New York Review Comics’ output deserves significantly more acclaim given their capacity for bringing forgotten or unknown gems of comics publishing to new readerships. The splendidly titled Masters of the Nefarious: Mollusk Rampage marks the first time French artist Pierre La Police’s work has been translated into English (here thanks to Luke Burns) and such is the captivatingly absurd brilliance to be found in its pages that it instantly leaves the reader hoping that this is simply the first in a series of La Police offerings from NYRC.
The titular Masters of the Nefarious are the mutant twin brothers and paranormal investigators Chris and Montgomery Themisticles who are aided in their endeavours by their friend Fongor Fonzym (who himself looks like someone has been flicking fountain pen ink in his direction). When a tidal wave hits the Malaku Islands a horde of giant prehistoric mollusks emerge to attack and kill the locals. The Themisticles brothers are soon on the case to investigate who is behind this disaster but are constantly distracted by trips to the time of the dinosaurs, Chris’s desire for a penis enlargement operation, pelican-flavoured ice cream, and Montgomery discovering he can instantly travel to Uganda through a staircase that opens up in the mattress of his bed…
Masters of the Nefarious: Mollusk Rampage is, as it sounds, a wonderfully funny series of digressions from a bizarre main plot; many of which eventually feed back into that prime narrative, landing with a witty gotcha moment. La Police makes use of one-page narrated panels that contradictorily can give the book a brisk reading pace and yet still ask us to dwell on the surreal silliness of individual images. Indeed, to a degree, each panel can feel like a discrete entity unto itself, inviting us into a moment of unfiltered and entrancing oddity.
This is heady, intoxicating stuff. A world where “driving a car” is a flavour of chips/crisps, acrobatic rotisseries are a thing, and steerable staircases are a trusted method of transport. It delights in breaking every accepted convention of narrative and then glueing them all back together again to give us a satisfying denouement that still embraces the unique rules of Masters of the Nefarious‘s universe.
As an additional bonus there’s an afterword by Luke Burns that gives some fascinating insights into the specifics of translating as distinctive a book as this. A little while back at Broken Frontier, Nicolas Rossert of Sloth Comics spoke in depth about the particular challenges of ensuring that language-specific humour survives that translation journey and Burns gives some similar commentary here on bringing La Police’s absurdist comedy to another audience while ensuring it loses nothing in the process.
More Pierre La Police books please New York Review Comics and soon!
Pierre La Police (W/A), Luke Burns (T) • New York Review Comics, $24.95
Review by Andy Oliver
