Blacksad

John Blacksad is a trench coat-clad private investigator on the mean streets of 1950’s America. He’s also a six-foot-tall, anthropomorphized cat with a gun. So don’t rub his belly without asking.

Blacksad, the graphic novel, includes the first three collected stories in this series: Somewhere within the Shadows, Arctic Nation, and Red Soul.

Somewhere within the Shadows is easily my favorite of the bunch. It’s a no-nonsense detective yarn. Blacksad’s former flame, Natalia, a starlet of the silver screen, is found shot to death in her home.
Our hero sets out looking for vengeance. He prowls through the seedy underbelly of Tinseltown, encountering knife-wielding monitor lizards, conniving frog businessmen, punch-drunk gorilla boxers, and corrupt canine cops along the way.

Think Zootopia, but very R-rated.

It’s all fairly standard noir stuff, but it’s delivered with grace and style. Juanjo Guarnido’s art is something to behold, a mix of lavish watercolors and expressive characters that come alive on the page in this richly evocative world. It’s no wonder the series has received a ton of prestigious awards.

The remaining two stories, however, fell a bit short for me.

In Arctic Nation, a young girl goes missing in a small neighborhood beset with racial tensions. The girl’s mother won’t go to the police, because the polar bear chief is a prominent member of a white supremacist movement. Rumor is that the girl may have been kidnapped by this group, or by the black power group that opposes them. But what would they stand to gain by abducting an 8-year-old? And can Blacksad find her before the streets erupt in a bloody race war?

In Red Soul, a philanthropic group of scientists and creatives come under suspicion of being communists in disguise. One of their number is killed, but it appears the intended target was Otto Liebber, Blacksad’s one-time mentor and a barn owl with a questionable history. Blacksad sets out to find the killer while the group is set upon by callous FBI agents and a Joseph McCarthy-esque senator with an agenda.

Both of these stories are fine, well-told little mysteries, but I felt like the larger social angles writer Juan Díaz Canales was exploring fell a bit flat. Especially in Red Soul, the Blacksad’s investigation almost seems like a side plot to a wider examination of the Red Scare and the lingering trauma of World War II.

It also gets a little weird when they start name dropping folks from history, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. So, wait, is he like a moose in this or something?

Honestly, as much as I enjoyed Blacksad as a whole, I kept finding myself pulled out of the narrative by silly little questions like this. What do the characters eat? Like, is there a meat industry? There’s a rooster senator in one story, so chicken is probably off the menu. What about beef? Are cows sentient in this universe?

These are dumb questions. But they kept bugging me. Why do some animals still have their tails, while others don’t? Blacksad doesn’t have a tail, but we see a wolf with one later. Why isn’t it consistent? Do the cats still use litter boxes? I don’t remember if we ever see a bathroom. Since Aquariums exist, do zoos as well? If so, what do they exhibit in them? Humans? That’d probably be too silly.

I know, I know, I just need to respect Hodgson’s Law: “Just repeat to yourself it’s just a show, you should really just relax.” But it’s hard when you are enjoying such a fine glass of classic noir and then you have to stop for a moment to wonder if dogs still chase cars or attack the mailman.

Anyway, if you can look past these quibbles, you’ll find a great take on the classic hardboiled P.I. genre. I can’t wait to read more.