By Lambil & Cauvin
Publisher: Cinebook
ISBN: 9781849181839
Corporal Blutch and Sergeant Chesterfield of the Union Army are out on patrol when they stumble upon a woman bathing in the river. Being gentlemen, they avert their eyes and wait for her to dress, but once she’s done they’re surprised to find her in a Union Army uniform. She explains that her family has not heard from her soldier brother John for some time and that they fear he may have deserted, so she’s there to look for him while she serves in his place to protect the family honour. Sarge is overwhelmed with admiration for the tale and promises to cover for her so she can carry out her noble deed, and protect her disguise as a man while she’s at it.
Immediately they’re thrown into a cavalry charge and following some dodgy advice from Blutch on avoiding the dangers such an action offers, she joins him as he falls from his horse pretending to be struck as the first shots are fired. Could this aversion to duty be the first hint that her tale may not hold water and is she in fact up to something else entirely.
The title of the story comes from a cavalry charge into a sodden, muddy field, where the earth is so churned and difficult to traverse that every soldier is soon caked and nobody knows who anyone else is.
There’s plenty of humour in The Bluecoats, but because it’s set on the battlefield there’s little opportunity to escape the nature of their existence, so the gags are a little darker than, say, Asterix, where pounding Romans is another step removed from reality what with the addition of Getafix’s magic potion. There’s no such contrivance in The Bluecoats, so the underlying reason for their day-to-day lives is rather harder edged, and the creators have the good sense to go with it in as much as a comic of this kind can, so it blossoms as something completely different to something you’d read by, for example, Goscinny. The illustrations are what really do it for me, and you can’t help wonder how the tone would shift if they weren’t so cartoony in style – the more realistic drawings of someone like Vance would make for a very different tale!
Comics are a great way to introduce anyone to diverse topics from genetics to mythology, and The Bluecoats is a fantastic first step for anyone interested in learning more about American history, regardless of your age.
And if you liked that: Volume 8 is on its way soon
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