The Alliance of The Curious

L'Association des cas particuliers

by Philippe Riche

Three antique dealers team up to work on the most bizarre and obscure of cases. Their current investigation begins when they find a reliquary in the house of a deceased elderly woman. The box contains a mysterious skull and a hair whose DNA analysis reveal that both belong to a Neanderthal man... a contemporary one! A funny, compelling, and truly original tale by Philippe Riche (Metal Hurlant Volume 2), who tackles here both writing and drawing duties.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Bande Dessinée

96 pages, Hardcover

First published December 11, 2012

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 2 out of 5]

Philippe Riche the artist creates a story that is exceedingly CINEMATIC. it moves, it flows, it stands still, it has action action ACTION. and it does action very well, as it does bodies in motion and bodies that are SEXY. the art is in the modern European style - lots of little panels, all in a neat row; the visuals have flair and boldness and personality - it is like watching a fun summer BLOCKBUSTER.

Philippe Riche the writer wrote a story that is like a dumbed-down multiplex BLOCKBUSTER. shades of Dan Brown, shades of Indiana Jones, shades of this and that, a metatext without realizing it; it was shamelessly derivative and it tried very hard to be nonchalantly SEXY. that nonchalance is nice at times, it was delivered with a Gallic shrug; but it made the end frustrating, as that shrug is the joke that replaced what the whole plot had been leading to: ACTION. the biggest irritant was the inclusion of various eyerolling scenes that looked lifted from an anonymous Hollywood action movie; I think when you are aping a movie, you shouldn't ape the dumb ones in your thirst to be ever so CINEMATIC.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent tale - not telegraphed from the beginning and intriguing till the end, but it peters out in that peculiar way that to many French cartoons do.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly exciting story that is reminiscent of something like the Da Vinci Code or Yves Chaland's Freddy Lombard stories. But without the charm and humour of Chaland. I like the more gritty and realistic drawing style of this comic too, but the four main women all look exactly the same, both face and body type, and Rebecca can basically only be distinguished from the three female assassins by hair colour. There's quite a bit of range in the male face and body types, so it's a pity the artist can't do the same for women.

[Mateo Sanboval · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like it's forbear, Bad Break, Alliance Of The Curious was fun but suffered from far more buildup than payoff. Only thins time the build up also felt rushed and vague. And was again pretty anticlimactic and without any real sense of stakes for our main characters. I suspect there were some translation issues as well.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This graphic novel is difficult to review. While this is a standalone story, it feels more like a part of a series; few details about the characters pop up, and frankly their names are forgettable, even the reasons for them making the alliance are quite vague. Without internal motivations to back up their actions, the story feels quite blasee. On the other hand, the idea of three antique dealers discovering a living neanderthal and their "elephant's graveyard" has quite a bit of merit. The art has some elegant linework, and a general brown tone gives everything the feel of the ancient, and of the exhausting heatwave. The neanderthal's ancestral memories take this scheme even further by excluding more colours. After all the searching, research, and action, the ending feels rather anti-climatic.

[Amanda [Novel Addiction] · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent. A little weird, but so good. I enjoyed the artwork, but the story really did this for me. I love history and prophecies, and while this wasn't a very long graphic novel, it certainly managed to capture and do a lot.

[Yosef Shapiro · Rating 2 out of 5]

The artwork was very good. There were some good ideas. But, I don't feel that the potential of the ideas were fully realized.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is mostly Dan Brown-style nonsense but it's well told and beautifully illustrated, with a nice sense of humour.