Jacques Tardi Book order

Mad geniuses, Jules Verne-style deliriums, dinosaurs, sex, bloodshed, and the madness of World War I ― two strange and surreal early works by a master of the comics form. Fantagraphics presents two experimental, early works by the French cartooning legend Tardi. These comics, created in the mid-'70s, provide a fascinating preview of the masterworks of his prolific career. While they are not narratively linked, an eerie sense of foreboding suffuses stories in this collection: they both depict sex and brutal violence and condemn the horrors of war.The True Story of the Unknown Soldier follows a pulp novelist turned soldier who, driven to delirium amidst the trenches of WWI, becomes tormented by visions of his own seedy creations. This stream-of-consciousness tale visualizes the tortured psyche of its protagonist through dazzling dreamscapes and surreal scenarios. In The National Razor , a soldier returns from war a shattered man. Drowning himself in drink, he wanders the streets of Paris without purpose; in this numb stupor, he finds himself caught up in strange situations, lashes out in unexpectedly violent ways, and ultimately meets with a bloody end. At once a visceral depiction of the trauma wrought by war and a powerful denunciation of the death penalty and France's iconic guillotine.Black-and-white illustrations throughout

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.

The French cartooning master Tardi’s first solo graphic novel is a riotous action-adventure comedy. Paris, 1914. In one auspicious night, Lucien Brindavoine’s humdrum life is thrown into wild disarray. Out of the blue, a strange old man visits Brinvadoine’s flat and implores him to go to Istanbul to seek his destiny. No sooner are these fateful words spoken than a shot is fired through the window and the man is murdered by a mysterious assailant. Thus kicks off a madcap adventure wherein the mild-mannered dilettante Brindavoine races to the Middle East ― by boat, plane, and jeep ―with cutthroat assassins threatening him at every turn. After much ado, he encounters an iron city in the desert where an eccentric American billionaire will decide his fate. The first solo graphic novel by Tardi, Farewell, Brindavoine showcases the French cartooning master’s signature blend of dark humor, brutal violence, and beguiling mystery. For Tardi fans, an essential early work; for newcomers, a thrilling primer to the Tardi oeuvre.

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.

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

"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

"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

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.

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