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Lone Sloane #4
Lone Sloane: Gail
“A space opera of extraordinary visual splendour” – Library Journal
Lone Sloane, the Ulysses of Space, cosmic freebooter and rebel, endlessly struggles against dark Gods, robotic entities and alien forces.
Written and drawn by Philippe Druillet, known for his graphic adaptation of Michael Moorcock’s Elric hit fantasy series, Elric, The Return to Melnibone, and his work for Heavy Metal, such as City of Flowers.
Lone Sloane, the Ulysses of Space, cosmic freebooter and rebel, endlessly struggles against dark Gods, robotic entities and alien forces.
Written and drawn by Philippe Druillet, known for his graphic adaptation of Michael Moorcock’s Elric hit fantasy series, Elric, The Return to Melnibone, and his work for Heavy Metal, such as City of Flowers.
64 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 16, 2021
if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
211019: whoa. once again it is the art. story sets up scenes, maybe leads readers, but it is best ‘looked at’ rather than ‘read’. format great, huge splash, tilts, style. i really like several double-page splash that are definitely more images than stories. i think you want to look at this when you have no narrative anxiety, no character rounding, for both plot and lone himself are archetypes, set in the era of 40 years past... before my time but timeless...
211019: whoa. once again it is the art. story sets up scenes, maybe leads readers, but it is best ‘looked at’ rather than ‘read’. format great, huge splash, tilts, style. i really like several double-page splash that are definitely more images than stories. i think you want to look at this when you have no narrative anxiety, no character rounding, for both plot and lone himself are archetypes, set in the era of 40 years past... before my time but timeless...
November 15, 2023
Some of Druillet's greatest work. If you can't dig this art, you probably don't deserve to have eyeballs.
June 29, 2020
I remembered the fabulous pictures from my college years four decades ago. Now as I read it, I find most of the pictures incoherent and bursting with polychromatic static. There's lots of minute ink blobs (details, in some sense of the word), but it was hard to tell where, say a spaceship ended and the background started. Of course, that melding may be a deliberate feature, like the organic ship in the Alien movie franchise. But I don't care to spend five minutes on each frame figuring out what's what. The information content is one or two basic items per frame drowning in masses of haphazard shapes, lines, and patches of color.
Since there was little plot or writing, it felt sparse and disappointing. I disliked the occasional swearing and nudity, too.
Maybe if I took time to explore and drink in the richness of each frame . . . Maybe if I had learned to be excited by mere appearance of Sloane . . . Maybe . . .
Since there was little plot or writing, it felt sparse and disappointing. I disliked the occasional swearing and nudity, too.
Maybe if I took time to explore and drink in the richness of each frame . . . Maybe if I had learned to be excited by mere appearance of Sloane . . . Maybe . . .
April 20, 2019
The story is not much: Lone Sloane gets captured and sent to the worst prison colony in the universe. Of course, his erstwhile allies the Space Gods intervene and Sloane instigates a revolt, which eventually pits the prison warden against the Imperator Shaan, and rips apart the oppresive galactic government. Pretty predictable stuff. But of course, the art is where Druillet truly excels. His intricate two-page splashes of bizarre, baroque spaceships and planets never fail to amaze me. I read the dialogue and narration in a few seconds, but then I sit awhile and just soak up the art.
November 16, 2023
"Gail" marks an increase in the sophistication of the storytelling, but with this entry comes a lot more unnecessary convolution. Here we find Lone Sloane taken to the penal colony of Saint Marie of Angels, which serves as the site where warlords and merchants hire slaves to make up their armed forces. The most brutal purveyor in the slaves of Saint Marie of Angels is the tyrant of the planet Gail, Iriam Merennen. Iriam has a whole mythos to him as described in the opening text crawl of this album, but very little of it ultimately matters to the story at hand. Iriam has cultivated a vast empire for himself but a few opposing planets and systems remain in his way of total conquest. One of these opponents is the Imperator Shaan, a villain to Lone Sloane in the previous couple adventures. Thus, Lone Sloane finds himself in the middle of a conflict between two brutal imperialistic dictators.
Like I said, the story is pretty complicated with multiple factions at play and only a brief page count to make it all make sense. Of course the main draw is Druillet's artwork which brings the ambitious scale to life, but I do think there are periods where too much being packed in can lead to some diminishing results. "Gail" gets close to being unreadable, but it still packs a punch at times. I enjoyed "6 Voyages" and "Delirius" a fair bit more, but "Gail" is still mostly a good time.
Like I said, the story is pretty complicated with multiple factions at play and only a brief page count to make it all make sense. Of course the main draw is Druillet's artwork which brings the ambitious scale to life, but I do think there are periods where too much being packed in can lead to some diminishing results. "Gail" gets close to being unreadable, but it still packs a punch at times. I enjoyed "6 Voyages" and "Delirius" a fair bit more, but "Gail" is still mostly a good time.
August 4, 2018
Kuvat on viisi tähteä, tarina ei. Tämän kaltaisten juttujen takia vuosia sitten Euroopassa keksittiin ligne claire, kuten musiikissa piti progen jälkeen tulla punk. Mutta siitä joskus toiste jossain muualla lisää.
Tämä taitaa olla eka lukemani kokonainen Druilletin tekemä albumi. Kauheasti tapahtuu, mutta onko missään mitään järkeä? Ehkä on, mutta en ole lukenut edellisiä osia. Ehkä ei. Ehkäpä keskityn kuviin. Aion kyllä lukea muutkin Lone Sloane -tarinat, jos niihin törmään.
Tämä taitaa olla eka lukemani kokonainen Druilletin tekemä albumi. Kauheasti tapahtuu, mutta onko missään mitään järkeä? Ehkä on, mutta en ole lukenut edellisiä osia. Ehkä ei. Ehkäpä keskityn kuviin. Aion kyllä lukea muutkin Lone Sloane -tarinat, jos niihin törmään.
March 3, 2019
Lone Sloane se retrouve sur la planète Gail, au milieu d'esclaves lobotomisés et marchandés. Pas le meilleur de la série au niveau des illustrations, mais un beau volume tout de même en compagnie du chien aux yeux rouges. Et toujours de superbes couleurs !
April 20, 2022
Everything I like about Druillet. Big, bombastic sets and scenery. As always, there's not much story to it. The protagonist is characteristically over the top, masculine, violent ruffian fighting his way through the story. The art and design are always extraordinary.
February 18, 2024
Okay, so the art in Gail is 5 stars, it is still the powerful, powerful Druillet standard. But I don't know if I was daydreaming or what; I could not make heads or tails of the story. The story is totally secondary in these Druillet works, but still. . . . huh?
August 26, 2024
A thinly plotted, sparsely worded, and thoroughly hallucinatory sorta-conclusion to whatever Druillet has been doing with the character of Lone Sloane. This one has some phenomenal layouts, even if Delirius has more going on in terms of story
January 6, 2020
Decent story but the art and design are more incredible with each volume.
September 4, 2020
4 1/2 stars.
April 10, 2021
Beautiful art
So imaginative. Not quite sure what's going on lol. Very short
So imaginative. Not quite sure what's going on lol. Very short
July 23, 2023
Great art, but completely lost on the story.
July 30, 2024
Nother Druillet banger :)
November 16, 2021
9/10—Another incredible work from Druillet. Once again, the story is good, but not 9/10-worthy; the art more than makes up for the discrepancy. Gail is a joy to look at, and you could be satisfied with just looking at each page and never having read a line of dialogue. The visual worldbuilding of Druillet is power enough by itself.
January 24, 2024
I’d like to write that without Lob (writer of “Délirius”), Druillet is all style and no substance, but it’s worse than that. In “Gail”, the images are meaningless. They feel hurried, unfinished, plagiarized even. What a waste.
September 17, 2020
Talked about this one here :
https://youtu.be/P_FYeWoSzqY
:)
https://youtu.be/P_FYeWoSzqY
:)
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews