Saturday 25 May 2019

Misc: La Bête est Morte, WWII bande-dessinée.

This morning I got an email from Bovington Tank Museum, under their 'Tank Times' banner, which had an interesting link regarding a recent book donation (read more here). This is something I'd definitely like to know more about; a bit of 'googling' lead me to unearth the following images:

Cover of the first in the two-part edition.

A scene depicting French liberation.

The German war machine invades France.

Here we see the two editions.


The artist who's supplied the illustrations, Calvo, is obviously superb. He's clearly influenced in these artworks by Disney's contemporary style. But despite this obvious indebtedness, the artworks remain fabulous in their own right. 

The British Bulldog bites Hitler's arse!

Some spreads are a series of frames...

... whilst others are fantastic double-page spreads.


At the time of posting these are in a random order, as I found them online. I'll probably return to edit this into a more sequential order at some future juncture. I've captioned the most obvious content. But there are numerous images I need to study more. I've seen originals online for crazy prices. I'm hoping that there are affordable English editions!? Perhaps it's even still in print? Does anyone know?

Churchill's Bulldog vs. Hitler the crazed Wolf!


It looks like all theatres are addressed; here we see North Africa.

Hitler, Goering and Goebbels.


As this shows, the comic doesn't pull any punches.



A small detail from a larger and superb pastiche of Delacroix.


Nazi training.


The global view.

I'll definitely be looking to acquire this. Probably in an English language version, to be honest. It looks utterly fantastic.

2 comments:

  1. I remember reading this as a young boy from my local library in a Dutch translation (Het Beest is Dood). I only half-way understood it, I guess, but it did leave a lasting impression. Great work.

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    Replies
    1. Wow, how cool! I reckon I'd have loved it as a kid. I love what I've seen of it now. Perhaps that means the kid in me is still alive?

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