RIC HOCHET VOLUME 1

"R.I.P., RIC!"
Writer: Zidrou | Artist: Van Liemt | Colorist: Cerminaro

As mentioned briefly last week, this seems to be a three-volume revival of a long running Franco-Belgian series that originated in 1955, and was serialized in the wildly popular TINTIN magazine (and these new stories are set in 1968). The protagonist is a rough-and-tumble investigative reporter, Ric Hochet, who writes for a Parisian newspaper called La Rafale. But in an interesting twist, we don't really see much of Ric in this volume. Instead, the story revolves around one of his old enemies, "The Chameleon" -- a master of impersonation and disguise, recently released from prison (where Ric sent him), who has undergone plastic surgery and devoted a ton of training toward his goal of becoming Ric Hochet.

The Chameleon breaks into Ric's apartment, puts on his clothes, and waits for him to return home from his latest assignent. After a brief confrontation, a shot rings out -- and then we cut to the next day, as the Chameleon shows up to La Rafale impersonating Ric. We later learn that Ric is alive, being held for an unknown purpose by the Chameleon, but that the villain killed Ric's poor cat when he fired his gun. (Which is super lame; as noted here many times before, I hate when pets are killed in stories.)

The Chameleon then sets about an elaborate plan for revenge on both Ric, who sent him to prison, and on Ric's friend, Police Commissioner Bourdon, who is about to get (re-)married. Ric tells his boss that he's taking some time off, then leaves with the commissioner's niece, Nadine, to buy some clothes for the wedding and drive up to the commissioner's island estate. On the way (and then later again at the estate), the Chameleon hooks up with Nadine, something Ric apparently never did. Oh, and he takes a moment before leaving to kill one loose end remaining from Ric's last case when the guy threatens him. From there, we meet the commissioner's family and his bride-to-be, Petula. But not long after arriving on the island, the Chameleon sets his plan into action with an exploding cake that kills Petula and injures Bourdon. "Ric" volunteers to fly the commissioner to a hospital for medical care, having stashed Ric aboard the plane. He intends to force Ric to bail out, then crash the plane, killing the commissioner and himself, and framing Ric for everything thanks to a young eyewitness back at the island who saw "Ric" tamper with the cake.

Ric and Bourdon stop the Chameleon in the end, though, and the villain dies without exacting his vengenace. But Petula is dead, and Bourdon, who had been planning to retire with her, instead sells his estate and returns to police work. Oh, and Ric gets a new cat who he gives the exact same name as his old cat, so I guess that's great...?

Anyway, insensitivy toward animals aside (and even there, I'm exaggerating -- Ric is clearly angry over the Chameleon's murder of his pet), this is a really good story. It's clearly building on the original RIC HOCHET stories -- the Chameleon is a villain from a prior tale, and there are no fewer than six footnotes, of the sort you'd normally see in American comics, pointing to past adventures for further details on various things mentioned here. I have to say, that was not something I expected in this story, and I really liked seeing it. All the European comics I've read thus far have been shorter, self-contained things, and not stories building on any sort of long history. So seeing these sorts of notes, even if they're pointing to stories I can't read since they've never been translated to English, is a lot of fun. It reminds me of my childhood, when I'd grab an issue of SPIDER-MAN or X-MEN or something, and get a random footnote or two to previous issues. That was the sort of thing that really got me into comics; this idea that I was reading the latest chapters in some long, ongoing and never-ending saga -- and it's one of the reasons I rarely read modern comics anymore. That "footnote mystique" is something I sorely miss in today's stuff.

(I honestly wasn't planning to complain or say anything about modern day comics in this post, but sometimes I can't help myself when their deficiencies are so oviously in my face!)

Up top, I questioned dedicating the very first volume in the series to sidelining the hero and replacing him with an imposter, but there are a few considerations to mull over for context: One, despite my best efforts (i.e., checking Wikipedia and making a cursory Google search), I'm unable to determine exactly how long had passed between the previous most recent RIC HOCHET adventure and this one. And two, related in a way to one, is that I need to remember that even as this is a new series, it's aimed at a European audience with at least some level of familiarity with the chracter, his cast, and so forth. So having the Chameleon impersonate Ric, while it seems a bit odd on its face, may not be that unusual when these things are taken into account.

But on top of all that, seeing this imposter attempt to behave like Ric, and watching the characters around him mention how out-of-character he's acting now and then, actually paints a decent picture of Ric that it really doesn't matter. Even though Ric himself only appears in a handful of pages in the book, I feel that I know him well enough by the story's end thanks to the Chameleon's struggle to pull off his impersonation.

So with that said, I think I really like Ric Hochet and I'm looking forward to chekcing out his next adventure in a week -- and still wishing some company would go ahead and translate all the classic material into English as well!