Euro Preview For The Petrolheads: ‘Michel Vaillant Legendary Races Volume 1: In The Hell Of Indianapolis’

by Richard Bruton

More multi-million-selling Euro album series find their way to Cinebook for their English-language debut – this time the legendary French racing car thriller Michel Vaillant.

The series Michel Vaillant was created by Jean Graton in 1957 and immediately proved phenomenally successful for its depiction of the fictional Vaillant motorsport team. Jean Graton would later hand writing to his son Philippe and the art would eventually go to Studio Graton. And together, they would be responsible for 81 volumes and more than 17 million albums sold. (A notable thing in Euro Comics, you have to get used to the sale figures being so much higher than comics in the US – it’s just the way the medium is accepted and beloved in Europe).

The series follows the rise of motorsport over the years through the fictional Vaillant motorsport team. Notable for its realism, both in the tracks, races, and personalities seen in the comics, and in the realism of the artwork, capturing every petrolhead moment in the pages.

Now, it is a bit of a mystery how Cinebook picks the ordering of its reprints. With Michel Vaillant it might be that they haven’t been able to ge the reprint rights for the classic series by Graton et. al., but it means that we’re dropping straight into things with the new series that started in 2022 – Michel Vaillant Legendes/Legendary Races and is scripted by Denis Lapiere with art by Vincent Dutreuil.

But this is my first time in the world of Michel Vaillant, not having read any of the classics – and what I read here made me want to read more.

We’re headed back to Indianapolis, 1966, one of the most exciting and eventful of all Indy-500s. It was the race where confusion reigned, the running order messed up, meaning that there’s still some uncertainty over who actually won that year.

Into this real-world race and real-world controversy, we have the fictional Vaillant team and its two racers, Michel Vaillant and Steve Warson. It’s a feature of all Vaillant albums, this dropping in of real-world moments and drivers and tracks, something that its fans absolutely love.

In the story here, we still have all the controversy and the excitement of the real-life race, but there’s also drama off the track after Michel and Steve meet Rhona, a charming young woman with a difficult past. All of this means that the troubles off track will soon transform into troubles on the track, as the action starts for real.

And what incredible action it is. Reading about the series, one thing that always comes up is the realism of the motor racing and the thrilling depiction of it on the comics page. And that’s just what you’re getting here – the action sequences are simply wonderful, you can feel the speed through the page, get every nuance of the race and the drama of the sport in every racing panel and page.

But this isn’t just a book of action on the track. And that’s where Michel Vaillant just falls away just that little bit. Whereas the artwork of the races is spectacular, the figure art has something about it that’s a little too static for my tastes. It’s good, certainly, but the figure work just pales in comparison to the sheer kinetic excitement and beauty of the racing artwork.

But, put that to one side – after all, art is such a subjective thing and it’s definitely in keeping with the style of the previous Vaillant books – and what you have is a really good, great at times, moto-thriller. The story powers along with thrills and intrigue, the dialogue is nicely translated as always, the plot works well. But even if you, like me, find it a little slow and static at times, take heart that there’s something beautiful coming up as soon as they get into the cars – and that’s what a racing comic needs!

Oh, and just to illustrate one final time before the preview what I mean about the beauty to be found in the racing artwork…. let’s take this sequence of four panels…

And then, thanks to the joy of digital comics (yes, I still love the medium as a physical thing, but the one advantage to digital is zooming in to really take it all in properly)… a closer look at three of those panels for a perfect illustration of the way the art sets the heart racing and really get the race to leap off the page…