Pierre Wininger (1950–2013)

Paris, January 1910: Reliable witnesses have reported seeing mysterious flying men, a famous astronomer has gone missing, and the Seine is rising. Egyptologist Victor Billetdoux and his journalist friend Charles Constant start investigating after the astronomer's assistant is murdered outside Victor's door, and soon realise that all these strange occurrences are somehow related.

It is obvious that Wininger has read a lot of Tardi and Jacobs: this adventure, with its underground religious sects (although Egyptian rather than Babylonian, as in Adèle Blanc-Sec) and mad scientists, feels like a cross between Le démon de la tour Eiffel and Le Mystère de la grande pyramide. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the skill of either; this story just feels derivative and confused, and while he is a competent artist he is by no means a great one. (I liked the masked gentlemen with the dowsing pendula, though; like a set of occult Thompson twins with echoes of Professor Calculus.) Of course, as this is just part one of a two-volume adventure (the second one was never published in Sweden, probably due to disappointing sales), it seems probable that many of the questions are answered in part two.… (mehr)