‘Maggy Garrisson’
Written by Lewis Trondheim.
Art by Stéphane Oiry.
Translated by Emma Wilson.
Published by Self Made Hero and Europe Comics.
Full Colour - 148 pages - Released 28/5/2019.
The Story - ‘After two years of unemployment, Maggy Garrisson lands a secretarial job. Too bad her new boss is the shady, shambolic Anthony Wight: private detective and alcoholic. But a job is a job, and Maggy could use the cash. Five days into her new role, Wight is beaten to a pulp and Maggy is tasked with returning his wallet. With this seemingly innocuous request, Maggy enters a sinister underworld of bent cops, crooked businessmen and career criminals. There's a lot to investigate, from the disappearance of a family album to dodgy dealings in gold teeth. But for someone with the energy, ingenuity and enterprising spirit of Maggy Garrisson, puzzles are there to be solved - especially if there's money to be made in the process.’
The Review - This is another case of a BD book that is based in the UK. Something seems to draw the sophisticates of the continent to our occasionally interesting island. I’m rather pleased and proud of this is as an almost fashion. The art in this volume is full of sightseeing Easter eggs in the west end of London, Brighton Pier, North London streets and tube stations and more.
This is a richly observed social drama which by the time you hit about page thirty you realise is also a pretty decent detective story. It uses humour and personality to weave in a quite complicated story about a hidden wallet and it’s contents. This wallet is just the start and you dive down a rabbit hole of violent gangster dealings and desperate villains and their victims. All told against a modern London and South of England setting but with added noirish narration and conversations. It’s also got a pretty great sense of humour.
Maggy herself is a bitter, boozed up, sarcastic, sharp tongued, shagger and will also immediately become your hero. She tells it how it is and is also often fearless in certain situations that other detectives may not be. Her friends are a strange mixture of the casual madmen and loud mouthed idiots that you avoid on a late night walk home. She deals with them all, friend or foe, with a cunning manipulation of word and situation, all the while wondering where the next pint of lager and cigarette will come from. Although she often lacks a little bit of a moral compass you will warm to her nonetheless.
This is a joint enterprise of a release between Europe Comics and SelfMade Hero and this is a single collection of three albums released previously in France and Belgium.
Oiry has a great eye for a background detail and I recognise a building or a street or a shop on almost every page. He also casts this with some really interesting and natural looking players. They are not your typical hero or villain in their attitudes, behaviours and especially not their looks. Maggy herself is more Bridget Jones than Jayne Tennyson or Kate Beckett. She truly is a brilliant creation and it needs saying again until you give this book a try. She shoplifts, steals from her boss, sleeps with people who she really shouldn’t and gets told off by passing kids for smoking whilst standing outside her local pub. But all the while you begin to suspect that she’ll be the one left standing at the end of all this.
The art doesn’t over render the faces of it’s characters but there is enough there that you immediately recognise everyone straightaway. Whilst the art has a realistic backdrop with an almost euro cartooning style on its foreground actors you can follow every plot twist and turn perfectly well. Everything has a genuine sense of reality and this really does feel like the London of a few years ago.
There are a few added story twists that seem a little superfluous in a book so long but I appreciate they have been needed in the original BD presentation of this as a three volume series. I’ll be kind and say that perhaps some padding was needed or maybe was an editorial decision.
The story adds mysteries as the 148 page graphic novel/album collection progresses and finishes them all with clever satisfaction. I really enjoyed this book and read it in one sitting. I read this as a digital preview copy but will be getting myself a physical copy when it’s released later this month.
Head over to Europe Comics here for more information http://www.europecomics.com/album/1-give-us-smile-maggy/ or SelfMade Hero here https://selfmadehero.com/books/maggy-garrisson
Here’s a little about both creators from the publishers website.
Lewis Trondheim is a award-winning comics writer, artist and publisher. He is the author of an incredible number of comics and graphic novels spanning almost every genre. His books include Poppies of Iraq and the Angoulême-winning Slaloms. Trondheim was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature in 2005. The following year he received the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Born in Fontainebleau, he lives in Paris.
You can find him at http://www.lewistrondheim.com
Stéphane Oiry is a comic book artist, animator and children’s book author. He co-founded the children’s comics magazine Capsule Cosmique, of which he was deputy editor-in-chief. His books include Les passe-murailles (with Jean-Luc Cornette) and Pauline et les loups garous (with Appollo). Oiry teaches illustration at the Condé School of Art and Design.
You can find this artist at this website https://stephane-oiry.tumblr.com
Many thanks for reading.
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