Bombyce Network s/c back

One of the finest works to come out on the Humanoids imprint for me, which when you consider that includes THE METABARONS, MADWOMAN OF THE SACRED HEART, I AM LEGION and the much awaited (by me at least!) collected edition reprint of THE INCAL, it's a bold statement with which to begin this review. THE BOMBYCE NETWORK is a wonderfully nasty crime story set in early 20th century Paris, where the city's ruling classes choose to satisfy their more dubious and sordid secret vices behind closed doors, whilst a certain duo of gentlemen thieves employ their own unique acrobatic talents to lighten the loaded pockets of those with more wealth than common sense.

When our debonair duo manage to pay an unannounced nocturnal visit to one of the last remaining challenges to the cream of the criminal classes, an elevated motorised glass pavilion belonging to a certain well connected aristocrat, they find a rather different reward to the rumoured riches they'd envisaged, of what appears to be a snuff film. After a possibly greedy and potentially foolhardy decision to try their hand at blackmail, what follows is a game of cat and mouse on the streets and across the rooftops of Paris that becomes ever more deadly as the threat of ruinous exposure makes the various interested parties increasingly determined to protect their dirty secrets. But one of our duo is keeping a secret of his own in hiding a far more personal motivation than money for wanting to engage in this perilous pursuit.

Corbeyran has penned a delightfully convoluted plot here as gripping in complexity and mystery as those in Canales' BLACKSAD, and if I say Cecil's art is almost as good as Guarnido's on the same title, well surely that gives you a good idea about how highly I rate this work? For that reason, and I must mention this isn't an anthropomorphic work by the way, fans of BLACKSAD would love THE BOMBYCE NETWORK, as also for the action-packed intrigue and steampunky period feel would those who enjoyed GRANDVILLE.