Baloney A Tale in 3 Symphonic Acts GN (2008 Drawn and Quarterly) comic books 2007-2009

Add to cart Very Fine $6.30

Add to cart Very Fine $6.30

1st printing.

Story and art by Pascal Blanchet.

Following White Rapids - named Best Comic of 2007 by The Onion - Pascal Blanchet brings us Baloney.

Winds swirl and darkness reigns over a hamlet perched atop a craggy peak. Russian fatalism sets the tone as Blanchet orchestrates the tale of a village butcher, his disabled daughter, and her tutor in their doomed uprising against the swaggering Duke Shostakov, local governor and owner of the only heating company in town.

In a graphic novel about love and despair that is also a homage to the music of the 1930s and '40s, double bassists and trombonists lean into the frame, striking up a score that blends vaudeville with Kurt Weill and Russia's great modern composers. Rendered in two-color, red-and-black chiaroscuro, light struggles to emerge from darkness and endurance makes way for heroism, all to no avail. Read Baloney as a reverie composed to the melodies of Prokofiev and Shostakovich - a beautiful conjuring of moods, or a call to arms against the exorbitant utility rates.

Softcover, 7-in. x 8 1/2-in., 80 pages, B&W (with Red Color).

Cover price $16.95.