The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1170: Casanova #1, March 1991

I have a few issues of this series, enough that I might try to track down the rest, though finding back issues of adult comics is a very tricky business. Most people are embarrassed to sell them, let alone embarrassed to buy them. But I've always thought that every genre must have something to offer us, otherwise why would it become a genre?

Casanova's a pretty good series. The art is impeccable. Everyone is just beautiful. It's lovely to have the colour cover, as well, as Ricard's colours are masterfully handled. (I'm assuming it's Ricard, as he's credited with the cover illustration, and there's no listed colourist. Whoever it was did a wonderful job!) There is the usual problem I find with European imports of this era: the women are generally pretty vapid. Granted, in this issue, they're every bit as voracious for sex as Casanova himself, but really they're there to be tallied as conquests for the men in the series.

One strange, or off-putting at least, thing is the ending of the issue. I think this story must originally have been published in a single volume, rather than as a two-issue story. And I think this because the story simply cuts off, midway through a conversation. In past when I've lectured about reading collections of serially-published comics, I've noted that every 22 pages or so, there's a climactic moment. It can feel repetitive unless you're aware of the periodical publication schedule of the original comics. This is kind of the reverse of that, in that there's no climactic moment (though there are a few throughout the issue ;D) at the end of the comic, no hook to draw us back next time. What I have found out, though, is that the series was published every 2 weeks, so at least there wasn't that much of a wait for the second half.

Speaking of, I don't have it. The second half, that is, of this story. We'll be doing another single issue of the series tomorrow, and I do have some complete storylines, but I'll save those for another time. And you never know..I might find the rest of this by some strange happenstance this weekend. That would be neat.

More to come...