Cinebook Ltd: Amazonia 1 - Episode 1 and 2

 

Authors: LEO & Rodolphe; illustrated by Bertrand Marchal
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 18.4 x 25.7 cm
Number of pages: 48 colour pages
Publication: April 2024

£7.99 inc VAT

 ISBN: 9781800441316
 

Brazil, 1949. A photographer crawls into a mission deep in the Amazonian rainforest and dies. On one of his films is an extraordinary shot: a man with skin white as snow and an elongated cranium. Deformed human … or extra-terrestrial being? Kathy Austin, having reluctantly become the specialist in such situations, is immediately sent by the crown to investigate. But the British aren’t the only ones with an interest in the bizarre creature …

Authors: LEO & Rodolphe; illustrated by Bertrand Marchal
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 18.4 x 25.7 cm
Number of pages: 48 colour pages
Publication: August 2024
 £7.99 incl VAT

ISBN: 9781800441408

On the trail of the bizarre, potentially alien creature photographed in Brazil, Kathy Austin has reached the isolated mission where the photographer died. Unfortunately, the road forward leads into the heart of the rainforest and the territory of extremely hostile natives. Continuing will be difficult and dangerous, especially as she appears to be followed by a number of people including two suspicious Germans … and the Brazilian Navy! 

It may seem that I am late on these reviews but the books were listed and sold out on some sites by the time my review copies arrived. So, I am still reviewing as received.

The art in these two volumes is excellent and exactly what one comes to expect in these series and Marchal does an excellent job and Sebastien Bouet on colours just adds even more.  Leo and Rodolphe are as good as ever on script, dialogue and overall story telling.  The tall guy with the big head...Alien or something else?  We are kept guessing.

I do have a problem with this type of series, though.  Volumes 1 and 2 arrived together so the story draws you in but...how long before volume 3?  We know there are 5 volumes in this story but the important thing is delays between books as that can kill the buzz you get and in the past long delays have meant that my aged brain has to be back and read previous volumes to remember why someone wants to kill someone else.

And as I have mentioned volumes did you know Kathy Austin, the heroine of this series, and a British secret agent, has tackled the weird before?  Oh yes; in the 5 volume Kenya and 5 volume Namibia series.

It's good old fashioned adventure combined with spies and science fiction -the type of story that the late John Creasey used to write in his Z5 Dr Palfrey series from the 1940s on (he also created The Baron, Gideon of the Yard (developed into TV series) and many others). I would recommend Kenya and Namibia and as Amazonia are the continuing adventures of Austin...yeah, buy them and see how good comics are made.