Posted in: Comics | Tagged: bézian, doctor radar, nöel simsolo, statix press, Titan comics

Take Lots With Absinthe: Doctor Radar's Pulpy Prescription

I can't remember what year I bought the first issue of Doctor Radar, but I know it was at C2E2, and I know it was at the Titan Comics booth. Judging by the publication dates (Titan announced their European imprint, Statix Press, at San Diego 2017), I'm going to guess 2018. I bought first issues of three European comics they brought over. The first two, The Beautiful Death and Factory, I admired but didn't connect with. In the case of Factory, I didn't care for the artist's style, and in the case of  The Beautiful Death, I read all the post-apocalyptic fiction I cared to at that point.

But the third was a weird little thing called Doctor Radar. Page one hooked me. Doctor Radar didn't look like anything else out there, thanks to artist Bézian's remarkable talents. His use of one or maybe two colors in a page approximated the experience of a silent movie, which combined with Noël Simsolo's tightly plotted surrealist pulp script, worked wonders.

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I imagine similarities between Doctor Radar and Fantômas, as both pulpy works feature gentleman detectives and larger than life villains. Assassinations by way of curare, poison, and scorpions all feature in Simsolo's story, with a thug almost breaking the fourth wall to ask rhetorically what's wrong with a simple knife murder. Credit must go to translator Ivanka Hahnenberger for maintaining (or inventing) the charm in Simsolo's dialogue.

Like The Wrath Of Fantômas, Simsolo sets Doctor Radar in early 20th century Paris, and Bézian executes this vision stylishly. As I turned the page, I felt like I ran with the detectives down Paris' much too narrow streets.

Here's my two criticisms:

1. Doctor Radar is much too short. At sixty odd pages, I could've stuck around twice as long drinking in Bézian's pages and the team's delirious world. Then again, like some of my favorite punk records, that means I need to read Doctor Radar again.
2. It can be difficult to tell apart characters faces because of Bézian's style, and at a couple moments, I took it on faith that the character with the speech bubble was the character the script said it was.

Sadly, no one's going to read Doctor Radar two odd years after publication, and that's even if their comic shop can find a copy. Luckily, you can find it on Comixology, and I can continue to look inside longboxes for issue two.

Doctor Radar sits at a striking intersection of noir, pulp, and surrealism. I hope I can convince you to read it.

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