Toc Toc Toc Ptero

William Firebrace

A light tapping sound. Cracks appear. A pterodactyl hatches from a large and ancient egg, smashes its way out its glass cabinet in the Galerie de Paléontologie et d'Anatomie comparée of the Musée national d’Histoire naturelle, located in the Jardin des plantes in Paris (from now on – relax, breathe out slowly, sip on a glass of dry white wine from Crétace - simply the Gallery), flutters upwards, breaks through the glass roof and flies off to terrorize Paris. So begins Adèle et la Bête, the opening volume of the first of Jacques Tardi’s ten graphic novels, set in Paris in the years preceding and following the First World War.