Retief

Retief of the Mountain of Red Tape

redscraper3 Comments

Looking at my shelves, one would be inclined to believe that I am a huge Keith Laumer fan, which wouldn’t be really true. A few of these books have Richard Powers covers (always worth collecting, even if one is not particularly interested in reading the actual book), but the rest have mostly been purchased after I encountered Laumer’s Retief character… in comic book form.

Which is not to say that Laumer’s Retief series is not worth a read, especially if you like a satirical approach to bureaucracy with a geo-political bent. Jame Retief, diplomat for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne*, is the pragmatic voice in an organization mostly focused on excessive paperwork, meaningless awards, and pompous exchanges (in proper attire, naturally) between planetary representatives, all of this governed by a complex system of protocols and other galimatias. Anybody who’s worked for any kind of big company will be able to relate. Laumer served a stint as a vice consul for the United States Foreign Service, so doubtlessly he accumulated a lot of material for this. The novels rarely ascend beyond amusing, though, and the funny bits sometimes feel like somebody’s trying to be Conscientiously Funny.

Writer Jan Strnad, who has a long list of credits under his belt, having worked for pretty much all major comic publishers as well as contributing articles to The Comics Journal and writing novels, and artist Denis Fujitake** adapted several Retief stories into comic book form in the late 80s. These were published by Mad Dog Graphics. This team did such a bang-up job that I by far prefer them to the Laumer material, and no small element of this adaptation’s success is the clean art by Fujitake that brings to vivid life these characters. There were 6 great issues overall (1987-1988), collected in 1990 into Retief!: The Graphic Album.

Let’s have a look at some of my favourite moments. All of the below are excerpts from Keith Laumer stories by Strnad and Fujitake, drawn by Fujitake, and lettered by Gary Kato.

Apparently Laumer himself has always pictured Retief as having dark hair, so one might even say that these comics are closer to his vision than, say, the covers of Retief novels published by Baen Books, where he’s a sort of ditsy blonde*** with a lot of guns and mostly undressed women. I own a few of these… and yuck, one might as well stick to the electronic version.

Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 1 (April 1987)
Page from Policy. Issue number 1 introduces us to the sneaky and unscrupulous Groaci, whose representative Mr. Fith has his fingers and 5 eye appendages in all pies. There are plenty of action scenes in Retief, but Fujitake’s art makes an even ordinary conversation fun to watch.
One of the closing pages from Policy, in which Miss Meuhl satisfyingly suffers a slight breakdown (when your values clash with reality, it’s generally an unpleasant process).
Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 2 (June 1987)
Shades of Brain Bats of Venus, anyone? Page from Sealed Orders, from issue no. 2.
Another page from Sealed Orders, in which Retief is shown to be a bon vivant who can appreciate alien fare.
Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 3 (August 1987). One can’t say the series abounds with buxom women (or women at all, really – aside from the secretary who lost her marbles in the first issue), the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne is manned entirely by, well, men. Fujitake draws beautiful babes, though, few and far and between as they are.
Page from Protest Note, published in no. 3. Retief visits a variety of environments, and Fujitake draws them all with equal conviction.
A fun page from Protest Note with some idiomatic banter.
Page from Saline Solution, published in Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 4 (October 1987). Retief may be a rather refined sort with a taste for fine wine and his own brand for diplomacy, but he does not hesitate to mingle with the plebeian masses – or side with the underdog, which Sam here is a representative of.
Page from Ultimatum, published in Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 5 (January 1988). It must have been a lot of fun to design aliens from a description in a short story, and give them speech bubbles to match (the advantage of hand lettering which, as mentioned previously, is handled by Gary Kato).
The pompous Mr. Magnan (the one in the sort-of baseball cap) has a long stick up his ass, but he’s not without charm, whereas Mr. Ambassador entirely deserves the rag in his mouth (and more).
Page from The Forest in the Sky, published in no. 6.
The hamster-like critters of The Forest in the Sky are adorable.. and voracious, especially their youth.

~ ds

* In French, ‘Terrestrienne’ is feminine (if it were an actual word… ‘Terrestre’ would be the right one) and ‘corps’ is masculine, so there’s a grammatical problem in its title.

** Strnad has also collaborated with Fujitake on Dalgoda, published by Fantagraphics from 1984–1986, which will be the subject of another post as soon as I reread the series. Any day now!

*** unsurprising, given that Baen’s Retief cover model was blue-eyed, blond 1980’s hunk Corbin Bernsen, whom you may recall from L.A. Law.

P.S. There is another comic adaptation from 1989, published by Malibu, with scripts by Bruce Balfour, pencils by Darren Goodhart, and inks by Alan Larsen. One word – ew.

Art by Darren Goodhart.