Broken Frontier

Runberg’s gripping pseudo-historical thriller is a brooding tale that stunningly recreates the Victorian era.

England, 1860, and Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species has brought him both renown and infamy. This notoriety, coupled with a secret passion for cryptozoology, has also made him the British government’s first choice to investigate a series of violent animal attacks on a railway construction site in the Yorkshire countryside.

There Darwin meets the formidable Suzanne Dickinson, the emancipated daughter of the industrialist whose workers have been killed, and learns the predator may be a creature so far unknown to science. The mystery deepens as locals, and the soldiers entrusted to guard the work, are savagely picked off by this terrifying beast. Meanwhile, subplots involving Darwin’s own unpredictable nocturnal activities, and an active group of mysterious druids, begin to converge with the main storyline…

This first volume of Darwin’s Diaries is one of the most recent translations from Cinebook, the publisher that specialise in showcasing European comics. The Eye of the Celts is the opening instalment of a two-parter originally presented as a French language album last year; a pseudo-historical thriller that extrapolates on a foundation of recorded events by pushing them off on an imaginative fictional tangent.

Writer Sylvain Runberg embraces a starting premise that some might perceive as taking extreme liberties with the reputation of one of history’s greatest scientific pioneers, and creates a gripping, sombre, and brooding tale that has an ironic feeling of both authenticity and authority. In popular culture terms, The Eye of the Celts is a kind of Victorian X-Files with a hint of a traditional Doctor Who “base under siege” story arc. Tautly paced with an ever-increasing sense of imminent doom, Runberg draws the readers into this mystery from the outset, transporting them into another time with effortless guile.

Eduardo Ocaña’s art recreates the Victorian era in the most beautiful and stunning detail. The research that has clearly gone into this volume is readily apparent. I was especially impressed by Ocaña’s depiction of Down House, Darwin’s home in Kent; a period detail that will pass most readers by but is illustrative of the care that has gone into the construction of the world of Darwin’s Diaries. Tariq Bellaoui’s colouring is an entirely effective complement to Ocaña’s layouts; largely murky and oppressive, it captures the atmosphere of the script perfectly and ably adds to the sense of tension throughout the story.

Readers looking for storytelling that eschews the curse of decompression will find much to love in this first volume of Darwin’s Diaries. The Cinebook line is a fine introduction to European comics sensibilities and The Eye of the Celts, in particular, is a highly recommended starting point for those who wish to jump into a whole new world of diverse and lovingly crafted comics.