Miss Endicott: Part 1

Miss Endicott #1

by Jean-Christophe Derrien, Xavier Fourquemin (Artist)

Officiellement, Prudence Endicott est revenue à Londres pour y enterrer sa mère et occuper un poste de gouvernante. Mais, les femmes de la famille ont leurs petits secrets et Prudence a reçu en héritage la lourde tâche de devenir la nouvelle «conciliatrice» de la capitale anglaise. Le principe est simple : résoudre les problèmes des gens ! Même s'il faut pour cela défier le peuple des Oubliés qui règnent sur le Londres souterrain... Un album magnifique qui inaugure avec brio la refonte de la collection «Signé» !

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Bande Dessinée, Historical Fiction

80 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

Spécialiste et passionné de cinéma ainsi que d'écriture télévisuelle, Jean-Christophe Derrien a réalisé sa Maîtrise en Cinéma sur la série télé "Twin Peaks". Mais la BD occupe également une place de choix dans sa vie et, durant ses études à Aix-en- Provence, il devient rédacteur en chef d'un fanzine BD, le Rainbow Warrior. En tant que scénariste, il travaille sur l'adaptation en dessins animés de "Blake et Mortimer", "Spirou", "Bob Morane", sur des épisodes de "Kong", "Xcalibur", "Capitaine Fracasse", "Frog et Fou Furet", "Skyland". Mais l'audiovisuel est une maîtresse bien exigeante et, à mesure qu'il progresse à la télévision, Derrien s'accorde une liberté salutaire à travers des récits plus personnels, en planches et en cases. Son cartoon idéal devient « Time Twins », au Lombard, tandis que « Miss Endicott » lui permet d'écrire le personnage féminin dont il a toujours rêvé. Volontiers éclectique, il signe également « Résistances » avec Claude Plumail et « Poker » avec Simon Van Liendt, dévoilant à chaque fois une nouvelle facette de son talent pour la caractérisation et l'action haletante.

Reviews

[Corrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss Endicott – Vol. One is a bit of an odd duck.

Officially, Prudence Endicott returned to London to bury her mother and take up a position as a governess. But the women of the family have their little secrets and Prudence inherited the heavy task of becoming the new "conciliator" of the English capital. The principle is simple: solve people's problems! Even if it means defying the people of the Forgotten who reign over underground London?

Prudence sure misses a lot of sleep doing two jobs and it looks like she has bitten off more than she can chew. Charming mystery in a fantasy Dickensian setting. It ends on a doozy of a cliff-hanger so it’s a good thing I have part II at the ready.

Themes: Dickensian London, this nanny has some skills, knitting, the underground world of the Forgotten, plans of a revolution, who is the master?

4 Stars

[Ije the Devourer of Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

This dark version of Mary Poppins is thoroughly enjoyable but far too short.

Miss Endicott is a governess by day and a conciliator by night. She has stepped into her dead mother's shoes in order to take on the mystery solving role of conciliator, but the work is harder than it seems and as Miss Endicott does her work she comes across a plan to hurt the city. Of course she needs to prevent this.

Unfortunately this engaging story is told across two volumes and the second volume has not yet been published in english. This first volume is full of adventure and mystery. Lots of magic and mischief and a frisson of the impossible, as Miss Endicott does her best to fill her mother's shoes. But when her young student goes missing Miss Endicott realises she has a very tough enemy to defeat.

Copy provided by Europe Comics via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Gretel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a review copy by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Miss Endicott's mother's dead and so she take on her business, a nanny during the day and an investigator/helper of those in need during the night. Set in 19th century London, the idea seems promising but the delivery is luke-warm. The art style was really not my thing. Most faces look similar with over-accentuated proportions like gigantic chins, bolbuous noses, and teene-tiny lips and eyes. It's not a particularly pleasant style, I must say.
Storywise I'm not convinced either. There are some interesting moments but it remains dull. In her first case, Prudence Endicott needs to find out who's scratching at a family's door in the middle of the night. First she accuses a known gangster boss and he's like "No, it's not me" and Endicott just says "I'm not sure why but I believe you."
When your character can't even come up with arguments as to why he seems to be innocent, then you know you fucked up.
Let me analyze this a bit closer. The gangster boss knew Endicott's mother well and and as her mother's assistant, an older man, explains said gangster boss and her mother had mutual respect for each other. Gangster boss also explains that he "does business" with rich people since he can't steal from the poor. So you could argue that because of his respect for her dead mother and the little gain from annyoing poor people that it makes little sense to annoy them.
But the gangster boss himself says that he's a habitual liar.
Maybe he would steal from the poor couple but maybe he's interested in something else, like information, because the man is a carriage driver. Maybe he has a client whom gangster boss wants to see or get a hold of.
Of course, none of this is the case and the scratching at the door is actually a "gnome" digging tunnels under the house so he can get to the surface and enjoy life outside.

But Endicott doesn't know any of this until later which means that she dismisses the real possibility that the gangster boss could be the source - despite how improbably it is that he wants to annoy a random couple with scratching - because reasons. Yes, Endicott is worldly, has probably met a lot of people, and can read people's intentions well. I get that and it makes sense but that's not what happens here. She doesn't think or reason.
She literally says "I'm not sure why" and that's lazy because it's authorial intervention. She feels like the gangster boss is not the culprit because she knows because the authors know. This doesn't make her look smart and experienced but rather dumb and naive.

Also, the tunnels lead to an underground city where all the "unwanted" people live, aka people with disfigurements and other outcats but mainly biological anomalies. Only some people are drawn like unhuman creatures that resemble frog-people, ghouls, trolls, or other supernatural creatures. I don't think this is the route the story is going for and it just seems super weird to draw people as literal monsters when they're human.
Mabye a later edition shows the presence of supernatural and fantastic beings but right now, it's just wildly insulting and exoticizing. They're also almost all brutish, "uncivilized", violent, and shown as stupid.

Also, almost every character falls head-over-heels in love with Endicott, not only romantically/sexually but amicably. Even the unruly and bratish boy she's supposed to educate behaves normal and sweet towards her before he even interacts with her. Like, he sees her walking by in the house and upon meeting her behaves completely normal and nice even though he usually terrorizes nannies within the first few minutes. Why does he immediately behave without her doing anything? Never explained. I guess she's just so pretty and beautiful and amazing that everyone likes her instantly before she even does anything.

In conclusion, there are a lot of things that could've been amazing but it falls flat on too many fronts. The story rushes forward at neck-breacking speed, with no real mystery solving involved. I also question Endicott's intelligence with her dismissing the gangster boss (even though I agree that him being the culprit makes little sense) instantly but without explaining her reasoning as to why. We story jumps quickly from thread to thread and the characters are all one-dimensional, especially Endicott. Which is ridiculous because she has obviously travelled a lot, seen lots of amazing things, and learned a great deal but all of this is just mostly forgotten. Apart from being instantly liked by everybody for no reason, her being "kickass" and respected by mobsters immediately, even loved by a boy who has behaved like a raging monkey towards his other nannies, she's also so smart that she solves cases easily.
They wanted to write a "strong female character" and ended up writing a trope-riddled Mary Sue. The art style is unappealing to me and the way disability is shown is just gross.

[Anjana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I pick up the odd graphic novel or two whenever I get the chance. It does make my reading numbers for any given year seem bigger than they are, but that's another story. I made a mistake with this one! Not because the story was not interesting but because it is only part one of two and there is no way I can get my hands on part two! If I did, I might have enjoyed this more.

Miss Endicott has taken over her mother's mysterious role in a very shady part of town. She is also daylighting as a nanny for a boy whose parents have left of a mysterious journey that they are yet to return from. There was subtle humour from the random side characters who happen to be on various scenes of the narrative and overall this does have the ability to reel you in. We are left holding a lot of threads at the end and that is annoying if there is no way to catch up. I would only recommend reading this if you like 'different' graphic novels and if you have the second and concluding part with you.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

[Richard Tremblay · Rating 4 out of 5]

C'est tout à fait mignon. Le scénario est riche en rebondissements, les personnages sont bien marqués et sympathiques, le dessin est charmant. Hâte de lire le deuxième tome.

[Simon Chadwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in a Victorian London, with towering architecture, narrow streets and long shadows, a young woman returns from travels abroad to take up the role of a nanny. What she doesn’t expect is to arrive back in time for her own mother’s funeral, and now she is expected to also fill those shoes as well. The mother was the city’s Conciliator, a role for which she defended the poor from various wrongs. Like a 19th Century superhero, it is a task carried out at night, with significantly fewer capes, masks or exceptional powers to assist. All the young Miss Endicott has are her wits and a few skills picked up whilst in India.

Thrown in at the deep end with perhaps a little too much confidence in her abilities, Miss Endicott is soon assisting the needy, but at the detriment to her own rest and good health. And the deeper she digs into London’s underbelly the more problems she reveals, not least the drawing in of the child she is supposed to be nanny to.

Prudence Endicott is an instantly likeable character. Competent and capable, she’s a force for good that gets you swiftly on her side. Her secreted knitting needle schtick is rather well done too. The London that she has arrived in is not the London you know from Dickens, but a darker, more fantastical place of warped brickwork and looming buildings. Everywhere seems to have another lower level and every alley another darker branch off of it.

The credit for this atmospheric and imposing design goes to Xavier Fourquemin, who is just as adept at the people as the buildings, and they’re often equally twisted. A nod must almost go to Scarlett for the colours – remarkable work that breathes additional life into every panel. Often the book feels like an animation rather than static scenes on the page.

For me, this is right up there with Green Manor (another Cinebook Expresso publication) and I’m very much looking forward to settling down with part 2.

[tiffersbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars

Thanks to Netgally and Europe Comics for letting me read this eARC. I'm glad it was still available for request, still it released in September last year. The release last year was for the English translation, but this story has actually been out in the world much longer - according to Goodreads, since 2007.

After her mother's death, Miss Endicott takes over her mother's position as conciliator. She's got big shoes to fill. Her mother was well-loved in the community, but Miss Endicott is up for the challenge. With that, she juggles the family business by night and nannying by day for a precocious little boy named Evan. This first volume is an introduction to Miss Endicott's night job, as it were, and the (literal) underground world of London. We also meet several goofy side characters that you can't help but love.

Overall, I really enjoyed this first installment. The characters, major and minor, were well-developed as well as the conflicts and relationships. The world was vivid, too. Most of the story takes place at night and so there are overarching tones of deep blue, brown, yellow, and black. The artwork carries the ambiance of a Whistler painting, but with more defined line-work. I loved this story, and can't wait to read the next installment.

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that surprised, entertained and almost charmed, yet certainly managed to raise an eyebrow. A new arrival in town – here to inherit from her mother whose funeral she's only just got to in time – is a sparky young redhead, who is immediately becoming nanny to a young whipper-snapper nobody can control, and a sort of private eye for the neighbourhood, working at night on a pro bono basis as her elderly mother did. The boy that nobody can manage is putty in her hands, but as for the denizens of the night when she puts her second shift in, well… A lovely cod-Dickensian look to the whole thing, a breeziness about it to match her easy-going bearing as she goes about her business, and more add to the joys here. Oh, and the raised eyebrows are from the peculiar humour that has got the two simpletons of the underworld named after people in the band Underworld, namely Karl Hyde and Darren Emerson ("a lecherous pig"). No eyebrows to be raised at the cliff-hanger ending here – the second half is almost an essential purchase after enjoying the first volume. Four and a half stars – great fun.

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this story of a more capable version of Mary Poppins. Her mother has died and she takes over as a nanny to a boy by day and conciliator on the wrong side of London at nighttime working with or against things like underground gnomes that wish to overtake the city. I like that this is a more modern comic too. A lot of bande dessinée that make it stateside tend to be packed with exposition instead of using the visual medium to tell the story. The art is really good too. I really wish there were more than two volumes.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent graphic novel set in old Europe (Paris?) where we find the mysterious Miss Endicott, arriving on the scene, moments after her mother's funeral. By day, she is governess / nannie for Master Evens and at night, she takes over her mother's duties as conciliator, a mediator between two disputing parties. Her first client / case leads her to the underground where she encounters a gnome crying over his lack of freedom.

[Jazz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Miss Endicott, both the book and the character, has charm. Prudence is clever, witty, and capable. But I'm bothered by some of the tropes. Why does she need to be a governess and a conciliator? It feels like it is getting in the way of the story.

[Elia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this, probably because I am sucker for creepy Victorian stories set in England. I liked the no-nonsense character of Miss Endicott Jr. and her struggle to basically try to live two lives in order to attempt to live up with her deceased mother's expectations and her legacy.

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

The illustrations were a bit dark but I did enjoy the story. Miss Endicott is a great character with an unusual use for knitting needles. It is a shame that the book leaves so many plot points in the air, but it is part 1. Now I need to get Part 2.

[Stephanie Sterling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfect for my friends who love graphic novels + period dramas + knitting.

[Andréa]

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[StrictlySequential · Rating 5 out of 5]

FormGrand (Signé) ¦ D.L. 09/2007 ¦ prix LO 08 = eo(noted)

Her face is shaped like a shoe yet the way he draws it is ENCHANTING ! I'll get into the rest after tome 2...

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miss Endicott is everything a young woman should be and more.
Loved the little secrets, the mystery, the colourful graphics.
Well paced and so interesting.

[Yoda Bor · Rating 5 out of 5]

J’ai bien accroché à ce premier tome très rythmé et très intense. Si Prudence n’est pas mon personnage préféré, j’ai par contre adoré Karl et Darren, les vagabonds qui la suivent à la trace.

J’aime beaucoup l’atmosphère dégagée par le dessin. Que ce soit pour la ville du haut ou les sous sols, on se retrouve toujours en adéquation avec l’action en cours.
On navigue avec bonheur dans les ruelles biscornues d’un Londres qui prend vie dans les pubs et les parcs.


Une jolie Angleterre victorienne dans laquelle Prudence se bat avec ses aiguilles à tricoter et son parapluie. C’est ce que l’on attend d’une Miss après tout !