spanish edition was published.

Blacksad, Hero of the on-going series of graphic novels by writer Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido, originally published by French publisher Dargaud and subsequently in several other countries. I thoroughly recommend these Chandleresque stories concerning a 1950s private eye based in Los Angeles. Guarnido is a great fan of the Grandville books and even tweeted this panel when the Spanish edition was published. He gave Dark Horse Books a quote to use for publicity:

"More than a furry steampunk uchronia, Grandville is a smart and brilliant view of the human past... and maybe of his future. It's the kind of graphic novel I love!"

The private eye, Inspector Canardo (from the french canard: “duck”) is the protagonist of the long-running series of BD albums by Benoît Sokal, the first being published in 1979. If you look closely, he is holding The Maltese Falcon, from the 1930 book by Dashiell Hammett, as it appears in the 1941 film version starring Humphrey Bogart.

The private eye, Inspector Canardo (from the french canard: “duck”) is the protagonist of the long-running series of BD albums by Benoît Sokal, the first being published in 1979. If you look closely, he is holding The Maltese Falcon, from the 1930 book by Dashiell Hammett, as it appears in the 1941 film version starring Humphrey Bogart.

 

Hieronymous “Hip” Flask, by writer Richard Starkings and various artists, is the hero of an ongoing SF detective adventure comic series set in the Los Angeles of the future, originally created to be used in advertisements for Starking’s computer font company Comicraft. In fact, my own lettering font, the one I’ve used on all my graphic novels since Alice in Sunderland, was created by Comicraft, based on my hand lettering samples, in exchange for this illustration I did of Flask, as a spoof Luther Arkwright cover in 2001.

In fact, my own lettering font, the one I’ve used on all my graphic novels since Alice in Sunderland, was created by Comicraft, based on my hand lettering samples, in exchange for this illustration I did of Flask, as a spoof Luther Arkwright cover in 2001.

Page 28

Panel 1

Stamford Hawksmoor: So begins my huge homage to Sherlock Holmes. As you can see, he’s a golden eagle. Holmes was often described as having an aqualine nose (aqualine: 1. Relating to or having the characteristics of an eagle. 2. Curved or hooked like an eagle's beak: an aquiline nose.)

Stamford Hawksmoor: So begins my huge homage to Sherlock Holmes. As you can see, he’s a golden eagle. Holmes was often described as having an aqualine nose (aqualine: 1. Relating to or having the characteristics of an eagle. 2. Curved or hooked like an eagle's beak: an aquiline nose.)

Stamford is the name of the man who first introduces Dr John Watson to Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Holmes story A Study in Scarlet (1887).

Nicolas Hawksmoor (1661 – 1736) was an English Baroque architect, who designed some of the most well known London buildings of the period, including parts of St Paul’s Cathedral. Notably, he designed several churches later associated with the Ripper murders. His name was used by Peter Ackroyd in his novel Hawksmoor in 1985, as a detective investigating a series of murders in fictionalised versions of these churches.

Panel 2
Muffin the Mule: Something  from my childhood: the eponymous puppet star of the early BBC TV children’s series, originally shown from the late 1940s, and, apparently, as late as 2005 in an animated version. Here he is with his original presenter, Anette Mills, sister of actor John Mills.

“The Clapham Common poodle-stabber”: A reference to the Bonzo Dog Do-dah Band’s 1968 version of The Monster Mash:

“The poodle stabbers were about to arrive
With their vocal group The Crypt-Kicker Five”

Panel 4
"Only teasing, lad." You can see where LeBrock gets his habit of winding Billie up.

Panels 6 & 7

Ollie Beak, shown here with Fred Barker, two glove puppets from the early 1960s children’s TV show Tuesday Rendezvous.

Ollie Beak, shown here with Fred Barker, two glove puppets from the early 1960s children’s TV show Tuesday Rendezvous. The show hosted the first ever National TV performance of The Beatles in 1972, miming to Love Me Do. He was designed by Peter Firmin (1928 – 2018), later famous for many U.K. children’s TV series, including Noggin the Nog and The Clangers.

Page 29

Crooked Dice have also made a figurine of Hawksmoor.

Crooked Dice have also made a figurine of Hawksmoor.

Panel 3
“Abductive, inductive and deductive reasoning”: You can see the definitions here.

“The Great Detective”: The term often used to refer to Sherlock Holmes.

In our world, this view of Tower Bridge does not exist, and the tide does not go out far enough to expose the beach at this point of the Thames, but I wanted this visual!

In our world, this view of Tower Bridge does not exist, and the tide does not go out far enough to expose the beach at this point of the Thames, but I wanted this visual! On the other hand, the wall is firmly based on the real Thames Embankment and the shore of the river does look like this in other parts where it can be exposed, such as opposite the nearby Tower of London.

Mudlark: To quote Wikipedia:
“Mudlarks would search the muddy shores of the River Thames at low tide for anything that could be sold; and sometimes, when occasion arose, pilfering from river traffic. By at least the late 18th century people dwelling near the river could scrape a subsistence living this way. Becoming a mudlark was usually a choice dictated by poverty and lack of skills.”

Mudlarks would search the muddy shores of the River Thames at low tide for anything that could be sold; and sometimes, when occasion arose, pilfering from river traffic. By at least the late 18th century people dwelling near the river could scrape a subsistence living this way. Becoming a mudlark was usually a choice dictated by poverty and lack of skills

Obviously, in the world of Grandville, they would have larks’ heads.

4. "Gussie": Stoatson's first name is taken from Gussie Fink-Nottle, the upper-class twit friend of PG Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster.

Page 30

Panel 1
I was very pleased with some of the deductions I came up with in the book. They were meant to be Holmesian and some of them are definitely based on examples in the canon, but I did make a surprising large number of them up myself. Besides, I don’t think Holmes ever investigated a switched-identity murder mystery involving cats.

I was very pleased with some of the deductions I came up with in the book. They were meant to be Holmesian and some of them are definitely based on examples in the canon, but I did make a surprising large number of them up myself. Besides, I don’t think Holmes ever investigated a switched-identity murder mystery involving cats.

The initials on the fob (later identified by Hawksmoor as that of the London Sketch Club on page 32) are "CDL": Club de Dessin de Londres. The London Sketch Club, a club for professional illustrators, was founded in 1898 and still meets today in its Chelsea premises, which includes a bar and a large studio. Former members include Arthur Rackham, Phil May, Edmund Dulac and Heath Robinson. I was on the committee of the now-defunct Society of Strip Illustration (SSI) for 8 years, and we met here once a month for quite a few years.

Panel 3
“Jicky” is indeed made by parfumeur Guerlian. First produced in 1889, it is the oldest continuously-manufactured perfume in the world.

Panel 5
“Don’t speculate, Gussie. It’s pointless. You don’t have enough information.”:

Holmes would always wait until he had all the available facts before trying to form any working hypothesis.

Now see the Grandville Force Majeure annotations for pages 31 to 40.