Blacksad: The Collected Stories

Blacksad has always been a comic for which I had a strong curiosity since the first time I discovered it. We are talking about this kind of production in which the entire American history is rewritten using the animal anthropomorphic trope, and focused on some fantastic cold cases solved by John Blacksad himself, a black cat detective. I love noir genre, and Blacksad embodies his purest meaning, with all the classical characterizations and events typical of this kind of stories. We find broken loves, melancholic sunsets, obscure pubs and mysterious organizations. Obviously what hits mostly is how all these themes are treated using animals instead people, with great results in particular in style, always saturated and full of colours and perfect in character design and peculiar locations. Despite this expected premise, I noticed the production has a not so iconic cast of characters. Despite John and the journalist Weekly, you could find difficult to empathize with victims or secondary creatures. Maybe because lots of them are over-used in crime novels, maybe because the protagonists steals the scene, but I hoped for a better attention onto this aspect, which impacts the worldbuilding turing it into something intriguing but not memorable. Blacksad is a love letter to noir stories, and with all his limitations, represents a piece of finest Spanish comic production.

STYLE: 5
STORY: 4,5
WORLDBUILDING: 4
RHYTHM: 4,5
MAIN CHARACTERS: 4
ANTAGONISTS: 5
ARTISTIC FEATURE: 5
ATMOSPHERE 5
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 4

FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Increíble dibujo de Guarnido. El flujo que llevan los paneles y la intención que se imprime en cada uno son por sí mismos impresionantes (volveré aquí por consejos cuando empiece a dibujar mi cómic). Sumado a todo esto, la clásica historia noir de un detective desafortunado, escrita por Díaz Canales, vuelve a Blacksad una genialidad de comic y un referente obligado del medio (personas más enamoradas de los cómics que yo, lo ven como un must). Parece ligero en la superficie pero tiene muchas referencias a música, cultura beatnik, literatura —hay una referencia sobre el rollo dónde Kerouac escribió On the Road y una sobre Allen Ginsberg, apropiadas para la época— y sobre el arte en general. También hay reflexiones sobre problemas raciales, conservadurismo y capitalismo.

I really enjoyed reading this one. The art is top-notch, the stories are very atmospheric and, especially the first ones, give the noir criminals a justice it deserves. It actually sparked in me the wish to read more graphic novels of similar type :)