By Bodart & Vehlmann
Publisher: Cinebook
ISBN: 978-1-905460-64-9
This is a lovely idea, well executed and beautifully presented, that deserves wider attention. Green Manor Club is a Gentlemen's club set in the late 1800s in London, populated by wealthy lords, rich industrialists, braggarts, pompous oafs and sinister scallywags. Each tale lasts but a few pages and is set at a different time, so part of the charm is that the characters featured in each story are always different. The London club remains the same, but it's clientele are in constant flux. So without a core set of characters to hang the stories on, and besides the club itself, the running thread throughout the stories is that each tale involves the telling of someone coming to a sticky end – sort of a Tales Of The Unexpected in Victorian England. The stories are brief and tightly written, but what sells them to me personally is the absolutely gorgeous art of Denis Bodart. He has an amazing cartoonist's eye for characterisation and detail, bringing each story of death so brilliantly to life. My particular favourite from this collection is the tale of an elderly judge having second thoughts about a man sentenced to hang in the morning. The ingenious and clever twist at the end almost had me applauding. I don't know if Cinebook are planning more of these collections, but I for one really hope they are.
And if you liked that: Book one is still available
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