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Monday 21 November 2016

Bandette, Volume 3: The House of the Green Mask Review (Paul Tobin, Colleen Coover)


Years ago a muse to the great 19th century Parisian artists was rumoured to have been given a number of invaluable artworks by them which she stored in a room in the fabled House of the Green Mask. Now, a hidden enemy is kidnapping Bandette’s friends and blackmailing her for the location – sacre bleu! 

I love Bandette but this third volume plain sucked. The story is vague and uninteresting without any real sense of progression or direction, let alone urgency or tension, and the villain is barely written at all. The B-story of Monsieur and Margot looking for the House was even less interesting as they just wander about Paris drinking tea. And what an anticlimactic finale! 

Bandette’s overly-cutesiness bothered me a lot in this one too. Talking to pigeons in an exaggerated polite way, telling everyone she feels the need to stomp before stomping, calling people she’s standing behind on the phone - she’s like Zooey Deschanel in comics form! Gah! And by the way Paul Tobin, “candy bars” is an Americanism - in Europe they’re either called chocolate, chocolate bars, sweets or GIMME! 

I enjoyed Colleen Coover’s artwork especially as its French influence suits the French setting, but Paul Tobin’s story was really lacking this time around. Bandette is a fine series and I’d recommend the first two volumes to anyone, particularly fans of Batman ’66, but this third book is disappointingly boring and uninspired. Prest… zzz…

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