Euro Previews: Cinebook And Philippe Aymond’s ‘Highlands’ Concludes With Love, Betrayal And War!

Another finale to a two-parter from Cinebook, another historical fiction, this time taking us back to the Scottish Highlands and the Battle of Culloden…

It might seem somewhat strange to have a Euro comic album detailing the historical drama of the Jacobite Rising in 18th Century Scotland, all leading to the decisive and, for the Jacobites, destructive Battle of Culloden, but that’s the joy of Euro Comics – it’s all available. You’re as likely to get riotous slapstick comedy as you are grande sci-fi spectacular, or some epic historical drama like this one.

And Cinebook are continuing their mission to bring the, to US comic reading eyes anyway, almost impossible-to-fathom variety and diversity of the Euro comics market to English-speaking audiences.

This is one of their Double Expresso volumes, bringing shorter works to a wider audience. This is a short two-volume thing, a tale of intrigue, betrayal, lust, love, and jealousy all set against the wider historical background of the times in Scotland.

The first volume saw Joseph, an artist, returning to his native Scotland in the mid-18th Century and being accused of infidelity with the daughter of the Laird. All he wanted to do was to make art without getting involved in the political rivalries that have devoured Scotland.

But this is the time of the Jacobite rebellion against the Act of Union with England and, no matter what he wants, Joseph will find himself ensnared by the events of the time. And it will be his painting that will be his downfall in this tragedy of love, ambition, politics, and betrayal.

Here’s the Cinebook PR:

“Joseph is in hiding and believed dead. Wrongly accused of seducing Amelia Menmuir, gravely injured by her brother William, he now rests and prepares his revenge. Against Peter, his apprentice, who altered his drawings to frame him, and against William, whom he thinks orchestrated it all. Meanwhile, however, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Stuart heir, is about to return to Scotland, and the country will soon be engulfed in a bloody rebellion that will end in Culloden…”

Like I say, it’s a drama set against huge historical moments but Aymond focuses on the individuals caught up in it all – particularly Joseph’s quest to prove his innocence. That it was, at least to me, just that little too dry, little too stagey, well, that’s just my reading of it. The thing with Cinebook and Euro comics in general is that there’s the room to have this sort of strange little historical drama. And that’s what I’ve long loved about Euro comics.

Highlands Volume 2 (of 2)

Written and drawn by Philippe Aymond

Translated by Jerome Saincantin 

Published by Cinebook August 2023, originally published by Dargaud in 2012.

Now, preview time…