The Many Worlds of Arleston

Another item from the backstock. This is a promotional freebie from a French publisher. No idea where I picked it up.

Title: The Many Worlds of Arleston
Publisher: Soleil Productions
Date: 2008
Writer: Christophe Arleston, Audrey Alwett
Artist: Adrien Floch, Philippe Pellet, Jean-Louis Mourier, Alberto Varanda, Pierre Alary

This promotional freebie introduces the works of French writer/editor Christophe Arleston, whose fantasy comics make up the core of the Soleil Productions line. This book contains synopses of five series with a sample page from each, as well as shorter synopses (with only small bits of sample art) for four additional series. Bios of all of the writers and artists are included.

All of the introductory text and the bios are in English, but only one of the sample comic pages is in English, a page of the SF adventure series Ythaq, which was translated and distributed in the US by Marvel Comics. The rest of the sample pages are in French.

Ythaq is a space opera with some comedic elements. The sample page involves a major shipwreck in space, so there isn't much chance to get to know the characters well. What there is is plenty of mayhem as the spaceship breaks apart in a collision with a comet.

Forests of Opal had my favorite artwork of the titles, with what appeared to be a ship under attack by dragon-like sea monsters. Great action scene. And my (very rusty) French was sufficient to figure out most of the dialogue.

The next story was The Fires of Askell, which gave us a shipwreck scene. Come to think of it, that appears to be a running theme here. This had more of a pirate feel to it, but it was a bit harder to figure out what was going one aside from the fact that the characters were trying to keep from drowning as their ship went down.

Fourth story was Elixers, a magical comedy about a student of magic who cares more about chasing girls than he does about his studies. No ship-related imperilment in this one, although there was a ship, so maybe it gets imperiled later. This was a much more dialogue-driven scene, so it was harder for me to make out what was going on.

Last up was Arleston's take on the legend of Sinbad. Nice art style for this one. Sinbad seemed a restless guest in a luxurious walled palace.

I knew nothing about French comics going into this, so the book definitely succeeded in the sense that I found comics here that I am pretty sure I would enjoy. The artwork that was presented here looked great, and the stories seemed interesting. I do question the effectiveness of this book with American audiences in general, as a lot of readers probably wouldn't have patience with the untranslated sample art.

Rating: 6.5/10