Valentine – tome 3

In the third volume of the series, Valentine enters into her first year of high school. Bad news! The group of four girls is split up into different classes. At first it looks like Valentine’s the unlucky one — the kids in her class are decidedly uncool. But once she gets to know them a little better, she starts to see that maybe she was wrong to judge so quickly.

An average Joe falls in love with a hooker from Ecuador and, when she goes missing, pressures a local mobster into telling him where she is by kidnapping his only daughter… What could possibly go wrong? A story about second chances, with a buddy road trip and musings on art and beauty thrown in for good measure.

Somewhere in a dingy backroom in present day Barcelona, Jazz Maynard and his old friend Teo find themselves bound back to back on two chairs. They don’t know why they’re there, or who’s detaining them. All they know is that three days earlier in New York, Jazz’s sister, who he hadn’t seen for 10 years, at last managed to get a letter to him. It was a cry for help. Jazz at once flew to her rescue. But what exactly is the nature of this tangled web he’s got himself caught up in? And what’s the connection to his kidnappers?

Following his exemplary execution of his latest mission, Vince, a new recruit to the Vatican’s protection and intelligence service, is invited to join the top secret and highly selective division, the “Keepers.” There are only twelve agents throughout the whole world at any one time. They don’t know each other. They can never meet. Trias, the third Keeper, has just been killed. Vince is to take his place.

His first mission is to accompany two prelates to the World Economic Forum in Davos, that brings together the world’s most influential stock market players. Right in the middle of dinner on the opening night, they get the news: An Iranian factory powered by nuclear energy has been bombed. Iran retaliated immediately, targeting the United States and Great Britain. The world is fast on its way to a third World War. All the main news channels are broadcasting images of absolute carnage.

Vince looks on as things go from bad to worse. He can’t help feeling that there’s more to it than first meets the eye… but what?

In the year 1000, the foretold apocalypse comes to pass, and humanity enters an age of darkness. Countless generations come and go before the sun reemerges; all of humanity’s once great knowledge is lost. Now, at the mercy of roaming packs of animals, the inhabitants of Anglia have formed clans that work together in a delicate balance to survive the harsh wilderness. Primus, one of the clan leaders, may just hold the key to their salvation, to secure a better future for his daughter Elaine and everyone else. But will his secret unite the clans, or tear them apart? And how much will Elaine have to sacrifice to see her father’s dream fulfilled?

Bombay, 1831. Freshly arrived from London, Alexander Martin reports to his new boss at the Indian Political Service—a government agency whose function is little more than helping the East India Company expand its grasp upon the Indian subcontinent. From the start, the enthusiastic and idealistic young man displeases the British establishment, and is shunned by Bombay’s polite society. Until, that is, until several of its members begin disappearing, forcing Alexander to investigate…

The planet Oceania is covered with an ocean of vegetation. Humans navigate the green seas with futuristic ships. Teenagers Jon and Jasper spend most of their days surfing the vast waves of foliage, until one day, without warning, they’re hit by a tsunami. Jon disappears beneath the leafy ocean surface and Jasper is picked up by a ship called the Poseidon. It is said that none return from the depths of this treacherous ocean. But the captain of the Poseidon tells a different story. Will Jon and Jasper ever find each other?

Canterbury, Connecticut, 1832: a charming female boarding school has found success among the locals, with two dozen girls enrolled. Some in town question the purpose of educating young girls—but surely there’s no harm in trying? At least not until the Prudence Crandall School announces its plans to start accepting black students. Thirty years before the abolition of slavery in the United States, in the so-called “free” North, these students will be met by a wave of hostility that puts the future of the school in question, and their very lives in peril. Even in the land of the free, not all of America’s children are welcome.

The year is 1849, and the future state of California is under the control of former soldiers from the Mexican-American War. Their leader, General Gomez, is busy buying up the locals’ land for pennies on the dollar, so that he and his cronies can maximize their profits from the coming gold rush. But he and his men are dogged by a series of masked, would-be avengers all calling themselves Zorro. They are an almost laughable annoyance, simple peasants living out the fantasy of a local legend. Until one man shows up and starts picking off Gomez’s men one by one, as stealthy as a fox. He brandishes a sword which he uses to carve the letter Z into his victims’ cheeks… Could this be the true Zorro?

Certain details surrounding the death of Albert Einstein are so outlandish as to sound like urban legend: namely, the theft of his brain by Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the pathologist who performed the eminent physicist’s autopsy. From these historical events, Pierre-Henry Gomont concocts a picaresque road trip of a tale by turns farcical and moving, whimsical and melancholy, sweeping up in its narrative whirlwind the FBI, a sanatorium, neurobiology, hallucinogens, hospital bureaucracy, and romance. In his dissection of friendship and the forging of scientific reputation, the nimble cartoonist serves up a slice of lovingly rendered Americana for the ages.