Karmela Krimm 1: Ramadan Blues - Franck Biancarelli & Lewis Trondheim

Although he has moved on quite a bit from his early Lapinot adventures and autobiographical strips for the indie publisher L’Association, Lewis Trondheim’s comic work can still usually be counted on for a few reliable qualities. One is sharp writing and characterisation, there’s always a great sense of humour in his work and a hunger to try something new, meaning that you could never predict what he would do next. Not willing to even be restricted by his own limited – but brilliant – artistic style for cartoony anthromorphic characters, Trondheim will just as happily provide the scripts and enjoy the collaboration of other artists.

Karmela Krimm, like his recent script for Stéphane Oiry on Maggy Garrisson, is the kind of material that needs an artist with a feel for the subject of inner city life and crime. Much like Maggy’s London – although in some ways also in complete contrast – Trondheim and Franck Biancarelli have in Karmela Krimm‘s Marseille a location that provides plenty of opportunity for colour, character and crime. Karmela Krimm is also not your typical detective and indeed it’s identified early on in this first crime case that she didn’t exactly choose to be a private detective, but rather ended up there after trying a little to hard to live up to her reputation in the police force as one of the Bazooka Sisters.

Although there are evidently considerable differences in character and location, Karmela Krimm isn’t all that different from Maggy Garrisson, but in only in the way that it retains the quality matching or contrasting character with location. Even given Trondheim’s eclectic and prolific output, there’s no repetition of formula here and plenty of new social and class tensions to explore. There’s a colourful mix of ethnic diversity in the Marseille location and with dangers from street gangs that – with it being artist Biancarelli’s hometown – are depicted well here. There’s no skimping on detail in the panel backgrounds either, and since Marseille has such a distinctive character it would be a shame not to make use of it.

The art and treatment (and even the title Karmela Krimm) does have an air of Italian fumetti about it, and the first episode ‘Ramadan Blues‘ wastes no time about delving into the darker and seedier side of the city. Karmela is hired – after a lot of persuasion – by Mrs Perrini to find out who killed her husband, a wealthy and influential figure in the Mafia and president of the Marseilles football team. He has been gunned down outside the house of his mistress, leaving his wife to inherit, but although the revelation of a mistress is no surprise, she needs to know if his death poses a threat to her as well. Even with plenty of contacts on the ground, it’s still a dangerous assignment, so Karmela is given the loan of one of Mrs Perrini’s bodyguards, Tadj, and the extra protection and weight is welcome as the city is even a little more edgy than usual during Ramadan.

The series was initially developed by Franck Biancarelli with Tadj as the main protagonist, but even with Lewis Trondheim coming on board to move the story away from the gritty style of the hard man crime thriller, Karmela Krimm still remains a little more of a conventional European comic than we would expect from this writer. Even so with Trondheim on board and Biancarelli’s impressive location detail, this is still a cut above the average, and ‘Ramadan Blues‘ delivers on its promise of delving into all the colour and shades of light and dark of its Marseille character.

Karmela Krimm 1. Ramadan Blues by Franck Biancarelli and Lewis Trondheim is published in English translation as an eBook from Europe Comics. It’s also available on Amazon Kindle.