I wish comics like this were stuff that cinematic universes were built on because this is solid adult fare. There's cartoon boobs and everything. The Europeans take comics a bit more seriously then we do over here. I've been reading Euro comics since before I knew there was a difference thanks to a healthy selection of Tintin books contained in my local library. I loved Tintin, he was bit like Indiana Jones and a bit like both Hardy Boys rolled into one. They had gunfights and car chases and all the junk that a 10-year-old me loved (a 35-year-old me too) and when in my later years I figured out that there were whole worlds of comics I hadn't experienced it was a bit like Christmas morning. I found out about Corto Maltese, Gil Jordan and Clifton and had a ball. Also along my way to the forum I had discovered Leo Malet's Nestor Burma novels and became a instant fan. Seriously hunt them down. Via Nester Burma I found out about Tardi, the French artist who was adapting the novels to comics. When I found out about Tardi/Burma none had been translated (now rectified, I own but still need to read it) I found the local (different) library had some Tardi comics, adaptations of different novels by a different guy named Jean-Patrick Manchette. My socks were knocked off.
Jean-Patrick Manchette is a respected French author and translator who pretty much started the "modern" version of the French-crime novel with a series of slim well-received politically charged pot-boilers. He had a major love for all things crime fiction, novels, movies and must have like comics too because him and Tardi hooked up along the trail and produced in collaboration "Griffu." In the preface it quotes Manchette saying it he wanted to make a slam-bang noir like 1955's "Kiss Me Deadly" which just instantly endeared me to the comic. It's a comfortable story. A twisty, cliched love letter to all fiction private eyes as Griffu untangles a web of deceit on the trail of a women who duped him into stealing some files that everyone seems to want. There's femme fatales, gunsels, fisticuffs, real-estate fraud, shootings and simmering lust. Manchette lays it nice and thick with the hardboiled antics which meld nicely with Tardi slightly cartoon yet detailed style. It's a feast for the eyes six-ways from Sunday.
Griffu was recently translated for the first time and put into a collection with an adaption of Manchette's novel "3 Days to Kill" as "West Coast Blues" which is a dynamite tale of a man on the run from killers that twists into weird and brilliant ways. I can't recommend this nice package enough. The comics got me to buy a handful of Manchette's books, but I haven't read one yet, which goes to show you how dim-witted I can be. I'll be fixing that shortly with a reading of "No Room at the Morgue" the first in his two book series about P.I. Eugene Tarpon so stay tuned for that.
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