"Les maîtres de l'orge" (a literal translation would be "The Masters of the Barley" but the books are not yet translated to English), written by Jean Van Hamme and drawn by Francis Vallès, is one of the most lauded Franco-Belgian comic book (popularly called Bande dessinée or BD) series. It is a chronicle of the Steenfort family, one of the largest beer manufacturers in Belgium, spanning more than 140 years, from 1854 to 1997. It is told through eight episodes, the first seven bearing names of the most important family members and telling the story chronologically with gaps of twenty to thirty years between them, and the eighth one bearing the family name and filling out those gaps.
The story of the Steenforts is a true soap opera with love, death, adultery, murder and all kinds of other events presented in overly dramatic way. Due to its nature, telling about it would take too much time and spoil all the fun so I'll refrain from it. But there's more to this series than the exploits of one family. With the story covering second part of the 19th and the whole 20th century, we see the world changing in the background. Two world wars, social and economic changes, the progress of technology, developments in architecture and changes in fashion are just some of the things Van Hamme and Vallès introduce us to through the story of a family of brewers. At the beginning of each episode there is a short overview of important things that happened in the world that year as well as the information about developments in beer industry. In addition to that, there's a picture of Dorp, a little town in Belgium where most of the story takes place, and we can see it changing as the years go by. All of that makes for an interesting, if incomplete, trip through our recent history.
The drawing and colour by Francis Vallès represent what is considered to be a standard BD look. Realistic colours, expressive faces and detailed backgrounds, as well as movie-like interchange of close-ups and wide shots, create a likeable visual aspect of the story. However, the drawing lacks any original solutions both in its style and framing of the scenes. It also gets a little sloppy in the later episodes, as if Vallès just wanted to get work done without giving too much effort into it.
In spite of its story having characteristics of a soap opera and having a whole family of implausible larger-than-life characters, "Les maîtres de l'orge" is an interesting piece of work. It successfully blends the story with the historical events and changes making a nice stroll through the ages. It's really a shame Van Hamme didn't match Vallès' realistic drawing with a more realistic story and individuals readers can relate to. There's also a case of the last episode which unnecessarily shows the events most of which we already know about, thus leaving very little to the imagination of the reader. In the end, I must say I don't see why this series is held in so high regard for, in a rich BD production, it doesn't rise above the average.
No comments:
Post a Comment