Now, we get down to some literary espionage, in the tradition of Graham Greene (who worked as a spy, for MI6, while traveling as a writer and journalist). This entry comes from Italy, but features a French spy, and a Jewish one, at that. The creator is Vittorio Giardino and his spy is Max Fridman.
Vittorio Giardino was born in Bologna and trained and worked as an electrical engineer. When he turned 30, he decided to give up his career and try his hand at creating comics and never looked back. His first story, "Pax Romana," was published in the magazine La Citta Futura, a publication of the Italian Communist Youth Foundation. Communism factors into many of his stories, though not as advocacy, but as historical drama. His first major recurring work was the private investigator Sam Pezzo, which reveled in the hard boiled detective genre, particular the work of Dashiell Hammett. Giardino is a widely-read man and literary influences permeate his work. Thus, it wasn't a great leap for him to enter the world of Graham Green and John Le Carre, the dark and squalid world of real espionage, rather than the flights of fantasy of Fleming and his ilk. The series begins with Hungarian Rhapsody.
The story begins in Budapest, at a cafe, where we see a seemingly average man murdered.....
Another man is run down in the street. A woman on a streetcar seems to know the dead man and is afraid. She gets to a public phone and makes contact with someone. He tries to calm her down. Later, she is in her own apartment, in the bath, when there is a knock at the door. She recognizes the two men outside as being behind the wheel of the car that ran down her friend. She jumps out of her upper floor window, wearing nothing but a bathrobe, to an awning below and escapes.
We cut to Paris, where we see her contact, a man called Bonnefoi, arrive at a building, with a brass plaque identifying it as a coffee merchant. However, this turns out to be a front, as it is actually the headquarters of the Deuxieme Bureau...French Intelligence. he reports to his superiors about the Rhapsody group, which has systematically been killed off, except for the woman, Etel Mogel. Bonnefoi suspects it is the work of the Abwehr, German Intelligence, rather than Stalin's NKVD. The head of the Bureau discusses it with his number two, then departs for Geneva. It is there we meet Max Fridman, a tobacco merchant, who reacts strangely when his secretary tells him that a representative of a coffee firm, from Paris, wishes to see him. He leaves the office and rushes to his home, where his daughter Ester greets him. He then learns of a visitor and meets him and it is clear that they are old friends. They excuse themselves from Ester and go for a walk. Fridman was an agent of the Bureau, who also served with the International Brigade, in the Spanish Civil War (still ongoing, at this point). He left the bureau and retired to Switzerland. His boss needs him back to discover who killed the members of the Rhapsody group and why. The boss pressures him into doing it and he then departs for Hungary, via train, which must pass through Austria, on the route to Budapest, in Hungary.
In Austria, he sees examples of the influence of the National Socialist German Worker's Parrty, which currently governs Germany, as there are signs at a cafe, banning Jews. Max sees a man ejected by the SA, who are not aware that he too is Jewish, as he seems to just be a Frenchman. He makes the acquaintance of a middle-aged woman, also traveling to Budapest, who is unnerved by the incident with the Nazis. She asks him to help watch over her safety and he escorts her to the train and they share a compartment. Bonnefoi is also on the train and is noted by Max, as he is to be his contact. The woman knits to pass the time and Max gets some sleep, for the long journey. He awakens as the train stops and the authorities enter the compartment, asking for his identification papers. He learns that there has been a murder on the train. It is Bonnefoi, who was stabbed in the neck, by a knitting needle. The woman is gone.
Max takes a taxi to his hotel and notices they are being followed. He gets out early and tries to go on foot, the rest of the way; but, the cab driver cuts him off, then mugs him and steals all his money. He awakens to find it gone and gains the assistance of a German, Baron Manfred von Kluberg. The dashing baron has been out taking in the night life and carries a bottle of champaign. He gives Max a glass and offers to take him to his hotel. He drops him off and Max checks in at the desk, where he is known by the concierge. Upon hearing his name, another man comes up to him and shows him identification and asks him to come with him. he is taken to a house, where he meets Captain Napoleon Rigoni, the station chief for the DB. He also meets the beautiful Cleo, who works with Rigoni.. He also discovers that Etel is hiding there, looking for Bonnefoi. Max informs her tha he is dead. Rigoni passes on a secret cable, from france and they provide shelter for Etel, for the night. Max returns to his hotel to decode his message. It alerts him to check into an Abwehr operation, codenamed "Hase".
Meanwhile, our killers climb the wall outside the house and shoot the guard dogs, with a silenced Luger. They sneak up to the house, but Etel spots them and raises an alarm, and the flee. Cleo, who is Rigoni's mistress, comes to her aid, but sees no one. Rigoni calls Fridman to meet him, at a location in the city. Max grabs a taxi and notices he is being followed and uses a delay, caused by a funeral procession, to switch fromt he cab to a streetcar, to lose his tail. He makes it to the meeting place, outside a cathedral, where Rigoni alerts him that Etel has disappeared, again. He tells him of the kilelrs. Max departs, but then finds himself meeting up with Etel, at a cafe. She follwoed Rigoni, in hopes of reconnecting with Max, as he is the only one she trusts. As they leave the cafe, someone takes a shot at them....
They run into an antique shop, where they encounter von Kluberg. He offers to take them back into the city, in his car. Max notices a tail and asks about the speed of Manfred's Alfa Romeo. he gives a demonstration, as they race away for the pursuers. He drops them off and then Max finds an apartment for Etel to wait for him. He pumps Etel for information and she only knows of the name Zadig. He goes off to find and old friend, to get information. Meanwhile, his pursuers report to their boss, Schmink, the local Abwehr chief. At the same time, an agent of the Comintern speaks with a man, named Roth, about Zadig. He is looking for information about Zadig, related to the fight in Spain, as the Comintern has supported the Republicans, in their fight against the Nationalists,led by General Francisco Franco, who is supported by Germany.
Max goes to the Opera House to find his friend, Simon Roth, a violinist; but is told he hasn't worked there in two years. he is directed to where to find him. meanwhile, a man at the box office alerts Schmink about Max's enquiries. Max finds Roth working as a violinist, in an upscale restaurant and they get reacquainted. The restaurant owner tells Max to leave his violinist alone to work and uses anti-semitic language. Roth shoves him across a table and leaves with Max. They go to a nearby park to talk, as an man feeds bread crumbs to ducks. Max asks about where to find Zadig, then they notice the man has walked on and left his bag behind. Simon calls after him and waves the bag and the man runs away. Max grabs it and thrusts it into the lake, where it explodes, underwater. They pursue and the man fires shots at them and escapes in a car. Roth goes to arrange a meeting with Zadig, while Max pursues another avenue and Max goes to a different meeting, as he is directed to a place called the Green Moon, which turns out to be a brothel. he asks for Olympia and is eventually brought to a room, where Cleo awaits him. Cleo is a DB agent and the brothel is a front, which is regularly visited by Schmink, who is there now. Cleo spies on him as a prostitute pleasures him, while he uses a riding crop on her. She passes on things for Etel and more information.
Simon goes to meet Zadig, but he flees, while Abwehr agents observe. Max and Etel get dressed for a night out, but are intercepted by a priest and a cossak, who turn out to be friends of Manfred. they take him to his party, where Cleo is enjoying the night and Roth is playing violin. Max watches warily for the Abwehr. he is pulled on stage to aid a magician in a pistol trick, which results in a singer being shot by an Abwehr agent, by mistake. Max and Etel escape, on a motorcycle and the Abwehr agents try to follow, but lose control of their car, going around a sharp corner and end up crashing offf a bridge, into the river below. Max discovers someone slipped him a note that says "The Bear," and Szentendre, which is a location.
The enxt day, max and Etel take a boat up the Danube, to Szevendre, where they eventually find a dancing bear, performing to music, in the street, played by a gypsy girl. She leaves with the bear and they follow her to her wagon, where they are introduced to Zadig. He is a freelance agent, who uses the gypsy wagon to move across borders. he has information about German plans and sells it to Max, for 20,000 Swiss Francs. He provides a map and the name of a ship, as the Russians are bringing a consignment of arms to Spain, to supply the International Brigade. The NKVD are out to protect the shipment, while the Abwehtr want to stop it. The Rhapsody group stumbled into all of this.
The Abwehr try to kill Max, while he is taking a bath....
...but, he escapes out the window and along the ledge. the killer follows, but places his hand on crumbling brickwork and plummets to his death. Max alerts Paris about the plans. Max outfits himself with new clothes and a car, to travel overland. He goes back to the Green Moon, to see Olympia, to get travel documents; but, finds the police there and Cleo's madame has been killed. Max leaves and is grabbed from an alley and it is von Kluberg. He was looking for Cleo. He tells Max that Roth was arrested and admits to being in love with Cleo. he passes Max the travel documents.
Schmink meets a visitor from Germany and von Kluberg attacks him, believing he killed or tried to kill Cleo. the visitor pistol whips him.
Max and Etel drive across Hungary, to Turkey, headed for Constantinople (now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople), stopping for the night in Romania. They make love and depart in the morning. They arrive in Constantinople, but the ship isn't there. They go to a hotel for the night and a thief tries to steal there car, but is blown up, as it has been boobytrapped, by the Abwehr. They slipped out across the Aegean, in a sailing schooner, under a Greek captain. They come to a port and await the arrival of the Glaros, the ship carrying the arms. It eventually arrives and Max tries to bribe the captain to turn the cargo over to him, but he wants too much. Max sneaks aboard, with the help of the Greek captain, and takes over the ship. The Germans turn up and there is a gun battle....
Max has control and learns there is a woman aboard and that it is Cleo. However, she has rigged the ship to explode and tells Max to get off. He escapes in the nick of time.
Max returns to Paris and reports to his boss. Cleo was actually Ingrid, an Abwehr double-agent, which is how they knew who all the member of the Rhapsody group were and everything that Max was doing. In the end, we learn that much of this was a distraction, as the radio carries reports of the Anschluss, as the Germans enter Austria, without firing a shot, and it joins with Nazi Germany.
It's dense, it's intriguing and it is gorgeous. Giardino is a proponent of the "ligne claire," as the French call it...the "clear line." This is the premiere style of the Franco-Belgian greats, like Herge, Jije, Edgar P Jacobs and many others. The aesthetic is to strip the art down to the essential lines, an approach similar tot he work of Alex Toth, whose years and comics and animation found him looking to the line art that best conveys the story, without excess. it is entirely geared towards telling the storym, rather than calling attention to the art, as image. Giardino is a master of it, in his own way.
He captures the mood of things like The Third Man, with its Viennese intrigues and his writing reminds one of Le Carre and George Smiley. like Smiley, Max Fridman is an unassuming, unremarkable figure of a man, who is highly intelligent and very capable, underneath the facde. He is a man who can go anywhere, without attracting attention.
The series travels through the turbulent 1930s, as a Depression rages across the world, while Spain is torn by a civil war that pits Communist against Fascist, in a prelude to the coming world war. Hitler was making his moves to regain territory lost int he Treaty of Versailles, while then planning on grabbing the whole of Europe, to build a German empire that would span beyond the boundaries of the past. They reoccupied the Rhineland, moved into Alsace-Lorraine, orchestrated the Anschluss, with Austria, then demanded that Czechoslovakia cede the Sudetenland to them or face war. the League of Nations, wanting to avoid war, appeased Hitler on these points, setting the stage for larger territorial grabs. Then, in 1939, they concocted a premise to invade Poland and Europe became embroiled in the second world war, while China and Japan continued their earlier battle.
The Abwehr was German military intelligence, under the command of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. Canaris ran spy operations across Europe and into Turkey and the Middle East; but, he was no lover of Hitler or the Nazis. he saw Hitler's ambitions as containing the seeds for Germany's destruction. After war with the Allies was accomplished, Canaris actually became involved with the conspiracy to depose Hitler and even fed information to the Allied intelligence services. He was eventually arrested and executed by hanging. The Abwehr was abolished, in 1944, at the insistence of Himmler, with the area of responsibility passing on to other organizations, under Himmler's control.
The NKVD were Stalin's intelligence group, originally created in 1917, taking over the duties of the OGPU, which was founded after the birth of the Soviet Union (itself having evolved from the Cheka secret police organization). After WW2, it evolved into the MGB, which later became the KGB.
In 1931, after a series of military dictatorships and puppet monarchs, elections were held to form a Second Spanish Republic, with Leftist parties winning in all of the provincial capitals. Political battles began between Left and Right, including failed coup attempts. The Right gained control of the government in 1933 and reversed many policies of the previous government. Continued battles led to outright civil war, between the Republicans, on the Left; and the Nationalists, on the Right. This became a focus of political ideologies around the world, as volunteers streamed in to fight on both sides. The International brigade was a scoialist formation of volunteer fighters, built upon ideological lines, which proved chaotic, as decisions were made in groups, rather than a traditional military structure. This made the republicans slow to react to actions of the Nationalists. The Republicans were supported by the Soviets and other Communists, via the Comintern, the Communist International, the worldwide Communist Party. The Nationalist got direct support fromt he Fascists of Italy and the Nazis, in Germany. Germany actually used the war to test new weapons and military strategies, with the volunteer Condor Legion being a secret formation of the Luftwaffe, rather than the alleged mercenary force it was purported to be. It participated in the bombing of civilians, at Guernica. The tactics of Blitzkrieg, lightning armored strikes, with close air support, were tested there, before being employed in Poland and France and the Lowlands.
This is the setting for the series, as Fascism grows across central Europe, while the Spain acts as a proxy battleground between extreme ideologies. Max is a veteran of the International Brigade, who became disenchanted by the reality of things and the self-serving nature of the Party. he secretly worked for the Deuxieme Bureau, but is equally disillusioned of their actions and ideologies. He retires to Switzerland to be a merchant and raise his daughter. this volume sees him forced into returning and becoming embroiled in the storm that is brewing.
The next volume, Orient Gateway, finds Max in Istanbul, searching for a Russian aeronautical engineer, who is hunted by both the Abwehr and the NKVD. The story rages across the city, which was a hotbed for spies, all through the war, as Turkey maintained neutrality, but the Germans and Italians moved on the Aegean.
After that, Max finds himself returning to Spain, to locate a missing Friend and also determine who the Fascist spy is, who has infiltrated the Republican headquarters. There, he re-encounters the past and witnesses the failure of the republic.
The series has been translated into several languages and is hugely popular in Europe, as are Giardino's other works, such as the Sam Pezzo volumes and the Jonas Fink trilogy, about a young Czech boy's coming of age, in Communist Prague (the US title was A Jew in Communist Prague). he also created the erotic series Little Ego, which was reprinted in Heavy Metal, an erotic nod to Little Nemo, with a female rotagonist, who has far more adult dreams. Giardino also wrote several short stories, known as the Fatal vacations, or Deadly Dalliances, a series of stories with characters in short romances and one-night stands, in exotic foreign locales, which end in some kind of murder or death.
Catalan Communications translated both Hungarian Rhapsody and Orient Gateway, as well as one volume of Sam Pezzo. However, they were out of business by the early 90s. Their volumes used to go for quite low prices, before the internet drove up such things. Given the scarcity in English, those books can now go for much higher prices. NBM published Little Ego, A Jew in Communist Prague, and No Pasaran!, the third Max Fridman volume, in three installments. Low distribution on the third volumes of Jonas Fink and No Pasaran made them extremely pricey on the secondary market. the translations were a bit iffy on those. I have digital copies in Spanish, which I can read more easily than Italian or French, though you can follow the basic plot without the dialogue and get absorbed into the art. The series cries out for a new English translation, but no one has undertaken it, as yet. Jonas Fink gained widespread scholarly attention and among libraries; but that hasn't resulted in reprinted copies. Sadly, the American market hasn't proven very reliable for European works (or South American) beyond the stalwarts, like Tintin and Asterix 9and even they have struggled). Cinebook and EuropeComics have altered that somewhat and dark Horse and fantagraphics have dabbled in it, but not extensively and only for short periods. Maybe someday.
Next, we will stay in Europe, as we look at the more recent vintage spy series Lady S.