Carvalho Tatuaje

AUTHOR: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán/Hernán Migoya/Bartolomé Seguí
PUBLISHER: Norma Editorial
GENRE: Graphic novel 
READER’S NAME: Félix Lizárraga
 

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (1939-2003) was a prolific and versatile Spanish writer who was most famous for his cycle of noir novels featuring private detective Pepe Carvalho. Tatuaje (Tattoo), published in 1975, is the second novel in the 14-book Carvalho saga. This graphic novel is the fruit of a collaboration between other two Spaniards, scriptwriter and novelist Hernán Migoya and Bartolomé (Tomeu) Seguí, artist, illustrator and editor. This reader was thrilled to review a graphic novel, particularly one that was a confluence of so much talent.

Gumshoe Carvalho (drawn by Seguí in the likeness of old-time American movie star Ben Gazzara, who in turn served as Montalbán’s inspiration for the character) is a Galicia-born former communist, former CIA agent, nihilist gourmand who lives in Barcelona, and who uses his 3,500-book library for kindling his fireplace, but who in the best noir tradition also has a personal code of honor. Of course, also in the best noir tradition, he is irresistible to women: he has an on and off relationship with a woman of the night (hard-as-nails Charo, who is yet another stock noir character, the “hooker with a heart of gold”), and before the story is over he has seduced at least another woman or two.

Carvalho is hired by Ramón (the old, cantankerous owner of a beauty salon) to find out the identity of a John Doe who has been discovered floating in a nearby beach, his face eaten by fishes, with a peculiar tattoo on his back: “I have been born to start a revolution in hell” (also translated as “Born to raise hell in hell”). Following the dead man’s trail, Carvalho travels to Amsterdam, where he is beaten and thrown into a canal, has a few semi-friendly interactions with the local police, blackmails a CIA agent and former colleague whom he knows to be secretly gay, comes back to continue sniffing around in Barcelona, and finally finds the key to mystery. In the process (also in classic noir fashion), tough, heterosexual Carvalho becomes almost erotically obsessed with Julio Chema, the mysterious dead man, “tall and blond as beer,” who turns out to have been a gigolo, among other things.

The zippy, snappy dialog; the variety of characters that are well-drawn in more than one sense (if you will pardon the pun); the way the plot seems to meander but progresses toward its conclusion with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy; and, last but not least, the quality of Seguí’s illustrations (where streets, rooms and faces are as moodily lit as a Fritz Lang movie) make Tatuaje a thoroughly enjoyable read. Though there are plenty of flashbacks, Chema’s face is never fully seen –a nice touch, in my opinion.

Less enjoyable for this reader is the fact that, apparently, an inseparable part of Carvalho’s sex appeal is his tendency to beat up women. He slaps and punches them, tortures one by forcing her face next to a burning log, and physically threatens even his lover Charo, the woman about whom he thinks “I will marry her someday, when we are both old.” The women of Tatuaje treat this as par for the course (it’s the 70s, after all) and at least one of them seems to think of male violence as foreplay.

Were it not for this distasteful fact, this reader would have rated Tatuaje even higher. As it is, it marred the pleasure of an otherwise truly nicely done graphic novel and its compelling material.

 

Sign up to our newsletter: