Jacques Tardi Books

The second of two volumes presenting all four hardboiled graphic crime novels by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Tardi. Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot ― Martin Terrier, killer-for-hire, needs just one more big job so that he can turn in his guns for good and return home to marry his childhood sweetheart. But soon, he’s on the run ― not only from the authorities and his treacherous ex-clients, but also from a crime syndicate seeking revenge for an earlier hit on one of theirs. In Run Like Crazy, Run Like Hell, philanthropist Michael Hartog hires Julie, just out of a psychiatric asylum, as a nanny. But he plans to fake the kidnapping of his son, Peter ― and frame Julie for it. But Julie is no pushover, and soon, Julie and Peter are on the run, pursued by the police, and by Hartog’s enforcer, the hulking contract killer, Thompson.

When captured French soldier René Tardi finally gets a taste of freedom, as prisoners and German officers alike are forced to evacuate the POW camp he has languished in for the past four years. Thus, begins the long, grueling journey eastward, where Tardi and his fellow POWs must evade the pursuing Russian Army, stave off their gnawing hunger, and contend with the increasingly vicious German soldiers accompanying them

The experiences of World War I from the perspectives of soldiers on the battle field and their families at home.

"I, René Tardi, had fought...to destroy the enemy. I obeyed. Yes, I had fought, and on Wednesday, May 22, 1940, 12 days after the offensive, in the early morning at the edge of the woods, I had been captured." Thus begins the dark turn in Stalag IIB, Jacques Tardi's gripping and humane biographical portrait of his father's life as a soldier during WWII. Captured by the Germans and sent to a POW camp where he spends the rest of the war, René Tardi lives a harrowing day-to-day existence. He recalls in vivid detail roll calls in sub-zero temperatures, senseless executions--and especially the gnawing hunger. And yet, in the face of daily brutality, he perseveres, thinking of his wife Henriette, awaiting his return home to France"--Page 4 of cover

The first of two volumes presenting all of the world-renowned hardboiled crime graphic novels (one of which has never before been collected in English!). In the never-before-collected Griffu, the titular character is a legal advisor, not a private eye, but even he knows that when a sultry blonde appears in his office after hours, he shouldn't trust her ― and she doesn't disappoint. Griffu is soon ensnared in a deadly web of sexual betrayal, real estate fraud, and murder. In West Coast Blues, a young sales executive goes to the aid of an accident victim, and finds himself sucked into a spiral of violence involving an exiled war criminal and two hired assassins. This volume also offers a bonus, 21-page unfinished story by Manchette and Tardi, as well as a single page introduction to another incomplete story, both appearing in English for the first time.

"Paris, 1950s. In this graphic novel adaptation, Nestor Burma's past comes knocking when Bélita, a young woman, leads him to the Salpetriere hospital, where he discovers the recently deceased Abel Benoît, an old buddy from his anarchist days. While Burma has chosen to move onto the (more or less) straight and narrow as a private eye, his friend had stayed on the other side of the law as a counterfeiter and worse, until his own past caught up with him--lethally. So now it's up to Malet to avenge his friend, and hopefully unravel a mystery whose roots run far and deep back into the past..."--Amazon.com

After five agonizing years as a prisoner of war and five months on a grueling march homeward, Rene Tardi, the legendary cartoonist's father, is awarded fifteen days of military leave. Rene struggles to rebuild his health, reconnect with his family, and imagine his future. With limited job opportunities, Rene re-enlists as a soldier, despite his disgust. After the birth of his son, Jacques, Rene receives new orders: return to Germany and help rebuild the country that imprisoned him. The story takes an autobiographical turn as the focus shifts to Jacques' recreated childhood memories and an exploration of the traumatic effects of war that ripple through the generations.

Jacques Tardi adapts ace crime writer Jean-Patrick Manchette for the third time in Run Like Crazy Run Like Hell. Michel Hartog, a rich industrialist, hires a young woman, Julie, straight out of the psychiatric asylum to work as a nanny for his bratty nephew Peter. But Hartog plans to stage a fake kidnapping of his nephew and use Julie as a scapegoat. Unfortunately for Hartog, Julie proves infinitely more tough and resourceful than he expected, the kidnapping goes horribly, bloodily wrong, and now Julie and Peter are on the run, pursued both by the police and by Hartog's goons, led by the aging but fantastically dangerous contract killer Thompson.

One of the earliest full-length, standalone graphic novels to be publishedin Europe, and certainly one of the best and most original, Ici Même wasserialized in the adult French comics monthly (A suivre) in the early 1980s andthen released in book form. A quarter of a century later, this dark, funny,consistently surprising masterpiece has finally been translated into English. Anunexpected yet smoothly confident collaboration between the darkly cynicalJacques Tardi and the playful fantasist Jean-Claude Forest (of Barbarellafame), You Are There is set on a small island off the coast ofFrance, where unscrupulous landowners have succeeded in overtaking the land fromthe last heir of a previously wealthy family. That heir, whose domain, in aBeckettian twist, is now reduced to the walls that border these patches of landhe used to own, prowls the walls all day, eking out a living by collecting tollsat each gate. His seemingly hopeless struggle to recover his birthright becomescomplicated as the government sees a way of using his plight for the sake ofpolitical expediency, and the romantic intervention of the daughter of one ofthe landowners (who has her own sordid history with the politician) engendersfurther difficulties, culminating in an apocalyptic, hallucinatoryfinale.

Presents a collection of four graphic novel stories set in New York City during the early 1980s