Huh. What? ( )

Lovely art. So perhaps if they'd left off the wooden dialog, dressed the women sensibly for the climate (that is, dressed them at all), and bothered to innovate a plot that revolved around more than saving a lusty, spiteful bitch, saving a helpless damsel, and facing off against a cult of murderous women (no, you are not imagining the clutter of convenient stock females), I might have actually enjoyed it. ( )

According to the hype, ‘The Mercenary 1: The Cult Of The Sacred Fire’ is something of a classic which is why we have this anniversary edition forty years after the first printing. It’s a superior reproduction made from scans of the original paintings and a very lovely book it is, too, with hardcovers and big pages featuring fine pictures. Vincente Segrelles is a talented artist, though I do find his stuff more static than is usual in graphic novels. On the other hand, I’m more familiar with American comics and they probably did things differently in Europe forty years ago.

The setting is around 1000AD in the massive mountainous area of Central Asia, crossed by the Himalayas. A land of legends. Here, tall peaks protrude above the cloud layer and in one remote valley ‘insulated by its exceptional geographic location’, the dinosaurs survived above the clouds and have been tamed by man. Hence, the flying dragons with saddle and rider on the cover. This concept may have been inspired by the plateau in Conan Doyle’s ‘The Lost World’. That plateau, however, was in a hot region of South America, not a cold region of Asia. Oh well.

Vincente Segrelles is an artist and the primary aim of the strip is to provide him with the opportunity to do some nice paintings. The story is episodic because he admits he made it up as he went along. The concepts are as old as Edgar Rice Burroughs but, because it was birthed in Post-Franco Spain, an era of liberation, he was able to draw lots of beautiful topless ladies which he likes. I don’t mind it neither but there’s no real reason for most of them to be baring their breasts. I guess this is another old tradition of fantasy art.

The book reminded me of Jack Kirby’s work, not because of the art which is completely different but for the stilted dialogue. It was translated from the Spanish by Mary McKee, so I’m not sure who to blame. On page 8, imperilled on a wounded ‘dragon’ our hero says: ‘If she dies now, we’re toast.’ On page 21 he says: ‘Alcohol? What a bunch of lushes!’ This is very contemporary slang for a thousand years ago in the Himalayas. Our hero is a bit of a puritan because the first lovely lady he rescues wants to thank him physically and he declines. Naturally, she then tells her husband that he raped her and the plot thickens.

The dialogue is a kind of half-way house between Kirby and James Michener, solid exposition without flair. I would compare this to ‘The Trigan Empire’ hardback editions. You get it for the art. I don’t think Segrelles’ art is as pretty as that of Don Lawrence but it’s accomplished. Bearing in mind the mad price you would have to pay now for ‘The Trigan Empire’, this might be worth buying and saving for your pension plan.

There’s a lot of extra material with more art and an essay by Vincent Segrelles about his life. He’s clearly a fellow who worked hard and earnestly to get on in his chosen profession and I don’t want to denigrate his book but he should have got someone else to do the script, if not the plot. On the other hand, the original was translated into several languages and sold zillions of copies so what do I know?

If I had to sum it up in one word I’d say ‘worthy.’ A good artbook if you want one and no doubt a nice bit of nostalgia if you liked the original but have lost it in the vicissitudes of life.

Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/ ( )

Lovely art, including naked ladies. The story wasn't so hot but Vincente is more of an artist than a writer and admits he fashioned a story that would allow him to draw the things he liked best, like ladies and dragons and heroic gentlemen. The dialogue is a bit stilted and reminded me of Jack Kirby, another artist who wanted to write so that he could draw what he wanted to draw. This is a great, quality hardback edition and if you treat it as an art book worth the money. See my full review on sfcrowsnest. http://sfcrowsnest.info/the-mercenary-the-definitive-editionsvol-1-the-cult-of-t...

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