It was an Anime that aired during the Summer 2017 season. I loved it. And it reminded me of my time spent reading BlackCoatPress and Rocambole books quite a bit.
It's set in a Steam Punk alternate history London. Now maybe it's only because I've read more 19th Century French popular fictions and English that it reminds me of French stuff more. But there are some obvious French Revolution references, and the Dukes mentioned sound like French Dukedoms.
Like a lot of Anime, it is very Rocambolesque.
For the current season Code:Realize is explicitly referencing most French novels yet with a London setting. So perhaps that's just how Anime currently does it.
Showing posts with label Rocambolesque. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rocambolesque. Show all posts
Friday, December 1, 2017
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
The Mysteries of Gotham
I obtained the other day a Hardcover copy I ordered of Denny O'Neil's novelization of Knightfall. As I often do I skipped to read the afterward before the actual book, in this case it didn't spoil anything since I knew the story from the BBC Radio Drama, and got a glimpse of the actual Comics in Robin Flying Solo, from various reviews I've read these adaptations of the story are improvements, or at least more polished.
The afterward I'm assuming is also written by O'Neil since no one else is credited and it seems like what he'd say. In it he suggests that the ability of a Bat like creature which used to be a symbol of evil to become a modern Hero perhaps has it's roots in how the way cities are viewed changed in the middle of the 19th Century. Dickens is the literary reference he cited, but I feel that theory provides good context for my desire to talk about how the roots of Batman and the genres he traverses stem from Eugene Sue and his French peers.
It was in Les Mysteries de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris) that Eugene Sue pretty much invented the modern Urban Crime and Mystery genres. But key pieces that came before were Balzac's Human Comedy, Vidocq's memoirs and Lamothe-Lagon's The Police Spy.
I'm hardly the first to compare the protagonist of Sue's novel to Bruce Wayne, an Aristocrat secretly fighting evil by night in the Streets. Key factors of who Bruce Wayne is are missing of course, but still he could be described as the first Dark Knight.
One of the evidences of the Dick Tracey influence on the Golden Age Batman stories is the commonality of villains with hideous scared or deformed faces, often explained by an accident involving Acid or Chemicals, like The Joker and Two-Face. Well that trope also begins in The Mysteries of Paris with le Maître d'École (The Schoolmaster) who intentionally scared his face with acid to conceal his identity.
That novel was a massive hit and thus naturally spawned a slew of imitators, the most obvious of which tended to be called "The Mysteries of _____". Stephen Knight's book The Mysteries of The Cities: Urban Crime Fiction in The Nineteenth Century talks about many of them. Not all will be specifically mentioned here. And I will mention here some he didn't.
Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte-Cristo began from an editorial mandate to create another Mysteries of Paris. But the final product is not really street level enough to make that connection clear. I'd guess the most Suesque novel Dumas wrote was probably The Mohicans of Paris.
There were two novels called The Mysteries of London. One by an actual Englishman, George Reynolds, which was vital to kicking off the Penny dreadful craze. And there was Paul Feval's Les Mysteries de Londres which actually began serialization sooner. It was also an overlooked influence on tCoMC, and it had an abridged English Translation in about 1847/8. And later Feval made it part of a shared universe with many other Crime novels he wrote, chiefly John Devil and The Blackcoats series.
But we also can't overlook Sue's own next project, The Wandering Jew, which was about equally as big a hit, and carried on some similar themes. And later in the last couple novels of Sue's Les Mysteries du People saga he made them part of the same universe.
In the 1850s, Ponson Du Terril sought to emulate The Mysteries of Paris with his Les Drames de Paris series, which inevitably morphed into the Rocambole saga. Rocambole was so influential a French literary term was named after him, Rocambolesque.
In John Devil, the character of Gregory Temple very much anticipates Sherlock Holmes, but the influence seems to have been indirect. The key middle man was Emile Gaboriou who started out working for Feval, but then wrote many detective novels of his own. Chiefly the Monsieur Lecoq series, Lecoq is cited by name in the first Holmes novel. Nick Carter who was created in America about the same time as Holmes also has about the same roots.
All of these French novels and writers were an influence on later writers like Gaston Leroux (Cheri-Bibi, Phantom of The Opera and Rouletible), Maurice Leblanc (Arsene Lupin) and Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre (Fantomas). And in turn on early silent serials like the Fantomas adaptations, Les Vampires, Judex and Belphagor ect.
On the Penny Dreadful connection. One character who's existence is probably just a coincidence but still worth noting is The Human Bat.
The known and confirmed immediate artistic influences on Batman were 1, Superman who DC wanted a repeat of, 2, Kane being visually inspired by Silent films like The Bat, and The Man Who Laughs which was in turn an adaptation of one of Victor Hugo's later novels (Brian Stableford suggests that novel owes a slight debt to Paul Feval). 3. Bill Finger who actually wrote the stories was mainly drawing on Sherlock Holmes, Zorro, Dick Tracey, The Shadow and similar pulp character like The Spider, and perhaps a bit from hard boiled Detective novels like those of Hammett and Chandler.
Zorro's name being a Spanish word for Fox is further evidence to me his roots go back to Paul Feval's Le Loup Blanc, and it's prequel La Louve. The former had three English translations in the mid 1800s all called The White Wolf. Other swashbucklers Feval wrote that are similar and had English translations were Le Bossu and The Three Red Knights: or, The Brothers' Vengeance. As well as Bel Demonio which even had an English Language stage play adaptation performed in London.
I agree with Rick Lai that the immediate roots of The Shadow lie chiefly in The Phantom of The Opera, Arsene Lupin, and Judex.
Let's talk about Batman's villains a bit. Professor Hugo Strange actually appeared first of the recurring villains. In his very first appearance he wasn't mainly a Mad Scientist which modern depictions focus on, he was explicitly a Professor Moriarty figure. And Moriarty was inspired by criminals Lecoq faced and in turn by Feval villains.
I actually did a post about The French History of The Femme Fatale, in which I mentioned French predecessors for both Catwoman and Poison Ivy, chiefly Irma Vep of Les Vampires for the former. Thing is however, Catwoman didn't wear a costume at all in her first appearance, the original Catwoman has been described as being like a female Arsene Lupin. The Lupin novels themselves arguably more then once toyed with the idea of a female Lupin, as I also hinted at in the Femme Fatale post.
The Penguin has also been compared to Dick Tracey villains like Broadway Bates. But I feel a key predecessor of The Penguin was Gutman from The Maltese Falcone, who looks more like The Penguin in the 1931 film version then he does in the more well known 1941 film.
Batman and Superman have both changed a lot from how they were in the earliest of their Golden Age stories. I personally think that's for the best with Batman yet lament it with Superman. I certainly love all the expansions of and additions to the Superman mythology to come from later writers, but I feel a core piece of the soul of Siegel and Shuster's character has been lost. Which is why I still feel the best Live Action Superman is George Reeves and the best Animated are the Fleischer Shorts, but even there what I'm referring to is already fading, The Champion of The Oppressed.
I think my justification for that different perspective is partly because Batman was a more blatantly derivative character. Siegel and Shuster had to fight for years to get a publisher to take a chance on Superman, while Batman was the product of an editorial mandate to recreate the success of Superman, just like so many works made in the wake of The Mysteries of Paris.
Not to say Superman wasn't also influenced by earlier fiction/mythology. Comparisons to Pulp adventurers like Doc Savage and the one Cracked.com accused Superman of ripping off are common. And Siegel and Shuster's goal was partly to create a modern Samson but with an origin that was a SciFi version of Moses. The connection to Samson in turn causes comparisons to other mythical strongmen from Herakles/Hercules to Machiste. And the origin story I feel happens to resemble Sargon and Perseus more then Moses.
But the point is Superman was from the start clearly distinct from his literary ancestors, while Batman's distinctive characterization had to be developed by later writers. Writers like Frank Robbins, Denny O'Neil, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Chuck Dickson, Jeph Leob, Greg Rouka and Gail Simone. And while they're a mixed bag we can't overlook Frank Miller, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. And plenty of what's been done in other media was important too.
But of course it's not just the Golden Age writers who drew on earlier stories. Later Batman writers first off drew on earlier Batman stories. But also in the 70s there was a lot of James Bond influence, Ra's Al Ghul is a product of that. And later Nolan cited James Bond influence for Batman Begins (which was also novelized by O'Neil), Heat and Clockwork Orange for The Dark Knight, and Joseph Campbell and Star Wars for TDKRises, and also A Tale of Two Cities, so Dickens was relevant after all. But I feel the James Bond books themselves owe a debt to Batman, particularly the villain Goldfinger who has a very Penguin vibe to me, or at least based on the same earlier characters as The Penguin.
Jeph Leob's The Long Halloween was in Batman canon a simultaneous sequel to Miller's Year One and reworking of aspects of Eye of The Beholder. But he was also drawing on The Godfather films, Raymond Chandler novels like The Long Goodbye which inspired the name, and Silence of The Lambs. And Tim Burton shared Bob Kane's love of old German Expressionism Silent Films, thus we see plenty of Cabinet of Dr Caligari in Batman Returns.
And even those influences can still be traced back at least partly to these French Authors I'm seeking to draw more attention to.
I haven't read Gotham by Gaslight yet, but from the premise I'm already disappointed. Things like using Jack The Ripper rather then normal Batman villains isn't what I want. For starters I would like these 19th century literary roots of Batman to be looked at in how to adapt him for a period piece. And then the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was once New York police Commissioner makes using him as inspiration for Gordon seem natural.
But also I saw Gangs of New York a few weeks ago, and it has some things in common with how I'd imagine a 19th Century Batman story. Daniel Day Lewis character could make a good model for The Penguin, and Cameron Diaz for Catwoman, and Twede for Rupert Throne.
Years ago I saw a documentary on The History channel about Crime in Ancient Rome, the main host/narrator of the show seemed similar to me to Keith Scott from One Tree Hill, but I don't know if it was really the same actor. That naturally got my mind spinning about how you could do Batman in Ancient Rome. But now I'm well off the main subject of this post.
The afterward I'm assuming is also written by O'Neil since no one else is credited and it seems like what he'd say. In it he suggests that the ability of a Bat like creature which used to be a symbol of evil to become a modern Hero perhaps has it's roots in how the way cities are viewed changed in the middle of the 19th Century. Dickens is the literary reference he cited, but I feel that theory provides good context for my desire to talk about how the roots of Batman and the genres he traverses stem from Eugene Sue and his French peers.
It was in Les Mysteries de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris) that Eugene Sue pretty much invented the modern Urban Crime and Mystery genres. But key pieces that came before were Balzac's Human Comedy, Vidocq's memoirs and Lamothe-Lagon's The Police Spy.
I'm hardly the first to compare the protagonist of Sue's novel to Bruce Wayne, an Aristocrat secretly fighting evil by night in the Streets. Key factors of who Bruce Wayne is are missing of course, but still he could be described as the first Dark Knight.
One of the evidences of the Dick Tracey influence on the Golden Age Batman stories is the commonality of villains with hideous scared or deformed faces, often explained by an accident involving Acid or Chemicals, like The Joker and Two-Face. Well that trope also begins in The Mysteries of Paris with le Maître d'École (The Schoolmaster) who intentionally scared his face with acid to conceal his identity.
That novel was a massive hit and thus naturally spawned a slew of imitators, the most obvious of which tended to be called "The Mysteries of _____". Stephen Knight's book The Mysteries of The Cities: Urban Crime Fiction in The Nineteenth Century talks about many of them. Not all will be specifically mentioned here. And I will mention here some he didn't.
Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte-Cristo began from an editorial mandate to create another Mysteries of Paris. But the final product is not really street level enough to make that connection clear. I'd guess the most Suesque novel Dumas wrote was probably The Mohicans of Paris.
There were two novels called The Mysteries of London. One by an actual Englishman, George Reynolds, which was vital to kicking off the Penny dreadful craze. And there was Paul Feval's Les Mysteries de Londres which actually began serialization sooner. It was also an overlooked influence on tCoMC, and it had an abridged English Translation in about 1847/8. And later Feval made it part of a shared universe with many other Crime novels he wrote, chiefly John Devil and The Blackcoats series.
But we also can't overlook Sue's own next project, The Wandering Jew, which was about equally as big a hit, and carried on some similar themes. And later in the last couple novels of Sue's Les Mysteries du People saga he made them part of the same universe.
In the 1850s, Ponson Du Terril sought to emulate The Mysteries of Paris with his Les Drames de Paris series, which inevitably morphed into the Rocambole saga. Rocambole was so influential a French literary term was named after him, Rocambolesque.
In John Devil, the character of Gregory Temple very much anticipates Sherlock Holmes, but the influence seems to have been indirect. The key middle man was Emile Gaboriou who started out working for Feval, but then wrote many detective novels of his own. Chiefly the Monsieur Lecoq series, Lecoq is cited by name in the first Holmes novel. Nick Carter who was created in America about the same time as Holmes also has about the same roots.
All of these French novels and writers were an influence on later writers like Gaston Leroux (Cheri-Bibi, Phantom of The Opera and Rouletible), Maurice Leblanc (Arsene Lupin) and Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre (Fantomas). And in turn on early silent serials like the Fantomas adaptations, Les Vampires, Judex and Belphagor ect.
On the Penny Dreadful connection. One character who's existence is probably just a coincidence but still worth noting is The Human Bat.
The known and confirmed immediate artistic influences on Batman were 1, Superman who DC wanted a repeat of, 2, Kane being visually inspired by Silent films like The Bat, and The Man Who Laughs which was in turn an adaptation of one of Victor Hugo's later novels (Brian Stableford suggests that novel owes a slight debt to Paul Feval). 3. Bill Finger who actually wrote the stories was mainly drawing on Sherlock Holmes, Zorro, Dick Tracey, The Shadow and similar pulp character like The Spider, and perhaps a bit from hard boiled Detective novels like those of Hammett and Chandler.
Zorro's name being a Spanish word for Fox is further evidence to me his roots go back to Paul Feval's Le Loup Blanc, and it's prequel La Louve. The former had three English translations in the mid 1800s all called The White Wolf. Other swashbucklers Feval wrote that are similar and had English translations were Le Bossu and The Three Red Knights: or, The Brothers' Vengeance. As well as Bel Demonio which even had an English Language stage play adaptation performed in London.
I agree with Rick Lai that the immediate roots of The Shadow lie chiefly in The Phantom of The Opera, Arsene Lupin, and Judex.
Let's talk about Batman's villains a bit. Professor Hugo Strange actually appeared first of the recurring villains. In his very first appearance he wasn't mainly a Mad Scientist which modern depictions focus on, he was explicitly a Professor Moriarty figure. And Moriarty was inspired by criminals Lecoq faced and in turn by Feval villains.
I actually did a post about The French History of The Femme Fatale, in which I mentioned French predecessors for both Catwoman and Poison Ivy, chiefly Irma Vep of Les Vampires for the former. Thing is however, Catwoman didn't wear a costume at all in her first appearance, the original Catwoman has been described as being like a female Arsene Lupin. The Lupin novels themselves arguably more then once toyed with the idea of a female Lupin, as I also hinted at in the Femme Fatale post.
The Penguin has also been compared to Dick Tracey villains like Broadway Bates. But I feel a key predecessor of The Penguin was Gutman from The Maltese Falcone, who looks more like The Penguin in the 1931 film version then he does in the more well known 1941 film.
Batman and Superman have both changed a lot from how they were in the earliest of their Golden Age stories. I personally think that's for the best with Batman yet lament it with Superman. I certainly love all the expansions of and additions to the Superman mythology to come from later writers, but I feel a core piece of the soul of Siegel and Shuster's character has been lost. Which is why I still feel the best Live Action Superman is George Reeves and the best Animated are the Fleischer Shorts, but even there what I'm referring to is already fading, The Champion of The Oppressed.
I think my justification for that different perspective is partly because Batman was a more blatantly derivative character. Siegel and Shuster had to fight for years to get a publisher to take a chance on Superman, while Batman was the product of an editorial mandate to recreate the success of Superman, just like so many works made in the wake of The Mysteries of Paris.
Not to say Superman wasn't also influenced by earlier fiction/mythology. Comparisons to Pulp adventurers like Doc Savage and the one Cracked.com accused Superman of ripping off are common. And Siegel and Shuster's goal was partly to create a modern Samson but with an origin that was a SciFi version of Moses. The connection to Samson in turn causes comparisons to other mythical strongmen from Herakles/Hercules to Machiste. And the origin story I feel happens to resemble Sargon and Perseus more then Moses.
But the point is Superman was from the start clearly distinct from his literary ancestors, while Batman's distinctive characterization had to be developed by later writers. Writers like Frank Robbins, Denny O'Neil, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Chuck Dickson, Jeph Leob, Greg Rouka and Gail Simone. And while they're a mixed bag we can't overlook Frank Miller, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. And plenty of what's been done in other media was important too.
But of course it's not just the Golden Age writers who drew on earlier stories. Later Batman writers first off drew on earlier Batman stories. But also in the 70s there was a lot of James Bond influence, Ra's Al Ghul is a product of that. And later Nolan cited James Bond influence for Batman Begins (which was also novelized by O'Neil), Heat and Clockwork Orange for The Dark Knight, and Joseph Campbell and Star Wars for TDKRises, and also A Tale of Two Cities, so Dickens was relevant after all. But I feel the James Bond books themselves owe a debt to Batman, particularly the villain Goldfinger who has a very Penguin vibe to me, or at least based on the same earlier characters as The Penguin.
Jeph Leob's The Long Halloween was in Batman canon a simultaneous sequel to Miller's Year One and reworking of aspects of Eye of The Beholder. But he was also drawing on The Godfather films, Raymond Chandler novels like The Long Goodbye which inspired the name, and Silence of The Lambs. And Tim Burton shared Bob Kane's love of old German Expressionism Silent Films, thus we see plenty of Cabinet of Dr Caligari in Batman Returns.
And even those influences can still be traced back at least partly to these French Authors I'm seeking to draw more attention to.
I haven't read Gotham by Gaslight yet, but from the premise I'm already disappointed. Things like using Jack The Ripper rather then normal Batman villains isn't what I want. For starters I would like these 19th century literary roots of Batman to be looked at in how to adapt him for a period piece. And then the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was once New York police Commissioner makes using him as inspiration for Gordon seem natural.
But also I saw Gangs of New York a few weeks ago, and it has some things in common with how I'd imagine a 19th Century Batman story. Daniel Day Lewis character could make a good model for The Penguin, and Cameron Diaz for Catwoman, and Twede for Rupert Throne.
Years ago I saw a documentary on The History channel about Crime in Ancient Rome, the main host/narrator of the show seemed similar to me to Keith Scott from One Tree Hill, but I don't know if it was really the same actor. That naturally got my mind spinning about how you could do Batman in Ancient Rome. But now I'm well off the main subject of this post.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
A quote from Paul Feval
In a letter written in 1861 to the Baron de Chapuys-Montlaville, Paul Feval defended popular fiction by saying.
I've often thought of that quote of Paul Feval recently when reading Heather Hogan's Pretty Little Liars recaps, or listening to the BrosWatchPLLToo podcast.
It's a show that some people find easy to write off. But is none the less very awesome.
Since I discovered Paul Feval, and other 19th century Feuilletonists like Ponson and Sue and Dumas, but mostly Feval in 2012, I've seen his fingerprints, his/their indirect influence on all modern Popular Fiction, from the Pulps to Comics, to CW television shows, and of course numerous Hollywood and made for TV movies, and in Anime and Manga too.
But I feel nothing today is more Fevalian then Pretty Little Liars. That show is pure Rocambolesque. It takes itself incredibly seriously and not seriously at all at the same time, it's wonderful. A perfect Melodrama.
Alison is like a teenage Marguerite Sadalous, and Mona is like a female John Devil.
I may or may not be the only Tales of The Shadowmen contributor who's familiar with the show.
I also feel like commenting on how Brian Stableford said in his afterward for The Blackcoats: Heart of Steel that the book is "Unintentionally proto-feminist". It's a very good and informative afterward and I recommend it. The only thing I might partly disagree with is the "unintentionally" part, though not entirely.
Feval was a devout Catholic and Royalist, which made him a Conservative in the context of 19th century French politics. And as such clearly saw traditional gender roles as important. But at the same time this wasn't the only novel where he (and other 19th century french catholic royalists like Ponson) had surprisingly strong and active female characters.
Feval and Ponson supported the Nobility on traditionalist grounds. But they also seemed to feel that the Nobles brought their downfall on themselves. They would not be like a modern Fox News pundits going "How dare you accuse the rich of being greedy and selfish".
And as I read about Echalot and Similor in the Blackcoats saga, I feel compelled to conclude that Feval would be surprisingly supportive of LGBT people. I don't think he'd object to the internet Slash-Shipping his characters.
"That insignificant literature sometimes has higher aspiration, but it never declares them, and that is the secret of its power."The above quote was made available for English speaking readers in Alain Landier's introduction to Black Coat Press's Shadowmen 2: Heroes and Villians of French Comics, edited by Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier. Which I read early last year (2013).
I've often thought of that quote of Paul Feval recently when reading Heather Hogan's Pretty Little Liars recaps, or listening to the BrosWatchPLLToo podcast.
It's a show that some people find easy to write off. But is none the less very awesome.
Since I discovered Paul Feval, and other 19th century Feuilletonists like Ponson and Sue and Dumas, but mostly Feval in 2012, I've seen his fingerprints, his/their indirect influence on all modern Popular Fiction, from the Pulps to Comics, to CW television shows, and of course numerous Hollywood and made for TV movies, and in Anime and Manga too.
But I feel nothing today is more Fevalian then Pretty Little Liars. That show is pure Rocambolesque. It takes itself incredibly seriously and not seriously at all at the same time, it's wonderful. A perfect Melodrama.
Alison is like a teenage Marguerite Sadalous, and Mona is like a female John Devil.
I may or may not be the only Tales of The Shadowmen contributor who's familiar with the show.
I also feel like commenting on how Brian Stableford said in his afterward for The Blackcoats: Heart of Steel that the book is "Unintentionally proto-feminist". It's a very good and informative afterward and I recommend it. The only thing I might partly disagree with is the "unintentionally" part, though not entirely.
Feval was a devout Catholic and Royalist, which made him a Conservative in the context of 19th century French politics. And as such clearly saw traditional gender roles as important. But at the same time this wasn't the only novel where he (and other 19th century french catholic royalists like Ponson) had surprisingly strong and active female characters.
Feval and Ponson supported the Nobility on traditionalist grounds. But they also seemed to feel that the Nobles brought their downfall on themselves. They would not be like a modern Fox News pundits going "How dare you accuse the rich of being greedy and selfish".
And as I read about Echalot and Similor in the Blackcoats saga, I feel compelled to conclude that Feval would be surprisingly supportive of LGBT people. I don't think he'd object to the internet Slash-Shipping his characters.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Rocambole in London
For now I decided to skip Volume 2 of Basil Balian's abridged Rocambole translations and go right to volume 3 with his London adventures.
The first story in the Volume was really the epilogue to Rocambole's India adventure. It was amusing.
The summery of the Rocambole saga on CoolFrenchComics is sometimes misleading. Part of it may be how abridged this Translation is. But I take notice that Jeon-Marc seems to want to encourage people to compare these characters to Iconic Modern characters, in ways that may or may not be accurate. In the case of this first story, they describe The Beautiful Gardiner (Romia) in a way makes her sound kind of like Poison Ivy.
I did my post that talked about the Strong Female characters of Ponson and Feval. Now that I've read this there are more I could add. Vanda, Romia, but most of all Ellen Palmure. At least in the first book of the London trilogy she is a really intriguing character. The way her character completely changes at the end is kind of hard to swallow. A problem that faces many female villains when they make a Heel-Face turn.
One of the main things I was looking forward to reading about was Reverend Peters Town. Who's called Bishop Towne in this translation. He's been called a sort of Protestant counterpart to Eugene Sue's Father Rodin. Thing is, he's not actually clever enough to fit that analogy I feel. It's always a different Villain who actually seems to be a match for Rocambole's ingenuity. Towne is maybe more comparable to Father D'Aigrigny, Rodin's superior.
Rocambole was a character who started out a villain. What's interesting here is that while operating as part of this Irish Resistance in London he kind of seems effectively like he's a Supervillain again in terms of his tactics. Comparable to Anime characters like Lelouch Vi Britannia.
Feval and Ponson both wanted to play on French reader's tendency to sympathize with the Irish under British occupation, but Ponson was willing to go much further. Because Feval still had Fergus O'Breanne and Henri Belcamp as villains rather then heroes.
There are flaws, but overall I recommend it.
The first story in the Volume was really the epilogue to Rocambole's India adventure. It was amusing.
The summery of the Rocambole saga on CoolFrenchComics is sometimes misleading. Part of it may be how abridged this Translation is. But I take notice that Jeon-Marc seems to want to encourage people to compare these characters to Iconic Modern characters, in ways that may or may not be accurate. In the case of this first story, they describe The Beautiful Gardiner (Romia) in a way makes her sound kind of like Poison Ivy.
I did my post that talked about the Strong Female characters of Ponson and Feval. Now that I've read this there are more I could add. Vanda, Romia, but most of all Ellen Palmure. At least in the first book of the London trilogy she is a really intriguing character. The way her character completely changes at the end is kind of hard to swallow. A problem that faces many female villains when they make a Heel-Face turn.
One of the main things I was looking forward to reading about was Reverend Peters Town. Who's called Bishop Towne in this translation. He's been called a sort of Protestant counterpart to Eugene Sue's Father Rodin. Thing is, he's not actually clever enough to fit that analogy I feel. It's always a different Villain who actually seems to be a match for Rocambole's ingenuity. Towne is maybe more comparable to Father D'Aigrigny, Rodin's superior.
Rocambole was a character who started out a villain. What's interesting here is that while operating as part of this Irish Resistance in London he kind of seems effectively like he's a Supervillain again in terms of his tactics. Comparable to Anime characters like Lelouch Vi Britannia.
Feval and Ponson both wanted to play on French reader's tendency to sympathize with the Irish under British occupation, but Ponson was willing to go much further. Because Feval still had Fergus O'Breanne and Henri Belcamp as villains rather then heroes.
There are flaws, but overall I recommend it.
Friday, September 26, 2014
The strong Women of French Pulp Fiction, and their unexpected authors
[Update 2026: When I made this series of posts I was still mistaken about some aspects of Political terminology are used. I called myself a Liberal but I was actually already a Socialist.]
The struggle to gain better female representation in Genre
fiction is an interesting and complicated one. Recent years have seen
a lot of progress with the success of movies like The Hunger Games, and Divergent and Frozen and Wonder Woman
finally coming to the big screen (First in Batman Vs Superman, then finally a solo movie). But also lots of
developments that demonstrate how much more work needs to be done, like the recent controversy with the latest Assassins Creed game announcing it won’t have any female playable characters.
What continually interests me is how surprisingly ahead of their time many older authors were. Both the frequently revered classics, and the more obscure ones, both English and French. In this post I’ll be discussing mainly what I see as an interesting observation about 4 of the major feuilletonists, but I’ll be making more posts on other characters.
I want to point out something interesting I've observed about the four major feuilletonists of the Golden age of the Romans-Feuilletin. Alexandre Dumas, Eugene Sue, Paul Feval and Ponson Du-Terril.
Brian Stableford spends a good deal of time in the Introduction and Afterward material for the Feval and Ponson translations he’s done for BlackCoatPress talking about the political alignments of those four authors. What I find curious is that the two who were the “Conservatives” in the contexts of post Revolutionary France (in being devout Catholics and Royalists) Feval and Ponson. Seem to me to have over all been more inclined to write surprisingly well written strong independent women.
Dumas arguably invented the modern Femme Fatale, between both writing the Le Tour de Nesle play and the character of Milady d’Winter in The Three Musketeers, but like many firsts I feel they pale in comparison to their more fleshed out literary descendants (both the well known and less well known). I of course love the heavily implied Lesbian characters of The Count of Monte-Cristo, Eugenie Danglars and Louise d'Armilly. And I find Ziska from his Le Vampire play fascinating. But beyond those examples, Dumas’s women conform to the stereotypes you expect, still well written characters because Dumas was a great writer of Melodrama, but not too innovative.
Sue is admittedly the one I’m currently least familiar with. But still, plenty of what I've heard about what transpires over the course of Les Mysteries du People wouldn't sit well with Feminists. And I've read the stage play he himself made of The Mysteries of Paris (Translated by Frank Morlock). And the two main female characters are a typical Ingenue (clearly part of the inspiration for Cossete in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables), and Countess Sarah who's a fallen woman desperately seeking redemption (I think the play makes her ending happier then the original Novel based on what I read in Shadowmen). I feel for the character, she's not horribly written, but also not subversive like I'd expect from France's top Socialist writer. The character of La Chouette (The Owl) is only mentioned in the play and doesn't appear directly. She at any rate was an ugly evil old crone.
Ponson was seemingly more inclined then Feval to let his political-religious views influence his writing in a very obvious and, intentionally or not, preachy way. I've often found myself thinking “really? that’s what’s honorable to you Ponson?”.
But none the less, in what would become known as the Rocambole saga, Bacarat proves to be a very formidable woman. In the first novel she’s an important but minor role, however in the second and third novels she proves to be the real Hero of the story. And Torquise proves to be a very mesmerizing Femme Fatale in the second Novel. The two Ponson Vampire novels Stableford has translated for BlackCoatPress both have compelling women as the title Vampires. In his introduction-afterward material for The Vampire and The Devil’s Son Stableford discuses how Ponson kind of innovated a lot of the tropes common in modern Romance Novels. (Update: more on Rocombole here)
Paul Feval’s characters are endlessly fascinating. Plenty fit the norms you’d expect of the time, but many do not. I personally think two of the greatest Femme Fatales ever written are Countess Marcian Gregory of The Vampire Countess and Marguerite Sadoulas of The Blackcoats saga. But Sarah O’Neil of John Devil is also an interesting early experimentation with that archetype. The saga of the Habits Noirs also has some strong heroic women. Rose de Malvoy is the real hero of The Heart of Steel, Valentine (Fleurette) and Maman Leo are the core protagonists of The Invisible Weapon. Regina from Bel Demonio is bound to gain conflicting responses from a modern feminist reader, I’d dare say she’d fit in as an Anime character quite well. Susannah gets an opportunity to show some impressive courage in Les Mysteries de Londres.
In Le Bossu our young female lead is allowed to actually save herself from an attempted Rape, something Stableford suspects Feval might have originally intended to do again in The Sword Swallower. Vampire City has both Anna Ward (Anne Radcliffe) and Polly Bird, (warning though, the desire of some modern reviewers to describe Polly Bird as transgender is very misleading).
And there are still so many Feval works not available to me yet. Among them La Louve (The She Wolf) the prequel to Le Loup le Blanc (The White Wolf), and quite possibly the first depiction of a masked female vigilante. The novel it prequels was the first depiction of a Masked Vigilante period, well before Zorro or the Scarlet Pimpernel.
I want to go back a bit now. Stableford describes The Heart of Steel as "Unintentionally Proto-Feminist". I've suggested elsewhere it may not be as unintentional as you'd think. But by no means do I think Feval would be a cheerleader of modern Feminism.
In the case of the Invisible Weapon. I'm not sure, but I think it may very well pass the Bechel Test. Considering how rare passing that still is, I think it's really fascinating to consider that a forgotten work of 19th century literature (a sequel to a prequel) by a man fighting the tides of a change could be capable of passing it. (Update 12/23/2015, since I've seen it argued The Force Awakens passes, The Invisible Weapon certainly would by that standard).
What continually interests me is how surprisingly ahead of their time many older authors were. Both the frequently revered classics, and the more obscure ones, both English and French. In this post I’ll be discussing mainly what I see as an interesting observation about 4 of the major feuilletonists, but I’ll be making more posts on other characters.
I want to point out something interesting I've observed about the four major feuilletonists of the Golden age of the Romans-Feuilletin. Alexandre Dumas, Eugene Sue, Paul Feval and Ponson Du-Terril.
Brian Stableford spends a good deal of time in the Introduction and Afterward material for the Feval and Ponson translations he’s done for BlackCoatPress talking about the political alignments of those four authors. What I find curious is that the two who were the “Conservatives” in the contexts of post Revolutionary France (in being devout Catholics and Royalists) Feval and Ponson. Seem to me to have over all been more inclined to write surprisingly well written strong independent women.
Dumas arguably invented the modern Femme Fatale, between both writing the Le Tour de Nesle play and the character of Milady d’Winter in The Three Musketeers, but like many firsts I feel they pale in comparison to their more fleshed out literary descendants (both the well known and less well known). I of course love the heavily implied Lesbian characters of The Count of Monte-Cristo, Eugenie Danglars and Louise d'Armilly. And I find Ziska from his Le Vampire play fascinating. But beyond those examples, Dumas’s women conform to the stereotypes you expect, still well written characters because Dumas was a great writer of Melodrama, but not too innovative.
Sue is admittedly the one I’m currently least familiar with. But still, plenty of what I've heard about what transpires over the course of Les Mysteries du People wouldn't sit well with Feminists. And I've read the stage play he himself made of The Mysteries of Paris (Translated by Frank Morlock). And the two main female characters are a typical Ingenue (clearly part of the inspiration for Cossete in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables), and Countess Sarah who's a fallen woman desperately seeking redemption (I think the play makes her ending happier then the original Novel based on what I read in Shadowmen). I feel for the character, she's not horribly written, but also not subversive like I'd expect from France's top Socialist writer. The character of La Chouette (The Owl) is only mentioned in the play and doesn't appear directly. She at any rate was an ugly evil old crone.
Ponson was seemingly more inclined then Feval to let his political-religious views influence his writing in a very obvious and, intentionally or not, preachy way. I've often found myself thinking “really? that’s what’s honorable to you Ponson?”.
But none the less, in what would become known as the Rocambole saga, Bacarat proves to be a very formidable woman. In the first novel she’s an important but minor role, however in the second and third novels she proves to be the real Hero of the story. And Torquise proves to be a very mesmerizing Femme Fatale in the second Novel. The two Ponson Vampire novels Stableford has translated for BlackCoatPress both have compelling women as the title Vampires. In his introduction-afterward material for The Vampire and The Devil’s Son Stableford discuses how Ponson kind of innovated a lot of the tropes common in modern Romance Novels. (Update: more on Rocombole here)
Paul Feval’s characters are endlessly fascinating. Plenty fit the norms you’d expect of the time, but many do not. I personally think two of the greatest Femme Fatales ever written are Countess Marcian Gregory of The Vampire Countess and Marguerite Sadoulas of The Blackcoats saga. But Sarah O’Neil of John Devil is also an interesting early experimentation with that archetype. The saga of the Habits Noirs also has some strong heroic women. Rose de Malvoy is the real hero of The Heart of Steel, Valentine (Fleurette) and Maman Leo are the core protagonists of The Invisible Weapon. Regina from Bel Demonio is bound to gain conflicting responses from a modern feminist reader, I’d dare say she’d fit in as an Anime character quite well. Susannah gets an opportunity to show some impressive courage in Les Mysteries de Londres.
In Le Bossu our young female lead is allowed to actually save herself from an attempted Rape, something Stableford suspects Feval might have originally intended to do again in The Sword Swallower. Vampire City has both Anna Ward (Anne Radcliffe) and Polly Bird, (warning though, the desire of some modern reviewers to describe Polly Bird as transgender is very misleading).
And there are still so many Feval works not available to me yet. Among them La Louve (The She Wolf) the prequel to Le Loup le Blanc (The White Wolf), and quite possibly the first depiction of a masked female vigilante. The novel it prequels was the first depiction of a Masked Vigilante period, well before Zorro or the Scarlet Pimpernel.
I want to go back a bit now. Stableford describes The Heart of Steel as "Unintentionally Proto-Feminist". I've suggested elsewhere it may not be as unintentional as you'd think. But by no means do I think Feval would be a cheerleader of modern Feminism.
In the case of the Invisible Weapon. I'm not sure, but I think it may very well pass the Bechel Test. Considering how rare passing that still is, I think it's really fascinating to consider that a forgotten work of 19th century literature (a sequel to a prequel) by a man fighting the tides of a change could be capable of passing it. (Update 12/23/2015, since I've seen it argued The Force Awakens passes, The Invisible Weapon certainly would by that standard).
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