Blake and Mortimer Comics

The Blake and Mortimer series was created, written, and drawn by Edgar P. Jakobs in Belgian. It first appeared in Tintin magazine in 1946, invited by his good friend Herge. Jacobs event was a colorist and eventual assistant illustrator and story developer for the "Adventures of Tintin" works but was never credited. He made seven stories, some with multiple parts, until 1977 when he became involved in other projects after the first part of Professor Sato's Three Formulae when Jacobs died and another fellow finished the art. Then the Jacobs estate allowed Dargard to continue with the series and they have published sixteen stories, some with multiple parts including one published just this year. The series has been republished in multiple languages, including English.

I received these two collected stories during the Jacobs years for Christmas one year and enjoyed them. Blake is a British officer who works for the intelligence services while Mortimer is a brilliant scientist. They met when young men, featured as a flashback in "The Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent", and have been close friends ever since. Stories generally involve one or both of them either being sent to investigate something or becoming aware of something by happenstance. The something is generally of a danger to a significant amount of people if not the entire world. The science involved can be fantastical but no more than any thriller novel.

The adventure, mystery, and super science that is unveiled as the story unfolds is good fun. Jacobs backgrounds and distinctive foreground activity is very well drawn.  

I recently participated in a Humble Bundle that had many European comics available through izneo. Humble Bundle is a company that offers discounted video games, comics, ebooks, software and such from different publishers in exchange for a donation to a charity. I have participated in a few of them. As part of the Humble Bundle there was a one month free subscription to izneo. When I saw that they had much of the Blake and Mortimer series available with the subscription I started reading those first and was quite happy I did: Secret of the Swordfish pt 1-3, Mystery of the Great Pyramid pt 1-2, The Time Trap, The Necklace Affair, The Francis Blake Affair, The Voronov Plot, The Strange Encounter, and The Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent. I give them four out of five stars and would have read more if they were part of the subscription.