The Arctic Marauder (Batmanatee Begins-Novus) [NVS-D]

And here you go, an old goodie that Fantagraphics finally released in English in 2011...The Arctic Marauder, by Jacques Tardi.
This is an important book, both as an early steampunk (or rather, icepunk) book, but also for its amazing artwork, made to look like woodcuts.


Here is a little info from their website about how the artwork was made...remember, this was back in 1972, and had to be done by hand. Today, you could probably do most of it with some filters in Photoshop :)
Speaking of the distinctive style, what is that? Scratchboard?

Yeah. As a kid, Tardi had some old Jules Verne books featuring woodcut illustrations, and he set out to try to duplicate that look, which he thought would be cool and appropriate for this book.

It looks like a hellacious amount of work.

Oh, it was. From what I gather, Tardi had to draw the foreground characters, then ink in all the backgrounds where he was going to do woodcut effects in solid black and then, using these knives and comb-like utensils, carve them back to white. And those were super-detailed pages! Having finished, he swore "never again" and has certainly been true to his promise.


And some info on the book itself, and the usual preview pics :)
In our ongoing quest to showcase the wide range of Jacques Tardi’s bibliography, Fantagraphics reaches all the way back to one of his earliest, and most distinctive graphic novels: A satirical, Jules Verne-esque "retro-sci-fi" yarn executed on scratchboard in a stunningly detailed faux-woodcut style perfectly chosen to render the Edwardian-era mechanical marvels on display. Created in 1972, The Arctic Marauder is a downright prescient example of proto-"steampunk" science fiction - or perhaps more accurately, and to coin a spinoff genre, "icepunk".

In 1899, "L’Anjou", a ship navigating the Arctic Ocean from Murmansk, Russia, to Le Havre, France comes across a stunning sight: A ghostly, abandoned vessel perched high atop an iceberg. But exploring this strange apparition is the last thing the sailors will ever do, as their own ship is soon dispatched to Davy Jones’ locker via a mysterious explosion.

Enter Jérôme Plumier, whose search for his missing uncle, the inventor Louis-Ferdinand Chapoutier, brings him into contact with the sinister, frigid forces behind this - and soon he too is headed towards the North Pole, where he will contend with mad scientists, monsters of the deep, and futuristic submarines and flying machines.