Book Review - The Mighty Return of Ric Hochet 3. How to Commit the Perfect Murder by Zidrou and Van Liemt

I love superhero comics, but I think I enjoy humor comics and slice of life mystery comics even more.

The Mighty Return of Ric Hochet 3. How to Commit the Perfect Murder by Zidrou and Van Liemt is a mystery graphic novel and a reinvention of the classic Belgium Ric Hochet title. It is available digitally in English.

The Good

Art. Van Liemt is a great artist and does the perfect job of capturing the look and feel of the old Ric Hochet comics from Tibet while still looking modern. His figure work is both anatomically accurate and cartoony enough to have great flow and emotion. The backgrounds are all well rendered, and the colors only add to the beautiful line work.

Story. The story is a really clever concept--someone commits murder by planting a how-to guide on murder in amongst books and magazines. People pick them up and follow the instructions leading to a rash of crime. Not only is the concept great, but the execution is so well done. The story flows so smoothly and moves at a great pace. And it is long enough that the entire story is told in these nearly 60 pages so you don't have to track down another issue to see what happens.

Characters. This graphic novel has some really fun characters who are not characteratures nor exaggerations, yet they aren't boring or unmemorable. The balance the creators struck between realism to ground the story and cartoony fantasy to take full advantage of the medium is truly incredible.

 

The Bad

 
Only three issues are available.

What I Would Like to Have Seen

One hundred issues.

Overall

The Mighty Return of Ric Hochet 3. How to Commit the Perfect Murder by Zidrou and Van Liemt is a mystery graphic novel and a reinvention of the classic Belgium Ric Hochet title. The story is a really clever concept--someone commits murder by planting a how-to guide on murder in amongst books and magazines. People pick them up and follow the instructions leading to a rash of crime. Not only is the concept great, but the execution is so well done. The story flows so smoothly and moves at a great pace. And it is long enough that the entire story is told in these nearly 60 pages so you don't have to track down another issue to see what happens. Van Liemt is a great artist and does the perfect job of capturing the look and feel of the old Ric Hochet comics from Tibet while still looking modern. His figure work is both anatomically accurate and cartoony enough to have great flow and emotion. The backgrounds are all well rendered, and the colors only add to the beautiful line work. This graphic novel has some really fun characters who are not characteratures nor exaggerations, yet they aren't boring or unmemorable. The balance the creators struck between realism to ground the story and cartoony fantasy to take full advantage of the medium is truly incredible. The only negative is only three issues are available. I highly recommend this book and give it 5 out of 5 eReaders.