The return to La Nef des fous continues with Walking Dindes, an album as colorful and graphically perfect as Turf which offers us the second volume of the second cycle started in 2017 (Delcourt editions).
La Nef des fous made us dream for more than fifteen years, and despite its half-hearted conclusion in 2009, we thought that it was now over of the characters of Eauxfolles. Turf thus went to other horizons more (Gribouillis) or less (Sex Store, The Improbable Journey) convincing to return, to everyone's surprise, to his favorite universe.
A year ago, Disappearance was released, featuring our two favorite policemen, Bonvoisin and Baltimore, on the trail of a traffic of giant coloquintes. To make matters worse, Queen Ophelia was kidnapped during a magic show given by the great Hidinou. The situation could not fail to attract the nostalgic reader. And making the duo of clumsy investigators the central protagonists of a new cycle could only satisfy this one. The adventure continues its journey with Walking Dindes (eminently funny title) which is in line with the previous album.
Turf no longer has to prove mastery of the universe he created and knows like the back of his hand. To wonder if Eauxfolles is not finally the main character of his beloved series. His technique is still as good, his line effective, his warm coloring, radically contrasting with what has generally been offered for a few years now in terms of mainstream comics to who have sold it from the "Ninth Aaaart" at all times: namely that bright and primary colors are tacitly prohibited (it is too connoted "small miquets").
While the original cycle multiplied the universes (Eauxfolles, the world of machines, the outside world) and that these had as ambassadors a beautiful gallery of characters, the two new volumes focus only on a world, that of the police, of which the reader seems to know more than them. Apart from the investigation, which advances very very little (we have to wait for the last pages to really see the plot evolve), we find in particular the little King Clement XVII and his daughter Clorenthe anecdotally, almost as guests in their own story. However, the plot progresses regardless. And if all this seems a little slow, there is no doubt that when the whole cycle is available, we will not have difficulty reading these albums in a row, like the chapters of a voluminous epic novel. As things stand, it is true that the story may seem a little too light as long as we do not yet have the sequel available. We therefore eagerly await to be able to appreciate the work as a whole.
The fascination for The Ship of Fools is still authentic, but the reader, delighted to find these endearing characters, will not be able to hide the disappointment of seeing the peregrinations of the anti-heroes drag on and the adventures arouse only relative enthusiasm. Walking Dindes is a very nice album that – like its predecessor – will not reveal its full value until all the following volumes have been published. We are therefore impatiently waiting for the rest.
