Review: Le Baron Rouge by Carlos Puerta and Pierre Veys (Zephyr BD, 2012)

This review contains spoilers.

Le Baron Rouge: Bal des Mitrailleuses (available in English as Machine Gunners’ Ball) by Carlos Puerta and Pierre Veys was inspired by the life of Manfred von Richthofen, the German air ace from World War I. However, the authors take enough liberties that this work should not be considered a biography.

First and foremost among those liberties is the characterisation of Richthofen as a psychotic murderer with superpowers (a “spidey sense” that allows him to sense how and when enemies will strike). I found this narrative choice both questionable and ridiculous, as well as discomfiting. While one does not expect frolicking lambs or flowering meadows in a war story, the authors give Richthofen a personality that encourages the use of gratuitous violence. They also don’t shrink from showing that violence, which they encapsulate in Richthofen’s unprovoked murder of a female civilian bystander. In my opinion, the explicit cruelty and brutality of these few panels renders the book unsuitable for younger readers. Even my son, who lives in a world of Fortnite and other first-person-shooter video games, was visibly perturbed by these depictions.

The art’s impressionist vibe recalls concept art for video games while the flight scenes’ loftiness brought to mind Hayao Miyazaki’s film Porco Rosso. The authors are at their best with these more distant, atmospheric cityscapes, airscapes, and landscapes.

They portray individual humans less well. Unfortunately, they have also chosen to feature a lot of close-up faces. I feel that the artists don’t have a lot of interest in these people and so render them more as placeholders than anything else. It is further confusing given that there is no reason to pay so much attention to these incidental characters.

Even Richthofen himself suffers from this decision; despite the many close-ups, he remains as much an enigma as ever, and — to be frank — frequently calls to mind Draco Malfoy. While this artistic lapse could have been mitigated by a plot that developed his character and allowed us more insight into his motivations, the story is primarily action-driven and so Richthofen as a person remains opaque throughout.

All these shortcomings, however, are forgiven after the final chase scene along the canals of Bruges. It probably didn’t happen — none of Richthofen’s victories were won in that city — but it makes for gorgeous art.

Would I…

…buy the next book in the series? No. This Richthofen is too much of a cipher for me to care about what he does next.

…read another book by these authors? Yes. I am willing to believe that the biographical genre may have limited Veys and Puerta.