NO PASARAN, Volume 2
Vittorio Giardino
The leftist forces are retreating north as Franco's army advances with the help of German and Italian aviation. Max Friedman approaches the front, posing as a photographer in a small group of foreign journalists. He flashes back to battles fought with his old comrade Guido Treves, who has gone missing and is the object of his mission. Amidst the ruin of war, Claire, the pretty Belgian reporter who got Max his press credentials, is developing a strong attraction to him, arousing the jealousy of her fellow reporter and would-be-boyfriend, Phil Lester. Caught in the middle of a retreat, Max and Claire get separated from the rest of their group. They have to cross a mountain pass and take shelter in a hut -- the romantic tension builds, but gets snuffed by the urgent need to press onward.
"Refreshing. A continued recommendation." Andrew Smith-Scripps Howard Papers
"Giardino's full-color art is very realistic, detailed, and accomplished." Library Journal
81/2x11, 48pp., full color trade pb.: $11.95, ISBN 1-56163-313-5
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Max Friedman: NO PASARAN
Vittorio Giardino
Taking a break from “A Jew in Communist Prague”, Giardino returns to his Max Friedman series of spy graphic novels (Orient Gateway, Hungarian Rhapsody) with a suspenseful tale set in the Spanish Civil War. Max is begged to come back to the waning theater of confrontation between the leftists and Franco’s fascists to find a volunteer freedom fighter who has disappeared. Many famous people were involved in or eyewitnesses to the doomed struggle against Franco, including Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. In this cosmopolitan mix looking for the ‘cause du jour’, Friedman tries vainly to stay neutral in his search but is quickly thrown into a maelstrom of intrigue.
"Giardino treats this with historical subtlety of someone who's clearly read his Orwell, Dos Passos, and Koestler. This compelling narrative artfully plays with a question: Who's spying for whom?
Kirkus Reviews
"Master of comics still in top form!"
Bill Radford, Knight Ridder Newspapers
"A tour de force of line art, we are seduced into another cryptic plot full of understated menace."
RC Harvey, Comics Buyer's Guide
81/2x11, 64 pages, full color trade pb., $13.95, ISBN 1-56163-261-9
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