Blacksad

Blacksad is a comic album series created by Spanish authors Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo Guarnido (artist), and published by French publisher Dargaud. Though both authors are Spanish, their main target audience for Blacksad is the French market and thus they publish all Blacksad volumes in French first; the Spanish edition usually follows about one month later. The first volume Quelque part entre les ombres (literally Somewhere between the Shadows, but simply called Blacksad in the US) was published in November 2000. The second volume, Arctic-Nation, was published in 2003 and the third, Âme Rouge (Red Soul), was published in 2005. An English translation of the third album was delayed due to the bankruptcy of its North American publisher, iBooks. In 2010, Dark Horse Comics published all three translated albums as one volume.[3] The publication of this 184-page collection also coincided with the European release of the series' fourth installment, L'Enfer, Le silence (literally The Hell, The Silence), in September, 2010.

Although it was the creators' first comics endeavor, the first volume was an immense success, selling more than 200,000 copies in France alone.[citation needed] The series has been translated from the original French and Spanish into Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Czech, English, Finnish, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Slovak, Swedish, and Turkish.

Guarnido and Diaz Canales have received several prizes for the series, including three Eisner Award nominations and an Angoulême Prize for Artwork.

Main characters

John Blacksad - hardboiled private investigator. A black cat, Blacksad was raised in a poor neighborhood and spent much of his youth running from the police. This and his service in World War II likely account for his above-average marksmanship and fighting skills. He also spent a year in college as a history major before being expelled. Like other hardboiled detectives, Blacksad narrates his stories, adding cynical commentary on the evils of the world around him. Unlucky in love, he never seems to be able to form a lasting relationship, often due to circumstances beyond his control. He usually wears a dark suit and trench coat, and uses the alias John H. Blackmore on several fake IDs, including debt collector, FBI agent and customs officer.
Weekly - Blacksad's occasional sidekick. A brown Least Weasel who doesn't like soap and water and has an odor problem (he confesses that his nickname comes from rumors about him only changing his underwear weekly), he has a near-constant optimistic attitude, working as a muckraker for a tabloid called the What's News.
Smirnov - Police commissioner and friend of Blacksad. A brown German Shepherd, Smirnov sometimes helps Blacksad to reach the rich and powerful which he himself cannot touch due to 'pressure upstairs'.