THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2024! I have long put forward the belief here at Broken Frontier that silent storytelling, without the props of dialogue or textual exposition, is one of the greatest skills in comics. Chris Baldie’s Jacques and the Great Art Theft is a perfect example of this. It’s not entirely wordless. There are a couple of extremely brief and sparsely filled speech balloons in its 50-something pages but for the vast majority of it the reader is being told absolutely everything they need to know from pure sequential illustration. It’s a remarkable piece of storytelling. Not just one of the highlights of the comics I have looked at for Thought Bubble this year but one of the finest uses of the form I have read all year.
That said, this is also a very difficult book to capture the nuance of in the restrictive space of a review. That’s not due to its presentation but because a major thrust of Jacques and the Great Art Theft involves a narrative parallel to the main storyline that would ultimately ruin the book for new readers if it were to be discussed in any detail here. Suffice to say the premise involves burglar Jacques taking to the streets of Paris and into the environs of the art gallery which houses the most precious of treasures. It’s around 55 pages of slapstick misadventure as Jacques advances, infiltrates and explores, avoiding rooftop falls, security systems and roving guards on his way to his final destination.
Baldie simultaneously embraces and subverts the canvas of the comics page, showing an obvious love for its storytelling structures and yet happily tearing them down when it suits. As Jacques bounds through the confines of his narrative environment at the same time he can be bursting through panels and slipping in and out of individual backdrops in perfectly choreographed, almost meta, sequences of movement and animation.
Colour is an intrinsic part of the story’s success and colourist Adrian Bloch’s use of it herein is not just sublime but exquisite. From flashback sequences, through to the witty use of light and darkness as Jacques evades incompetent gallery staff, it’s a masterclass in how to use colour to enhance theme and create a sense of motion and environment. Jacques and the Great Art Theft is borderline genius comics storytelling; funny, touching and, at its heart, an eloquent advocate for the possibilities of the form.
Chris Baldie (W/A), Adrian Bloch (C) • Self-published, £10.00
Review by Andy Oliver
Chris Baldie will be at Table B12 in the Red Shirt Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2024 runs from November 11th-17th with the convention weekend taking place on the 16th-17th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2024 coverage so far in one place here.
Art by Rocío Arreola Mendoza
