I think the authors are trying to do their best to keep the alternate universe in snyc with the real universe
I don't.

They take pains to get all these different aircrafts and their types and nicknames right
There's lots of reference books featuring airplanes & airplane fans will complain if the details are wrong (although I hear gun lovers are much more vocal about mistakes with guns). Also airplane fans live all over the world, whereas mistakes about how things in the US are done will only be noticed by those who live in the US.

Frankly some of the ideas these clowns have about how things are done in the US probably annoy me about as much as that Gestapo stereotype annoyed you.

Nice reputation the USA has, right?
One thing I learned in school. Reputation has NOTHING to do with reality. There were some nasty rumors about me & most people would rather have believed the lies than learn the truth. Pretty much killed any faith I had in the better nature of our worthless species.

No, they are accusing XIII of murdering Wally in the kidnapping plot. That's why XIII "trial" farce is classified as top secrets, and only people from
secret agencies are present, no real judges, attorneys etc.
That, of course, makes no sense. The only reason to hold a trial is to have a record of something. Even "secret" trials must leave a record, even if it's just in the minds of the people attending. It would have just been easier to just kill or torture XIII & ignore the farce of a trial.

if Giordino et al wanted to send a signal to the media world, they might imprison him (as I said above, on grounds of treason or similar.)
Treason has a specific definition in the US. Broadcasting the 'trial' of Sheridan would not qualify.

About the accent/dialect/speech discussion. Something else I didn't think about was how a person talks, not just how they pronounce words.
Years ago someone (a comedian?) was talking about the differences in how different English speakers talk & he commented that the Scottish talked very tight-lipped because it's cold & they don't want to freeze the fillings in their teeth while down in Australia, where it's very hot, they talk opening their mouths very wide.
This got me thinking about how people talk in the US & in the south where it's very warm Southerners tend to speak slowly, while up in New York, where it can get very cold, they talk very fast.
(I'm sure there are exceptions to these generalities, but it's something to think about.)

Jones is worried about him, but he tells her that there is still Colin, his grandson, and she will help him make a man out of him.
Well, good. With all the fooling around XIII does it's about time Jones got a boytoy on the side. ;-)

Oh, and I asked my librarian today what their definition for graphic novel is. Its comics that are more artistic (than the usual), containing more black-and-white.
So Marvel's Essential series are Graphic Novels while the Marvel Masterworks wouldn't be? (The Essential series reprints in black & white while the Masterworks reprint in color.)

Also who decides what is or isn't "artistic"? (I should imagine it would be hard to argue that comics aren't artistic since they are mostly art anyway.)

I have the horrible feeling that if your library carried Mike Grell's The Warlord: Savage Empire & Milo Manara's Hidden Camera they would consider the collection of excuses to show naked women (Hidden Camera) to be a Graphic Novel while the better story (The Warlord) would be dismissed as just a comic book.

KAM

...Reputation has NOTHING to do with reality...

First, I was making a joke. Secondly, from Costa Verde's point of view, it is dangerous to make the USA angry: they are already distrustful because of the "socalist" Maria Santos as pres., and they know from Cuba how harmful an embargo is. Going public with stories about how NSA agents killed a civilian to catch XIII would get the US pi-ssed off at Costa Verde, and they can't afford that. (I mean, threating an embargo just to get 4 guys is a little overreaction, right?)

Frankly some of the ideas these clowns have about how things are done in the US probably annoy me about as much as that Gestapo stereotype annoyed you.

Now, aren't you a bit harsh? This is secret govt. stuff we are talking about, after all, so I think we can cut some slack between how things would /should be normally done in the US, and how things are done behind the scenes and under political pressure.

I have the feeling when the authors started the series, they wanted to project a warning about what would happen (and how easy it would be) to turn the US into a fascist/military dictatorship - this is what the XX-conspiracy wanted. I guess this is also the reason the first albums were set a few years in the future.

That, of course, makes no sense. The only reason to hold a trial is to have a record of something. Even "secret" trials must leave a record, even if it's just in the minds of the people attending. It would have just been easier to just kill or torture XIII & ignore the farce of a trial.

I don't know: They have an "offical" verdict on XIII that he is guilty of "bad things", every detail about what he did will then be "secret state matters". But it means a different lever when talking to Costa Verde: XIII can't claim political persecution, because the US has a verdict on him. (Maybe the authors just liked the irony of trying him again for the murder of *a* President Sheridan, but we aren't dealing with reality )

Treason has a specific definition in the US. Broadcasting the 'trial' of Sheridan would not qualify.

I thought that "treason" - or "leaking secrets of state" -, esp. if the trial of the director was secret, too, was an elastic kind of thing that could be applied to everything. I mean, the Montrose trial during the McCarthy era seems to have been a railroading job that wasn't legitimate, either, but that didn't bother people at that time.

Years ago someone (a comedian?) was talking about the differences in how different English speakers talk & he commented that the Scottish talked very tight-lipped because it's cold & they don't want to freeze the fillings in their teeth while down in Australia, where it's very hot, they talk opening their mouths very wide. ...

That's sounds like a very funy explanation. I know that different speech cultures have different speeds in conversation etc.

But so far, XIII must have some kind of non-descriptional behaviour, because nobody has ever said to him "You talk like a New Yorker/ Californian/ Texanian/ whatever." (Also interesting that although he has learned spanish during the time in Cuba, it doesn't seem to reflect on his english speech. He never slips any spanish phrase or expression into his english.)

Also who decides what is or isn't "artistic"? (I should imagine it would be hard to argue that comics aren't artistic since they are mostly art anyway.)

The decision is made by the person doing the cataloging, who gives the keywords to the books, too. I'd guess a comic is "artistic" if its neither crime/adventure/science fiction/fantasy etc.; if it has a lot of black/white instead of color, if the drawings look different than the normal comics, if the story is ... different. In the end, it's subjective, as all cataloging and indexing is.

have the horrible feeling that if your library carried Mike Grell's The Warlord: Savage Empire & Milo Manara's Hidden Camera they would consider the collection of excuses to show naked women (Hidden Camera) to be a Graphic Novel while the better story (The Warlord) would be dismissed as just a comic book.

Well, I can't answer that, since I know neither one. And I already said: Graphic Novel is one subcategory inside Comics. So "The Warlord" wouldn't be "just a comic book", it would be "Comic/crime" or "Comic/adventure" or whatever. If the "Hidden Camera" has no story and lots of naked women, it would be "Comics/Erotic", I guess.

KAM,

she will help him make a man out of him.
Well, good. With all the fooling around XIII does it's about time Jones got a boytoy on the side. ;-)

I don't quite understand. What do you mean?

So Marvel's Essential series are Graphic Novels while the Marvel Masterworks wouldn't be? (The Essential series reprints in black & white while the Masterworks reprint in color.)

Are these the Marvel superhero series - Spiderman, Superman, Batman, etc.? Or real comics, bound like books, several editions together?

The US comics I've noticed in the adult section were mostly Star Wars and Star Trek, and, as I mentioned, Will Eisners "The Building" in the "Graphic Novel" category.
(In the childen's sections there are a lot Mickey Mouse and Donald Ducks beside the franco-belgian Asterix and Lucky Luke etc.)
But I doubt my library would carry a lot of Marvel, they wouldn't consider them "adult", I guess, and there's not enough money to stock both Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Marvel for the children. (Although I haven'T looked or asked; maybe they'll buy an edition of several Batman/Spiderman books once in a while. This is not offical policy, I'm just guessing.)

But I expressed myself not clearly enough: Black/white is one distinction for graphic novel, not the only one/automatic one. There are several factors which make a comic "artistic" or not (and therefore, a graphic novel), one of these may be black and white.
But artistic is hard to define. I guess most of the times you would point to a comic and say "That's artistic, its different than all the others" and most people would agree.

The code from the watches so far reads:

CAIREADTSUNNISG
TROIH24T101I

Anybody got any ideas what this could mean???

The phrase "make a man out of him" can mean that a woman will have sex with a guy who is, or is thought to be, a virgin.

And I just figured that since XIII seems to have sex with a variety of women it would only be fair for Jones to have sex with other men. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

I'd guess a comic is "artistic" if its neither crime/adventure/science fiction/fantasy etc.
Sounds like the vague genre listing Literature. (Submission guidelines for some prose magazines/book publishers occasionally list Literature as what they want. It's only definition seems to be that it is not Crime/Mystery/SF/Fantasy/Romance/etc., etc. I usually write those publishers off as snobs.)

Yes, the Essential & Masterworks are collections of comic book series in book form & are called either Trade Paperbacks or Graphic Novels over here. (Although some of the Masterworks come out in Hardbound Editions so Trade Hardback would probably be more accurate for them.)

The US comics I've noticed in the adult section were mostly Star Wars and Star Trek
Considering that the writing & art in these books are usually on a par with superhero titles I'm surprised they're considered adult.

KAM,

Colin is a 12-year old boy! I don't think Carrington meant that - I must have used the wrong phrase during translation. In german, "to make a man out of somebody" refers more to making him into a "Tough-guy" kind of thing, a Real Man (tm).

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Undoutbetly, but I don't know anything about Jones view on the matter so far. There isn't any indication that she has found somebody else to keep her bed warm, but there are several reasons for that:
- she excuses XIII sleeping around because of his amnesia, but has different/stricter standards for herself
- she hasn't found anybody else. Armand Preseau has found Betty, Carrington was her superior (and is quite old), Amos is also quite old (that doesn't mean that it wouldn't work - Armand is about 20 or more years older than Betty, too!), but there is no romantic feeling anywhere. (Maybe nobody else can measure up to XIII for Jones?)

Sounds like the vague genre listing Literature. (Submission guidelines for some prose magazines/book publishers occasionally list Literature as what they want. It's only definition seems to be that it is not Crime/Mystery/SF/Fantasy/Romance/etc., etc. I usually write those publishers off as snobs.)

Sounds like somebody is mixing terms again. Usually, I'd thought that literature is like fiction simply the opposite of non-fiction. But of course literature can be used as stricter term.

Considering that the writing & art in these books are usually on a par with superhero titles I'm surprised they're considered adult.

I guess I'll have to look again if they are classified as Comics for Adults, or are both in the juvenile and adult section of the library, because many Star Trek/Wars fans are adults and don't want to head over to the juvenile section.

Colin is a 12-year old boy!
I was joking. Hence the winky face at the end of my original post. I wasn't sure how old Colin was.

In german, "to make a man out of somebody" refers more to making him into a "Tough-guy" kind of thing, a Real Man (tm).
It can also mean that here. Depends on context, who's talking, how dirty-minded the listener is...

Sounds like somebody is mixing terms again.
You're right. The genre term is Literary, but I forgot & Literature was the closest sounding word I could remember. My mistake.

KAM,

...My mistake.

I wasn't thinking of you, but of the publishers. The same holds true for the comic category discussion: A graphic novel in english has a different definition than the term used in germany, where the translation is Comic.
And words having different defintions depending on who's using them ccause a lot of confusion even in the same culture...


About XIII and women, or why he saved Jessie the killer in album 15:

I wondered, since:
Jones saved his butt in album 3, Betty saved their butts in album 5, Jones helps him, but he can't prevent her injury in album 5, he saves Jones in album 7 and 8, Jones and the preseaus save his butt (together with the rebels) in album 10, Jones saves his butt in album 11 -

his ego was suffering a little and he wanted to be the hero who gets to save the girl for a change? (But then, his ego doesn't show any sign of damage! He's never complained about being saved by women, either, so I guess he is both old-fashioned boy-scout and pro-Women's Lib! No wonder he's attractive!)

Or XIII just knew his "charm" was big and strong enough to turn Jessie around? (And I don't believe his explanation that he saved her life out of a stupid reflex, considering how extremly effectively he takes out killers before that! It can't be only because they're male; he throws Irina from the balcony of Mangouste's villa in album 12, as she is about to stab him.)

A few thoughts after re-reading Album 16:

- on the last page, the next album is announced as "Maximilian's Gold". So the crowd will find the treasure? I really wonder how they will decode the message.

- When Jones and XIII have some time to themselves (after being rescued by the president's guard), they snuggle up to each other and wonder "when all this will end". Carrington interrupts their tender moment by saying "when we will finish Frank Giordino" and explains that Sean Mullway has told him his story (he uses that as an excuse to recap album 11 almost one page - recapping what's happened before is getting to be some trouble by now!)
Okay, as General and tough guy, Carrington isn't afraid to take on Giordino, but nobody thinks it might be ... a little bit hard to accomplish, considering that all four of them are wanted dead, and will likely be "shot while fleeing" if they are ever caught? And they plan to do away with the head of the NSA, member of Mafia, exactly how?
Hiring a killer, like EXECUTOR, if they find the treasure? Would be a little bit difficult.
Expose him in the media? After album 12 and 13, I don't think anybody would touch an explosive story like that with a 10-foot-pole.

I really wonder how the crowd will accomplish that.

In album 16, Jones and XIII go diving into Lake Montechristo, although neither of them has dived before (XIII can't remember, but no skills appear after his first try; jones never learned), simply after Capitan Rojas provides them with the necessary equipment and rattles off some instructions from a booklet on the air mixture and the necessary stops (nitrogen).

THIS WON't WORK IN REAL LIFE!

I esp. asked my fiance, who has dived himself and has the necessary papers after training with water rescue:

- no amount of theory will help anyboy with ear clearing, it needs experience. Without doing ear clearing properly, you can't go below 5 m - the pressure is too painful, or your eardrum would burst. Yet XIII claims he can't go below 10 m because the pressure is too great.

- Jones claims that because she is airforce, she is used to pressure differences. But diving is in a completly different medium - no amount of experience in air will help in coping with diving, and esp. during a struggle with two bad guys!! A little panic is enough to use up your air at a too fast rate, which will cause trouble during surfacing (the nitrogen problem). Heck, with no training a fogged mask can lead to panic!

Looking at the official site, I also discovered the unoffical fansite, which has analyses, images and screensavers to download, and even nitpicks (erreurs). Both are in french, though. (Three other fansites, also in french, are linked. Go to "Simple visite", and "Democratie", and "liens", and "sites de fans".). There's a lot of other stuff, too - links to the real CIA, NSA, to other series from these authors, etc.

Under "mon historie" - "albums", there are sample pages of most albums.

Groupe Dargaud, the french publisher, now lists dabelbrothers as american publishers, but on their site I can't find references to XIII. Maybe they bought the rights, and are in the process of translating it?

The Dabel Brothers in partnership with Marvel Comics will be releasing this series in the US starting January 31.

Story at Broken Frontiers

The Day Of The Black Sun: I XIII #1 (Alias Enterprises)
You discover an unconscious, nearly dead man, do you
A) Contact an emergency service that will send an ambulance?
B) Contact an alcoholic who used to be a doctor?
C) Go through the pockets for loose change?
Surprisingly the people in this story chose B.

Page 23, Panel 7. XIII is, apparently, reading stuff off of a sheet of paper, except that the paper appears mostly blank with a couple of squiggly lines on it.