By Bruno Savill De Jong — During their daring art heist of the Museé D’Orsay, Carole waits for her partner-in-crime Alex to distract the hovering guards. Instead, Alex is busy being dumped via text. Carole – having managed to fight her own way out – is annoyed at the disruption, but she does try to console her colleague of 9 years. At least in her own way, telling her later “You’ve been with him for three year, and you’ve been a drag for three years”. The two are like sisters, with all the bickering and frustrated affection that implies, and The Grande Odalisque graphic novel is as much about this central relationship as the snappy art-heist capers the surround it. Their next target is the eponymous Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres painting itself. Or “the painting of the chick with the three extra vertebrae”, as Carole describes it, “the whole disregarding-realism-to-accentuate-beauty thing”.

That dialogue gives a good idea of The Grande Odalisque’s brittle and sly tone, and that description could roughly be applied to its own aesthetic style. Odalisque’s artists (the credits do not specify who does what) give this lovely faint linework to their book, gently stenciling a look that is crisp, sexy and picturesque. Often Carole doesn’t even have facial features – and when she does it actually drags Odalisque away from its minimalist approach – instead having her head covered by a magnificent blonde bob. Such soft coloring often exists completely without any pencil border, creating an atmospheric sketchbook style, which is nevertheless agile and easily legible when it needs. Odalisque contains numerous gorgeous, and surprisingly tense, action scenes as the women soar above the Parisian rooftops, but it’s just as pleasant to watch them lounging around their hideout planning their next mission, alongside new recruit, the lesbian motorcyclist Sam.

The Grande Odalisque is not a meticulous heist book, focusing upon detailed ergonomic routes. It takes large detours, like the women spontaneously overtaking a Mexican drug cartel while rescuing their weapons supplier. Luckily, the character dynamics are fun enough that this doesn’t matter, Odalisque’s cool and confident tone easily follows wherever they end up. Odalisque is quite raunchy, the women discussing explicit “sexcapades” and how much they (or the others) need to get laid, but while they are attractive Odalisque doesn’t overstep into gratuitous sleazy territory. These feel like actual (if heightened) characters, just ones who dream about having a penis that is also a pencil (“it’s kinda cool, except you have to be sexually aroused to write”). Odalisque is also very funny. Certain montages dip into absurdity, but mainly it’s the character interactions and running gags that provide the best material, including how Sam will tranquilize people even when it’s unnecessary, such as office workers already asleep at their desks. 

The Grande Odalisque blends such comedy beats and grand action into a very effective – and by the conclusion, surprisingly poignant – crime-caper comic. It might begin with Alex being dumped, but the book becomes about the stronger bonds that exist between these women, professionally and beyond. As Carole tells Sam (whilst Alex is conveniently out of earshot), “it’s not what you do in life that matters, it’s who you do it with”.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: The Grand Odalisque

The Grand Odalisque
Creators: Bastien Vivès, Florent Ruppert, Jérôme Mulot
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Price: $24.99
Alex and Carole, friends since childhood, are now (literal) partners in crime. But the heist - to steal the Ingres painting The Grande Odalisque from the Louvre in Paris - is too much for the duo to handle, so they bring in Clarence, a bureaucrat's son with a price on his head by a Mexican drug cartel and, more importantly, an arms dealer. Next is Sam, a stunt motorcyclist and boxer by trade, who proves trigger happy with tranquilizer darts. Using soda can smoke bombs, rocket launchers, and hang gliders, Alex, Carole, and Sam set off a set of circumstances that results in a battle with the French Special Forces - and their partnership, which was on the rocks, will never be the same again. Ruppert and Mulot, two of the most innovative comic creators in the world, team up with multiple Angouleme prize winner Bastien Vives to bring you this impossibly funny, violent, and sexy action-packed thriller.
Release Date: February 9. 2021
Buy It Digitally: The Grand Odalisque

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Bruno Savill De Jong is a recent undergraduate of English and freelance writer on films and comics, living in London. His infrequent comics-blog is Panels are Windows and semi-frequent Twitter is BrunoSavillDeJo.