With Les aventuriers du Mékong, prepare your luggage, we go to Asia. Delcourt launches a new humor collection, Pataquès, directed by James.
A comic strip about cartoonists
The first few pages ridicule these overdue fashion followers and mock a venal editor. Guerse and Pichelin make fun of the galleys in the life of comic book authors. At Pôle emploi, the counsellor has nothing to offer them except an internship in beekeeping and cabinetmaking. The fictional screenwriter has an idea that he thinks is great. He claims all the compensation to embark on the trendy genre of the comic strip. He decides to leave for Laos because "not even Tintin has set foot there". The counsellor is delighted because it allows them to be removed from Pôle emploi and therefore to lower the statistics.
It's off to a bad start
The book is organized by a series of chapters of four thematic pages – the plane trip, the market, the preparation of the trip… Still in Paris, the cartoonist is already stressed because he has never flown but the scriptwriter is far from experienced as shown by the running gag of the nail clipper confiscated at each customs. These two friends abuse beer but have a different vision of travel. While the cartoonist overprotects himself, the scriptwriter plunges into an adventurer trip refusing the fan, lemongrass … the first night before bowing to difficulties. Even though Laos remains one of the last communist dictatorships, failed adventurers talk little about politics and the local population.
Sacred Duck
The unlikely duo adopts a duck to prevent him from losing his mind. Inevitably they call him Snowy. Very quickly this duck becomes an alcoholic like the authors. To have a story to tell, the whole group decides to cross the country on foot…. but during the rainy season. With every decision, the natives take them for crazy.
Some moments are to die of laughter like a ridiculous jungle ride, the slowest chase of the comic. The story becomes delirious during the hunt of the sacred duck. We switch with joy into stories of adventure and humor. The drawing style is very Franco-Belgian with simplified and round shapes but crade in the tradition of the Echo of Savannahs. Some pages where animals talk is different with old-fashioned inking and coloring.
Returning from this ridiculous trip, the reader often laughed a lot while mocking two authors of comics has been. This very good volume successfully launches a very promising new collection.
