I picked up Blacksad from the public library without knowing anything about it, except that it had made a number of critics’ lists.

Based on the cover image I saw online, I thought it would be about a Puss-in-Boots character or some such. It turned out to be two of my favourite (but very different!) things: watercolour artwork, and film noir.

The eponymous character is a cat who’s a private eye in a world populated by animals. All the tropes of film noir are there – guns, gangsters, goons, and dames – and they serve as a strong contradiction to the Disney associations that come with anthropomorphised animals^†. The story lines are also hard-hitting, sombre, and heavy.

The artwork is absolutely stunning: pen and ink with watercolour washes of muted, eerie colours. Each frame is literally a painting:

And framing like this, while it might seem a bit heavy-handed, is not just powerful, but a perfect homage to the film noir genre.

I loved Blacksad and ended up finding and devouring the rest of the books, all of which were as good as the first. If you enjoy graphic novels and are a fan of film noir, I can’t recommend this enough.

You can buy Blacksad online from: independent, Indigo, Amazon.

† It’s no coincidence that the artist, Juanjo Guarnido, worked for Walt Disney Studios in France.