Buenos dibujos. Historias entretenidas, no mucho más. ( )

I've read most of the stories before in this collection of the first five albums of the French series, but not all, and I do believe I enjoy Blacksad more in smaller doses, when one can just let the art carry things along quickly without giving one the time to think about how bad the writing is. Because Blacksad looks good despite the animal heads on all the characters. But the cat detective at the heart is a fairly stock '50s noir detective who relies more on coincidence than deduction to solve his cases. The themes of the tales are interesting at least, touching on racism, toxic waste, the Red Scare, and the Beat Generation. ( )