« Sooner or later we all sit down to the banquet of consequences. » — Robert W. Frank, paraphrasing Robert Louis Stevenson
Today, we ask: who was Peter Randa? I’m asking because I read one of his books at random — actually, the comics adaptation, and was deeply impressed with its quality. Randa, né André Duquesne (1911-1979) in Marcinelle, Belgium, wrote some 300 hundred novels in various genres over a mind bogglingly productive quarter-century under a myriad of pseudonyms, namely Jean-Jacques Alain, Urbain Farrel, Herbert Ghilen, Jules Hardouin, Jim Hendrix (!), Henri Lern, André Ollivier, H.T. Perkins, F.M. Roucayrol, Diego Suarez, Jehan Van Rhyn and Percy Williams. There may be others. He dealt in the genres of science-fiction, horror, espionage, crime, and erotica (with over fifty novels written in the early 1970s).
Two more covers (respectively 1955 and 1973) painted by the also miraculously prolific French illustrator Michel Gourdon. Here’s a segment from a French TV show touching upon the scope of his career, on the occasion of the auctioning of his vast trove of original art. Hope it all found good homes.
Well, here’s the basic plot, taken from the current e-book edition (which I’m grateful exists at all, as even outstanding work often languishes in utter obscurity or downright oblivion): « Archie Leggatt is a madman, a real one. He believes himself the Devil, had kidnapped three young women and terrorised a fourth. A run-of-the-mill serial killer? Perhaps… but when such an un assassin boasts supernatural powers and leaves more than the scent of brimstone behind, physicians and investigators begin to wonder and ask themselves questions with terrifying implications. Can one truly hope to put Satan behind bars? »
Illustrator unknown, wouldn’t you know it? Given his skill, style and stamina, I’m guessing he’s Spanish, but beyond that, I’m drawing a blank. Still, kudos to this anonymous artistic practitioner.I know, I know: it’s Warren’s Uncle Creepy with a pencil moustache. Jeannine agrees to the Faustian deal Leggatt proposes.A handsome doctor thinks he can save the woman he loves. Randa sets up the usual scenario, all the better to kick the reader’s legs out from under him. Le banquet des ténèbres — the bédé adaptation — saw print in Eclipso no. 30 (June 1973, Arédit). Amusingly, mycomicshop.com’s archivist describes Eclipso as ‘French publication reprinting comics from various Marvel properties.’ Well, not exactly. The title should clue you in: the anthology started out reprinting DC series such as Eclipso, Deadman, Mark Merlin, Challengers of the Unknown, Hawkman, Doom Patrol… while also dipping into Tower’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, for instance. Marvel got stirred into the mix in the early 1970s, then came a period of French novel adaptations, then back to US comics, mostly from Marvel. The ride ended in 1983.
What fascinated me about Le banquet is its steady ambiguity between possible mental aberration, hypnotic suggestion, and the outright supernatural. This precarious balance — and slow-burning tension — is maintained right to the end, which is no mean feat. Is Leggatt just a regular madman, a consummate mesmerist, or a temporary, occasional shell for Old Nick? I’m reminded of a similar exploit accomplished by Arturo Pérez-Reverte in his 1993 novel El Club Dumas (The Club Dumas), wherein one didn’t know for certain whether there was anything actually uncanny going on… until the conclusion. Sadly, Roman Polanski fumbled his cinematic adaptation (as The Ninth Gate), starting with the absurd casting of Johnny Depp as the presumably intelligent book detective protagonist. When Polanski’s wife starts flying, the jig is up, I’m afraid.
« I prefer hallucinations ’cause they tend to make more sense than experience. » — Todd Rundgren
Today, I’m mixing things up a bit and heading over to Europe. We’ll be looking at various versions of « Le seuil du vide » (Threshold of the Void) a story by André Ruellan (1922-2016), aka Kurt Steiner.
At left, the original novel, published in 1956; at right, the comics adaptation, published in 1973. Believe it or not , both covers are the work of the same man, the prolific Michel Gourdon (1925-2011). He had a predilection for a palette of green and blue hues.
The plot, in a few broad strokes: Young painter Wanda Leibovitz comes to Paris, hoping to forget a romance gone wrong. At the train station, upon her arrival in town, Wanda encounters a mysterious old lady offering to rent her a room, but under certain conditions…
Basically, it’s the ‘New Bodies for Old’ plot, and it ends as bleakly as you might imagine. Ruellan/Steiner wasn’t the least bit afraid to probe the darkness. The victim’s innocence was no protection against the forces besieging her, to put it mildly.
Here are a few interior pages from the Arédit adaptation, featuring art by Cándido Ruiz Pueyo.
There was also a movie adaptation by an ambitious young filmmaker by the name of Jean-François Davy. This was his third try at getting a project off the ground and into cinemas, and his only horror film. They just weren’t making such films in France in those days — the iconoclastic Jean Rollin being the notable exception — in Belgium, sure, but not in France. It took some doing to get the project (barely) financed, lensed and distributed, and its director wound up turning to porn for the rest of his career — hilariously titled porn, to be fair.
The film features such luminaries as Rififi‘s unforgettable Jean Servais, along with a non-coincidental cameo by (yet to be filmed) The Tenant author Roland Topor. Davy soon attained greater commercial success with his Bananes mécaniques, nominally a Clockwork Orange parody.
And here’s the VHS release, featuring the film’s original poster. Airbrush!
« Generally speaking, espionage offers each spy an opportunity to go crazy in a way he finds irresistible. » — Kurt Vonnegut
I love a good tale of espionage, but not in the Bond mould. While the adventures of Fleming’s 007 have their charm, it’s not exactly plausible spycraft, nor is it expected to be, I reckon. The world-weary, less flashy and more cerebral approach pioneered by Eric Ambler (Passport to Danger, A Coffin for Dimitrios) and Graham Greene (The Confidential Agent, The Quiet American) is more in keeping with my interests.
« Before Ambler, international thrillers tended to be dominated by such writers as John Buchan, Herman Cyril McNeile (known as “Sapper”), and their many imitators. These books were often rousing adventures, but filled with improbabilities, both of plot and character, plus a hearty jingoism and a well of right-wing, Old World prejudice that would curl your hair today. » [ source ]
As far as I’m concerned, I’m afraid that describes Fleming’s writing to a T. By contrast, I was right chuffed when I learned, a couple of days ago, of this striking bit of news about worthy Ambler disciple John le Carré (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), who passed away last year.
Now, given his prodigious and lasting popularity, most people likely presume that James Bond was the first “super spy”. While espionage chronicles have been around nearly as long as there’s been storytelling, the spy, if he survived his adventure, rarely embarked on a sequel.
That state of affairs was scrambled somewhat by the arrival on the scene of Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, alias OSS 117. Created by Jean Bruce, he’s starred in 265 novels, which have sold in excess of 75 million copies. The series was initially published by the legendary Fleuve Noir press, which lent the English language the now-ubiquitous (and often misused) term of ‘Noir‘.
As it happens, Mr. Bruce decided, after 25 novels in three years, to shift his series over to a rival publisher (Presses de la Cité*). Fleuve noir, understandably scrambling to avoid a massive shortfall, commissioned a pair of Belgian writers, Gaston Van den Panhuyse and Jean Libert (under the joint nom de plume of Paul Kenny) to concoct a replacement agent secret. The new fellow was Francis Coplan, alias FX-18. He was featured in 237 novels between 1953 (beating James Bond to the stands by a couple of months) and 1996.
Coplan’s début, 1953’s Sans issue (“No Exit”)
In 1966, les Presses de la Cité began issuing, through their Arédit/Comics Pocket line, graphic adaptations of OSS 117 novels; Coplan followed in 1969. As a kid (and later!), I assiduously steered clear of these: stiff and generic-looking artwork, overly-verbose scripts. At nearly 200 pages, the comics were barely shorter than the novels (generally less than 250 pages long), so the adaptors clearly didn’t make full use of the visual medium’s condensing potential.
So why am I even discussing these?
Because I discovered recently that an artist whose work I do rate highly, José de Huéscar (1938-2007), drew, as it happens, a handful of Coplan issues, and demonstrably well at that. Here are some samples, pulled from the original art.
Position clé, page 33 (1971). Note Huéscar’s confident use of a dry brush technique and his bold use of negative space (panel one in particular).
Sabotages sanglants, page 16 (1971). Ingenious, low-tech Coplan is far more John Drake than James Bond, and that’s how I prefer my spies!
Sabotages sanglants, page 24 (1971). Inventive, but not gratuitous or confusing, ‘camera’ work.
Sabotages sanglants, page 29 (1971). Fun with textures, great depth of field work, again with clear storytelling despite the invasive captions.
Sabotages sanglants, page 43 (1971). Another page that would have resulted in static talking heads. The meal the characters share is virtually relegated to the captions, and Huéscar wisely moves the action (so to speak) outside.
Sabotages sanglants, page 85 (1971). Having left London for Cairo, Coplan recruits some local help. In lesser hands, this would have just been graphically tedious talking heads.
Sabotages sanglants, page 92 (1971). Yes, this will get Francis into trouble.
Front and back covers of Coplan no. 7: Position clé (Jan. 1971, Arédit), and Coplan no. 10: Sabotages sanglants (Oct. 1971, Arédit). Seems like the cover artist (likely prolific Italian painter Carlo Jacono) had a favourite model!
-RG
*the competitors would merge in 1962, when Presses de la Cité bought Fleuve Noir. While les Presses always did a steady business in translations of American novels, their output comprised a healthy contingent of French-language originals (including excellent series by San-Antonio and Georges Simenon); nowadays, after the usual jumble of soul-killing mergers and acquisitions, they mostly traffic in translated novelisations of American TV shows and pop franchises, a dismal parallel path to globalisation and the steady decline of French culture from the second half of the 20th century.
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