Dungeon Monsters, volume 16 – Somewhere Else: a good lawyer is a dead lawyer… – Benzine Magazine

Somewhere Else is certainly the most original Dungeon tome… of all? But is it really a good thing? Because if we have a lot of fun in front of this story of lawyers and the living dead, are we really still in the Dungeon?

You were wondering what could be the origin of this famous Chest of Souls for which Rubeus Khan transforms into Indiana Jones in the Antipodes+ ? Or, better still, you miss the good old days of dungeon where comic book stars competed for the honor of illustrating the stories of Trondheim and Sfar ? Or were you perhaps wondering how far the heroic fantasy imagination of our authors could go? Well, Somewhere else could be the Dungeon Monsters what you were waiting for!

With Andrée as heroine, a young trainee lawyer whose only skills are the analysis of legal texts and the ability to unravel administrative imbroglios, it was not won to make this story of very sympathetic living dead, victims of greedy real estate entrepreneurs, and nostalgic for their old alcoholic schoolmistress, but it works…most of the time. Because, as has now become a recurring problem of the dungeonthe way in which Sfar and Trondheim tend to rush their ends, to fit at all costs in the standard formats of their albums, becomes more and more frustrating. Fortunately, there is that good old twisted humor that our authors are used to, and characters that have, as almost always, a real personality, a strong credibility, and for whom we feel all kinds of things.

And then there is the drawing of Delislewho bends with good grace to the exercise – yet far from his usual work: his style remains recognizable, but he adapts it perfectly to the fantasy of the world of dungeon. If we quibbled a little, we might even have preferred a little less adaptation, precisely, knowing that some of the most beautiful successes of the series result from the tension between the stories and a graphic style far from the subject (of comic heroic fantasy, need we remind you?).

Now center this volume 16 of Dungeon Monsters on the Chest of Souls, this new idea of Trondheim and Sfar, imagining a city where the dead mix peacefully with the living, and constitute a real tourist attraction, which moreover is a story that, for the first time, takes place over at least two decades, is indeed cheeky. But, by mixing “modern” or even political issues (the property shenanigans of a municipality, the work of lawyers in favor of the poor), which is a novelty in the series, and by introducing a fantastic aspect (the souls of dead) which was not present in the dungeon, the authors take the risk of “disorienting” us a little too radically. Because, and the title of the album makes perfect sense, we have the feeling of not being in the dungeonbut… somewhere else!

Eric Debarnot

Somewhere Else – Dungeon Monsters, volume 16
Screenplay: Joann Sfar / Lewis Trondheim
Drawing: Guy Delisle
Colours: Walter
Publisher: Delcourt
48 pages – €11.95
Publication: October 19, 2022

Somewhere Else – Dungeon Monsters, volume 16 – extract: