Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews Before The Incal Classic Collection by Alexandro Jodorowsky, illustrated by Zoran Janjetov:

This volume collects the full-length prequel series that provides background for the classic Jodo/Moebius Incal books. The stories are all set on the planet Earth 2014, and they center on the young John Difool, particularly the vicissitudes of his romance with an aristo girl Luz and his progress from gutter rat to revolutionary to detective.

Jodorowsky’s storytelling is as fun as ever, although these are heavy on the social satire, and they don’t dive as deeply into the mythic strata that dominate The Incal. The sixth and last of the parts of Before the Incal is a little frenetic, making connections and tying up loose ends in order to maintain the continuity between this arc and that one. Even so, it seems like an incipient galactic revolution got lost somewhere between the two books.

Janjetov’s art is terrific. According to the Lambiek Comiclopedia, Janjetov first worked with Jodorowsky and Jean “Moebius” Giraud as a colorist on some issues of the original Incal series, and he had the express blessing of Moebius to continue the work with Jodo. In Before the Incal, he mostly emulates Moebius’s style from the earlier material, but he occasionally experiments (quite successfully) with integrating the more highly-rendered style that he would later use in other Incal-related books (Metabarons and Technopriests). [via]

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