Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Green Manor: Assassins & Gentlemen

                       Assassins &                   The Inconveneince Of 
                       Gentlemen                                                  Being Dead
Goodness gracious, what a title! Assassins And Gentlemen. That’s the name of the first volume of the comic graphic novel series, GREEN MANOR. If there is a title that can beat this then it had to be the title that is given to the second volume of the series, The Inconvenience Of Being Dead. If that doesn’t get to you, just look at the artwork on the second volume. 

Assassins And Gentlemen is a comic graphic novel (as opposed to comics and graphic novels in that comic graphic novels stride both the worlds) written by Fabien Vehlmann and illustrated by Denis Brodart. The volume contains six stories dealing with murder and crime that are set in Victorian England. Stories range from the club members discussing how to commit the perfect murder to actually going about and committing them.

The stories range from how to commit the perfect murder to solving mysteries to Jack the Ripper himself!!! But apart from the second story titled post scriptum, none of the rest leaves you spellbound. but overall the treatment and stories are rather impressive and even insightful. Though they are all enjoyable there is an element of flippancy about the stories. But that said, they are gripping and make you want more. 

The artwork is in line with pattern followed by comic graphic novels and is finely coloured a la the neo noir style that is being aggressively used to illustrate stories dealing with crime fiction these days.

Published by Cinebook, in India the book is priced at Rs 195. All things considered, the price is a bit too steep for the book. But just so as to get into the mind of a murderer, just so as to experience that dark side of Victorian England and just so as to get that sense of eeriness, it’s not a bad idea to spend 200 bucks on it.

As for me, I loved the volume, Assassins And Gentlemen so much so that I am going to pick up the second volume, The Inconvenience Of Being Dead. Sounds very promising, especially the name! goosebumps...


3 comments:

Rafiq Raja said...

Very Nice Review..... I stumbled upon this when I was finding more details on the Green Manor series, for which I wrote a review out here on my comics blog:

http://www.comicology.in/2009/01/cinebook-green-manor-2008.html

Good to meet like minded people, keep the cheer on.

Rafiq Raja
ÇómícólógÝ
ரா-கா|SDLC

GK said...

Thanks a lot Rafiq. It's compliments like these that makes one feel 'it was worth it'! Cheers

Rafiq Raja said...

To Keep the cheer, I have now become a follower too....

Keep the good work going GK :)