Casanova (comic series)
Encyclopedia
Casanova is an American creator-owned comic book
series
by writer Matt Fraction
and artists Gabriel Bá
and Fábio Moon
. It is published by Image Comics
and premiered in June 2006
in the Slimline format of 16 pages of story per issue, sold at the reduced price of $1.99.
The series centers upon renowned thief Casanova Quinn, who gets "blackmailed into being a pawn and double agent
in a global game of super-espionage
". It borrows heavily from Michael Moorcock
's Jerry Cornelius
stories with a cascade of alternate universes and polymorphic sexuality.
A collection of the first seven issues is titled Casanova Volume 1: Luxuria. Fraction has stated that he hopes for seven collections, each subtitled with the Latin word for one of the seven deadly sins
, in the following order: Luxuria, Gula, Avaritia, Acedia, Ira, Invidia and Superbia.
The funeral is actually a turning point for Casanova's life as a mystery device is planted on him without his knowledge, a device which thrusts him bodily into the inner sanctum of Newman Xeno—a bandaged super-genius hedonist running an evil organization called W.A.S.T.E. (a reference to Thomas Pynchon
's The Crying of Lot 49
). This Xeno, however, reveals that Casanova's actually been transplanted into a parallel timeline - moving from Timeline 909 to Timeline 919 - where Casanova was the dead E.M.P.I.R.E. agent and the very much alive Zephyr is the bad girl thief working for W.A.S.T.E. The morally ambivalent Casanova is drawn into a deceitful game where he appears as his own dead counterpart to work both sides of the W.A.S.T.E./E.M.P.I.R.E. coin.
Casanova is forced to undertake various missions and counter-missions, such as removing a former E.M.P.I.R.E. Agent who is the ruler of a sex island, or killing David X, a magician whose stunts could lead to his being seen as a messiah. At the end of the volume, Cass manages to break free of Newman Xeno's control and with his newly acquired team, decides to begin to genuinely work for E.M.P.I.R.E., operating out of a giant Japan
ese World War II
era robot.
Sasa Lisi is from the future, and an agent of M.O.T.T. who claims not only to be a lover of Casanova's from the future, but also that finding him is essential to the survival of the 'Multiquintessence'.
Elsewhere, Zephyr has returned, and is working with Kubark Benday, son of the head of X.S.M. and 'potential future love interest'. She and Kubark are hired by her former lover, Newman Xeno, who offers her ten billion dollars to return to him, she refuses, but agrees to do the contract job, hits on all the people who know about H-Element, including Cornelius Quinn.
After successfully killing all three people who know about the H-Element, it is revealed that Zephyr was really working undercover for E.M.P.I.R.E. and everyone she and Kubark killed were robots, including Cornelius. Kaito mourns the death of Ruby, who he does not elect to revive.
Cornelius and the gang race toward X.S.M.'s island, where Xeno and the Bendays are about to launch Lisi's shuttle which, along with the H-Element, will grant Xeno's past self the Fakebook. The closer the gun gets to launching, the more body parts Lisi seems to grow, existing in multiple, conflicting timestreams. Zephyr, too, begins to display some of Lisi's side effects, until she is shot by a mourning Kaito. It is then revealed that Zephyr was really Casanova, working to try and atone for his sins by undoing everything. Cornelius, angry at his son's death, elects to fire the gun and preserve history.
In the final pages, Casanova is returned to male form, Kubark rails at his betrayal, and David X sneaks in and escapes with Xeno and Kubark. Casanova, now shunned by his father, agrees to work for E.M.P.I.R.E., though Cornelius will not recognize him as his son.
The final issue of the album is interspersed with song titles above the pages that inspired Matt Fraction. Together they form a playlist:
1. Paper Planes - M.I.A.
2. Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn and John
3. You Only Live Once - The Strokes
4. The Beat That My Heart Skipped - Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip
5. Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie
6. 7 Stars - Apples in Stereo
7. Woke Up New - The Mountain Goats
8. Evil Will Prevail - The Flaming Lips
9. Six Days - DJ Shadow
10. River Deep, Mountain High - Ike and Tina Turner
11. To Catch a Thief - Lovage
12. She Will Only Bring You Happiness - McLusky
13. Taxman - The Beatles
14. Execution Day - The New Pornographers
In August 2009, Fraction appeared on the "War Rocket Ajax" podcast and went into detail regarding the return of Casanova. He said that issues #1-14 will be reprinted in color, possibly combining two original issues of the Image Comics-released 16 page "Slimline" format into one, resulting in seven full-color reprinted issues. Fraction compared the new full-color format to be similar to the color scheme of Steven Soderbergh's film "Traffic" where each of the film's storylines were filmed in a separate hue of gold, green, and blue. Fraction said that while the book will have a wider full-color palette, it will retain the use of green and blue as the dominant color similar to the original Image series.
The reasoning behind this is that while Casanova was originally produced with single spot colors of green and blue, the creators were paying for the more expensive full-color printing to achieve the effect. Also, Fraction said that comic book stores regarded the book as a black and white book (generally thought of as unpopular to mainstream comic book readers) and placed very low orders. Fraction said that he and co-creators Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba are enjoying wider success due to Fraction's work for Marvel Comics (Invincible Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men) and Moon and Ba's work on Dark Horse Comics' "Umbrella Academy" and DC/Vertigo Comics' "Daytripper". Combining their higher profiles with a full-color/longer format, the hope is that the book will have a broader appeal and wider support from both fans and retailers.
After the re-release of the colored #1-14, Volume Three will begin. Fraction said they hope to have most, if not all, of Volume Three completed by the time it begins publication.
Fraction also said that the trade paperback of Volume One: Luxuria will go back to print and a trade paperback collection of Volume Two: Gula will be released to support the revamped book.
In January 2010, Comic Book Resources
' blog, Robot 6, made an announcement regarding Fraction, Ba, and Moon working on the long-awaited third volume of the series.
In February 2010, the online version of Comic-Con Magazine featured a conversation between Matt Fraction and Brian Michael Bendis. It was revealed that the new "Casanova" would be debuting at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con. It will be moving from Image Comics to Marvel Comics' creator-owned Icon imprint, home of Bendis' own "Powers" series which was also originally published by Image Comics.
Three years, four months, three weeks, and one day after the last issue of Volume Two, this whole "future" section became the past as Casanova Volume Three: Avaritia issue #1 hit the shelves on 7 September, 2011. Marvel Comics are publishing it under the Icon imprint.
:
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
series
Ongoing series
The term "ongoing series" is used in contrast to limited series , a one shot , a graphic novel, or a trade paperback...
by writer Matt Fraction
Matt Fraction
Matt Fritchman, better known by the pen name Matt Fraction, is an Eisner Award-winning American comic book writer, known for his work as the writer of The Invincible Iron Man, The Immortal Iron Fist and Uncanny X-Men for Marvel Comics and Casanova for Image Comics.-Career:Fraction wrote two...
and artists Gabriel Bá
Gabriel Bá
Gabriel Bá is a Brazilian comic book artist best known for his work on The Umbrella Academy and Casanova...
and Fábio Moon
Fábio Moon
Fábio Moon is a Brazilian comic book artist best known for his work on Casanova. He is the twin brother of fellow comic book artist Gabriel Bá.-Career:...
. It is published by Image Comics
Image Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...
and premiered in June 2006
2006 in comics
-January:*January 1, 2006: Newsweek offer a look back at 2005 through editorial cartoons. *January 2, 2006: The Cincinnati Enquirer cartoonist Jim Borgman starts a blog to detail his creative process...
in the Slimline format of 16 pages of story per issue, sold at the reduced price of $1.99.
The series centers upon renowned thief Casanova Quinn, who gets "blackmailed into being a pawn and double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
in a global game of super-espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
". It borrows heavily from Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
's Jerry Cornelius
Jerry Cornelius
Jerry Cornelius is a fictional secret agent and adventurer created by science fiction / fantasy author Michael Moorcock. Cornelius is a hipster of ambiguous and occasionally polymorphous sexuality. Many of the same characters feature in each of several Cornelius books, though the individual books...
stories with a cascade of alternate universes and polymorphic sexuality.
Publication history
The first issue was cover dated June 2006 and published in the Slimline format of 16 pages of story per issue, sold at the reduced price of $1.99.A collection of the first seven issues is titled Casanova Volume 1: Luxuria. Fraction has stated that he hopes for seven collections, each subtitled with the Latin word for one of the seven deadly sins
Seven deadly sins
The 7 Deadly Sins, also known as the Capital Vices or Cardinal Sins, is a classification of objectionable vices that have been used since early Christian times to educate and instruct followers concerning fallen humanity's tendency to sin...
, in the following order: Luxuria, Gula, Avaritia, Acedia, Ira, Invidia and Superbia.
Album 1: Luxuria #1-7
At the beginning of the first issue, Casanova "Cass" Quinn works as a freelance thief and espionage artist who has turned his back on the rest of the Quinn family. His father, Cornelius, runs the world-spanning spy organization E.M.P.I.R.E. of which Casanova's twin sister Zephyr is a top agent, while his mother Anna has been hidden away in a vegetative state for unknown reasons. Casanova is the black sheep in the family and only makes contact with his father when his sister is killed during a mission - they meet again and fight at her funeral.The funeral is actually a turning point for Casanova's life as a mystery device is planted on him without his knowledge, a device which thrusts him bodily into the inner sanctum of Newman Xeno—a bandaged super-genius hedonist running an evil organization called W.A.S.T.E. (a reference to Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
's The Crying of Lot 49
The Crying of Lot 49
The Crying of Lot 49 is a novel by Thomas Pynchon, first published in 1966. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, it is about a woman, Oedipa Maas, possibly unearthing the centuries-old conflict between two mail distribution companies, Thurn und Taxis and the Trystero...
). This Xeno, however, reveals that Casanova's actually been transplanted into a parallel timeline - moving from Timeline 909 to Timeline 919 - where Casanova was the dead E.M.P.I.R.E. agent and the very much alive Zephyr is the bad girl thief working for W.A.S.T.E. The morally ambivalent Casanova is drawn into a deceitful game where he appears as his own dead counterpart to work both sides of the W.A.S.T.E./E.M.P.I.R.E. coin.
Casanova is forced to undertake various missions and counter-missions, such as removing a former E.M.P.I.R.E. Agent who is the ruler of a sex island, or killing David X, a magician whose stunts could lead to his being seen as a messiah. At the end of the volume, Cass manages to break free of Newman Xeno's control and with his newly acquired team, decides to begin to genuinely work for E.M.P.I.R.E., operating out of a giant Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
era robot.
Album 2: Gula #8-14
Also subtitled as 'When Is Casanova Quinn?'. Casanova's team have a new mission, to stop a revolutionary new aircraft powered by the mysterious 'H-Element'. The book then skips forward 2 years, with a masked E.M.P.I.R.E. agent fighting the plane, now a reality. The plane is piloted by a blue-skinned multi-armed woman called Sasa Lisi, who asks the agent, Kaito (Casanova's 'Intern') 'When is Casanova Quinn?'Sasa Lisi is from the future, and an agent of M.O.T.T. who claims not only to be a lover of Casanova's from the future, but also that finding him is essential to the survival of the 'Multiquintessence'.
Elsewhere, Zephyr has returned, and is working with Kubark Benday, son of the head of X.S.M. and 'potential future love interest'. She and Kubark are hired by her former lover, Newman Xeno, who offers her ten billion dollars to return to him, she refuses, but agrees to do the contract job, hits on all the people who know about H-Element, including Cornelius Quinn.
After successfully killing all three people who know about the H-Element, it is revealed that Zephyr was really working undercover for E.M.P.I.R.E. and everyone she and Kubark killed were robots, including Cornelius. Kaito mourns the death of Ruby, who he does not elect to revive.
Cornelius and the gang race toward X.S.M.'s island, where Xeno and the Bendays are about to launch Lisi's shuttle which, along with the H-Element, will grant Xeno's past self the Fakebook. The closer the gun gets to launching, the more body parts Lisi seems to grow, existing in multiple, conflicting timestreams. Zephyr, too, begins to display some of Lisi's side effects, until she is shot by a mourning Kaito. It is then revealed that Zephyr was really Casanova, working to try and atone for his sins by undoing everything. Cornelius, angry at his son's death, elects to fire the gun and preserve history.
In the final pages, Casanova is returned to male form, Kubark rails at his betrayal, and David X sneaks in and escapes with Xeno and Kubark. Casanova, now shunned by his father, agrees to work for E.M.P.I.R.E., though Cornelius will not recognize him as his son.
The final issue of the album is interspersed with song titles above the pages that inspired Matt Fraction. Together they form a playlist:
1. Paper Planes - M.I.A.
2. Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn and John
3. You Only Live Once - The Strokes
4. The Beat That My Heart Skipped - Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip
5. Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie
6. 7 Stars - Apples in Stereo
7. Woke Up New - The Mountain Goats
8. Evil Will Prevail - The Flaming Lips
9. Six Days - DJ Shadow
10. River Deep, Mountain High - Ike and Tina Turner
11. To Catch a Thief - Lovage
12. She Will Only Bring You Happiness - McLusky
13. Taxman - The Beatles
14. Execution Day - The New Pornographers
Future
In April 2009, Ba confirmed on his blog that Casanova will continue in the future, writing "I can speak for Matt, Fábio and myself when I say we are doing all we can to bring Casanova back the best way it deserves to come back. And I can tell you this: It WILL come back."In August 2009, Fraction appeared on the "War Rocket Ajax" podcast and went into detail regarding the return of Casanova. He said that issues #1-14 will be reprinted in color, possibly combining two original issues of the Image Comics-released 16 page "Slimline" format into one, resulting in seven full-color reprinted issues. Fraction compared the new full-color format to be similar to the color scheme of Steven Soderbergh's film "Traffic" where each of the film's storylines were filmed in a separate hue of gold, green, and blue. Fraction said that while the book will have a wider full-color palette, it will retain the use of green and blue as the dominant color similar to the original Image series.
The reasoning behind this is that while Casanova was originally produced with single spot colors of green and blue, the creators were paying for the more expensive full-color printing to achieve the effect. Also, Fraction said that comic book stores regarded the book as a black and white book (generally thought of as unpopular to mainstream comic book readers) and placed very low orders. Fraction said that he and co-creators Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba are enjoying wider success due to Fraction's work for Marvel Comics (Invincible Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men) and Moon and Ba's work on Dark Horse Comics' "Umbrella Academy" and DC/Vertigo Comics' "Daytripper". Combining their higher profiles with a full-color/longer format, the hope is that the book will have a broader appeal and wider support from both fans and retailers.
After the re-release of the colored #1-14, Volume Three will begin. Fraction said they hope to have most, if not all, of Volume Three completed by the time it begins publication.
Fraction also said that the trade paperback of Volume One: Luxuria will go back to print and a trade paperback collection of Volume Two: Gula will be released to support the revamped book.
In January 2010, Comic Book Resources
Comic Book Resources
Comic Book Resources, also known as CBR is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book-related news and discussion.-History:Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1996 as a development of the Kingdom Come Message Board, a message forum that Weiland had created to discuss DC...
' blog, Robot 6, made an announcement regarding Fraction, Ba, and Moon working on the long-awaited third volume of the series.
In February 2010, the online version of Comic-Con Magazine featured a conversation between Matt Fraction and Brian Michael Bendis. It was revealed that the new "Casanova" would be debuting at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con. It will be moving from Image Comics to Marvel Comics' creator-owned Icon imprint, home of Bendis' own "Powers" series which was also originally published by Image Comics.
Three years, four months, three weeks, and one day after the last issue of Volume Two, this whole "future" section became the past as Casanova Volume Three: Avaritia issue #1 hit the shelves on 7 September, 2011. Marvel Comics are publishing it under the Icon imprint.
Collected editions
The series is being collected into trade paperbacksTrade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
:
- Luxuria (144 pages, hardcover, May 2007, ISBN 1582406893, softcover, January 2008, ISBN 1582406972)
- Gula (144 pages, hardcover, April 2008, ISBN 1582408661)
External links
- Casanova at Fraction's site
- The Full First Issue available online, NewsaramaNewsaramaNewsarama is an American website that publishes news, interviews and essays about the American comic book industry.-History:Newsarama began in Summer 1995 as a series of Internet forum postings on the Prodigy comic-book message boards by fan Mike Doran. In these short messages. Doran shared...
- "Casanova" or "How I Learned to Stay Cool and Love the Multiverse", Comic Book ResourcesComic Book ResourcesComic Book Resources, also known as CBR is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book-related news and discussion.-History:Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1996 as a development of the Kingdom Come Message Board, a message forum that Weiland had created to discuss DC...
, February 14, 2007