By Tome & Janry
Publisher: Cinebook
ISBN: 978-1-84918-054-2
This second volume from Cinebook sees Spirou and Fantasio struggling to stretch themselves until payday, but just when all looks lost Fantasio finds a lucky charm in his pizza in the form of a safe key. They track the key to New York and the promise of a huge cash prize. In fact, the key has been planted by the mafia who are in a spiral of bad luck and misfortune in their turf war with the Chinese, and have decided they need some luck on their side – hence the prize to identify a lucky winner and hopefully benefit by association with that person's luck.
By the time Spirou and Fantasio reach New York and discover the reality of the situation, we get to discover that the Chinese are making their own luck with a witching table that guarantees their success over that of their rivals. Our heroes are dragged deeper and deeper into the plot, joining the mafia on an assault of the Chinese gang's headquarters which does result in evening the odds, but creates two parties who are as bad as one another. All our heroes need to do is rescue their friend, escape, and, if they remember, file a report on a news story that is very much taking a back seat to proceedings.
The cartooning is really wonderful and it's packed full of gags both visual and written. There are some odd things going on culturally with a bit of a mish mash of cultural motifs, but in the end it just adds to the surreal goings on. There's not really any attempt to paint the rival gangs as bloodthirsty criminals up to despicable deeds – instead they're all incompetents and buffoons that are barely muddling along.
I think my favourite part came right on the first page with a nice little take on the New York immigrant story and the vagaries of the stock market, but there's plenty more moments of genuine invention and smiles throughout. It's just a shame it's taken so long for an English language version to arrive, so hats off once again to Cinebook for making that possible.
And if you liked that: Pick up a Clifton book
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