Crenshaw's Books & Decks

Miss Don't Touch Me is a four-part   full-colour noire graphic novel first published in France by Hubert and Kerascoet. The novel, is made of four chapters, the first two (The Virgin of the Bordello & Blood in the Hands) narrate a murder story, and the last two (Prince Charming & Until Death Do us Part) are a follow-up and development of the main character.

 Miss Don't Touch Me is set in Paris in the 1930s. The city is in turmoil because the wrongdoings of a serial killer called The Butcher of the Dances, who has a liking for young liberal women. Blanche, a prudish maid, lives with her sister Agatha in an old abandoned penthouse; Blanche witnesses a murder through a peep-hole in the wall and tells her sister that it is  the Butcher's work. Agatha is killed and Blanche tries to convince everybody that The Butcher was the murderer; however, her sister's death is considered a suicide and the investigation closed. Blanche loses her job. With no home to go, she does the unthinkable, she joins The Pompadour, a posh and reputed brothel, where the last victim worked, to try to investigate who the last girl was and to unveil the Butcher's identity. The second part of the story is devoted to Blanche's personal and work life, still working at The Pompadour, and her relationship with the charming, wealthy but elusive  Antoine.
Miss Don't Touch Me is, in a way, a very musical piece but with the music in mute. I see a clear relationship between  the story, settings,  tone and type of story and two theatrical musical genres that were very popular in the 1930s, the vaudeville  and the operetta or comic opera, especially Offenbach's works. Thus, the novel has a mix of burlesque, comic stage piece, social satire with a common link, in this case the character of Blanche. This could have been a terror novel and Blanche a depressed overly dramatic character, but the story is told in a light-hearted way, sprinkled with light humour, grotesque and erotic elements, still keeping a strong social satire.  

One of the downsides might be the different tone, mood and tempo in the two different parts of the novel,  as we go from the mystery and the murder to the exploration of Blanche's character. Personally, I liked both parts and I thought they made sense together and one comes to understand who Blanche really is and what she really wants in life. To be perfectly honest, this second story could have been presented at the beginning of the book with some modifications and the murder story presented afterwards and the story would have still made sense. 

The main downside to me is the ending. Truth be told, it has artistic and narrative integrity. Although I found it a bit vague and abrupt, and totally unfair, it makes sense taking into account the nature of the main characters and the era where they lived.   

Hubert and Kerascoët make a great artistic combo., They understand each other and create amazing colourful elaborated pieces of art that are very thought-provoking, stories pregnant with meaning, but presented in fun light-hearted entertaining way. 

Hubert, is a master at creating characters. They are complex, utterly charming and interesting, but also deceiving and full of flaws;  they  surprise the reader every time. In that regard, all the characters in Miss Don't Touch Me aren't what they seem to be at first sight, not even Blanche. Moreover, there is a clear digging into the individuality of each character, and the secondary characters are not presented as story-fillers or accessories, they are fully-constructed individuals who have a purpose in the narration. 
Hubert is also the colourist of the book. He has a great knowledge of lighting and how colour work and use them with naturalistic but cinematic precision. His trademark is flamboyant intense vibrant colouring and toned up pastels. So the novel doesn't have a specific or overall dominating hue, but the requirements of the narration dictate the colour. He does similarly in his graphic novel Beauty. 

The lettering by Ortho (an American lettering studio that also did the lettering for Beauty) is classic. This is a graphic novel that is as verbal as it is graphic, so there is quite a of text, but it is cosily located in rectangular balloons and economic captions lines. The lettering is appropriate and not invasive, but not specially expressive either, except for some of the balloons turned into spiky ones when the characters are shouting. And there are very few kapows as the drawing is particularly expressive.

Overall, Miss Don't Touch Me is a great entertaining and satiric novel that goes beyond the murder mystery and digs into social conventions and double morals  in  society and shows how the hunger for life plays a role in the survival of people who have had  to endure much in life but never present themselves as victims.

 

WARNING
The novel has explicit sex scenes, nudity and graphic violence. Not for children! Although by looking at the book's cover you might have guessed so :).

NOTES
> First published in French between 2007-2009.

> First published in English in 2008 and all the volumes collected in 2014.