The Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent - Part 1 (Volume 9) (Blake & Mortimer, 9)

Blake and Mortimer is a Belgian cartoon that was a contemporary of Herge's Tintin. Many of the artists had worked on Tintin so the style is in the same school: clear line. Excellent perspectives, vanishing point, and great depiction of buildings, ships, cars and most of all aircraft.Edgar Jacobs is the creator and the original stories date back the period just after the Second World War. Published originally in French and later translated into English, the volumes are NOT numbered in chronological order but in order of translated appearance. So a story that originally appeared in French years earlier and only recently translated gets a later volume number - this is very confusing to new readers because several stories depend on knowing prior events. After Jacobs, other artists and writers were brought on board and continued the story.The main characters are Mortimer who is a physicist and Blake is a former RAF officer and now a high ranking intelligence officer. In addition to being a physicist Mortimer is also a an amateur archeologist and all around polymath. Like many pop works, physicists, engineers, theoretical and applied science and technology are all glomed together so Mortimer can accomplish amazing "science" things like create a submarine capable jet strike fighter AND later restore into function an atomic reactor that was in disuse for decades AND figure out how an electroencephalographic mind wave device work. People who work in science and technology just have to roll with it. :)Though Blake gets top billing, Mortimer is actually the lead character and usually gets the plot rolling. In truth the series should be called Blake and Mortimer and Olrik. Olrik is a character that started out as a Nazi spy and then later morphed into a general all round baddie for hire.The older volumes suffer from a very Eurocentric British Empire chauvinism. The big baddie in several of the early works is a classic yellow peril emperor bad guy running something called the YELLOW EMPIRE with a name of Basam Damdu. And to be fair, this is a hold over from the early Tintin volumes - check out Tintin and the Belgian Congo, Tintin in America, harder to find but still out there.The plots are at times (overall flat) or seems like knockoff from early pulp stories.In summary: an interesting series but inferior to Tintin. However, if you enjoy graphic novels and comic art of the clear line school, this is a great series - if you are an aspiring artist and want great examples of perspective, and how to draw buildings, cars, ships and aircraft these are terrific.

This is another Blake & Mortimer album. Set in the 1950s, this is the first of a two part storyline combining political intrege, science fiction, and background on Professor Mortimer.While published as the 9th volume, its actually the 16th. It's the second album by the 'second team' doing albums after the death of B&M creator EP Jacobs. It's by Yves Sente & Andre Juillard. Cinebooks is publishing their 3 other albums this year.As noted, this is the first of a two part story. As the next part is out, I advice getting them together. There are some things that follow from the previous album by this creative team, "the Voronov Plot", and I understand their other album, "The Gondwana Shrine", is a sort of follow-on to the storyline in this 2-part. It will be published later this year.This album also gives some background information on Professor Mortimer, which impacts on the main story. We learn how he mets Capt Blake while the two are in Indian visiting their families before going off to college (Mortimer) or entering the military service (Blake). Mortimer also met the individual who will be the main villian in this 2-parter, who blames Mortimer for the death of his daughter.The main story is set in the 'present' of 1958 at the "worlds fair" in Brussels. A backdrop to this are the several nations (in the third world) who want to throw off the yoke of colonial domination. The main villian will use that as support for some new super-weapon, as well as making use of Col Orlik (released from prison as shown in the prior albums). Orlik is thus not the main villian, but another pawn.Overall, a great story, but let's see how part 2 works out.

Very well written. Follows in the style of the original author. Anybody who grew up on reading the Adventures of Tintin will enjoy this series of adventures.

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Perfect

Blake & Mortimer were created by Edgar P Jacobs, who worked with Herge on the Tintin adventures. His stories are told with the same clean line graphics and are beautifully illustrated.This is a modern story, not drawn by Jacobs, but still faithfully reflecting his original attention to period detail and the same insatiable and indefatigable heroes.Great fun and far better than any of the modern computer-generated pulp.These are gradually being translated from the original french by Cinebook and I can't wait for "The Secret of the Swordfish" and for the sequel of "The Curse of the 30 Pieces of Silver"

Meu álbum favorito da série Blake e Mortimer, junto com a parte 2.Achei este álbum superior aos álbuns escritos pelo criador dos personagens, Edgar P. Jacobs. A história é rica e intrincada e cheia de um exotismo que se espera de aventuras na linha Tintin. O eurocentrismo e racismo de Tintin ou dos quadrinhos originais de Blake e Mortimer é colocado em questão nessa aventura. O personagem indiano de Nasir deixa de ser apenas mordomo do professor Mortimer e se torna independente. Existe, também, uma preocupação quanto ao machismo normalmente característico desse tipo de aventura. Um dos personagens chave é uma mulher indiana. Infelizmente, ela é a única personagem feminina de destaque em um universo masculino.É um quadrinho ideal para quem quer o sabor de aventura e exotismo dos quadrinhos belgas mas com um requinte de linguagem que nem sempre encontramos nas aventuras antigas de Tintin e similares.

I have a big part of the Blake and Mortimer stories and I like them very much. However this is not the best one.This is the only one where we can meet our 2 main protagonists when they were young.This is the only one I know where there is a woman who has an important role in Mortimer's life.And somehow these things spoil the experience I usually have with them.For me this is something out of the space of Blake and Mortimer.However the whole story is enjoyable and the quality of drawings are as usual, but I don't like it.