Over at Apollo, I’ve reviewed Florent Ruppert, Jérôme Mulot and Bastien Vivès’ comic The Grande Odalisque, which mobilises the art heist subgenre as a commentary on shallow elitism. The glamour of the old masters and commodification of art themtised in a modern action comic. The review also gives me the occasion to formulate a few thoughts on the emerging subgenre of museum comics and didactiic artist’s biographies in comics form.

Here, by the way, is the Laurent de la Hyre painting that gets confused with a Titian in the comic, after which it is machine-gunned:

(It’s from 1647 and can be seen at the Louvre)

Originally relesed in 2012, La grande odalisque is now available in English translation from Fantagraphics. See also my 2011 interview with Ruppert and Mulot. If you read Danish and subscribe to Information, I also discuss museum comics in this review of Peter Wandel and Rasmus Meislers Den magiske spinel.