an essential reissue 1

This deluxe edition, called "the great collection" must in my view be preferred to the original edition, although say fans of the original. By its format first: it's a real pleasure to see in large size, the design work: the line is much clearer than in the first edition that looks, when compared cell by cell, to a vulgar more or less blurred photocopy! Moreover, if the design is absolutely not changed (except the cover), colors are for their totally reworked (and lettering), which in my opinion gives full value to this collection. The publisher had the good idea to insert the original plate of the first page in "bonus" (with "first drafts" and "Collectors'") and the difference is obvious: summary to dishes very often arbitrary 60/70 without qualification, it is faced with beautiful colors very close to reality, the summit is probably in the plates depicting night scenes, with the aura lunar, gradients of shadows on objects, which created a real night atmosphere. The color gradients finesse gives much more volume and presence of reality in short, and we should not complain.

In this fourth album, the authors "let go" and launch a very good laugh machine that works every page, even several times per page: galaxy of words perfectly good situation, sometimes playing on homophonies ("Where is the bard , guard? "), gags" dumb "purely visual (Egyptian visiting Rome), the shortcut art (smashed door of the inn, stunned the guards), the gag art" spun "(the" shaken "Roman vibrating four more boxes below), taste for repetition comical goal (accumulation helmets, the songs of the bard, parsley in the ears, smashed doors, arm gesture lanista). The authors begin to have fun with Abraracourcix, his shield and its bearers. Note also the first appearance of the pirates, with a promising future. The failings of modern society are still pinned (taste for the strange foods trainer of gladiators, bad relations between neighbors in the same building, advertising at major shows, mass tourism, commercial exploitation). Everything is synthesized in the famous circus games with delirious parody of epic films (including Ben Hur) where the word "game" makes sense (the "yes or no"). Plastically, note the beautiful emerald sea changes, lighting by torches in the basement of the circus, the warm color of the sand of the arena). A first "must", then.