Carthago (Carthago Single Issues #1-5)

Carthago Single Issues #1-5

by Christophe Bec, Eric Henninot (Illustrator), Milan Jovanović (Illustrator)

The megalodon, the prehistoric ancestor of the great white shark was the most ferocious predator of the seas, an 80 foot killing machine extinct for millions of years But when divers drilling in an underwater cave are attacked by this living fossil, oceanographer Kim Melville discovers that this creature may not only have survived, but thrived, and is reclaiming its place at the top of the food chain.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction, Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Comic Book

282 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Christophe Bec is the writer of over fifty graphic novels. His flagship series as a writer, Shrine, has sold several hundred thousand copies worldwide. He is also the author of the comics Prometheus, Carthago, Darkness, Bunker, and Aéropostale.

Reviews

[Sud666 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Carthago is a very strange comic. One would think it has an obvious premise but that is far from the truth.

It starts with a Natural Gas refiner called Carthago. This company has a massive drilling platform in the abyss off of Malaysia. As they are drilling four of their divers go missing. This is the start of a rather convoluted tale. Had the author just focused on the Megalodon I think this might have been a superb comic. Instead it not only has a megalodon, but it also has all sorts of other weird stuff from Yeti's to the Lost City of Atlantis. Not to mention the weird little girl Lou and her incredibly annoying mother who is some type of Marine Biologist. Mostly she screams at people a lot and says stupid things-like telling the eccentric billionaire who just had you kidnapped by his private mercenary force, has you forcibly taken to his remote mountain-top castle in bloody Romania and informs you he has your weirdo daughter as well-well only a complete idiot would say "The minute we are out of your control I will inform the authorities" Yeah? You will? *shakes head* what an absolute idiot.
But this story, in Grant Morrison fashion, is ambitious and all over the place. The author also jumps back and forth between timelines and that makes for confusing reading. All in all it was an interesting read but it could have been so much more. The artwork is good throughout the story. I was hoping for a good shark story-and got this weird thing. There are some great Megalodon scenes in here-but that's just the tip of the iceberg for this odd story. I just think had he focused on the Megalodon this would have been a really good tale.

[Metodi Markov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Добра комикс поредица, свързана със слабо познатата ни наука криптозоология. В нейната сфера се изявяват множество шарлатани и чисти откачалки, но не липсват и сериозни учени, посветили част от живота си в търсене на същества, чието съществуване не е доказано от официалната наука.

Безупречният арт и интересната история правят "Картаго" любопитно четиво, което с удоволствие разгледах и прочетох.

Моята оценка - 3,5*.

В този общ том са включени пет части, завършващи първия цикъл на историята. Към момента са излезли още четири от втория. Има и малко екстри в края му - подготвителни скечове и алтернативни корици. Получих и много симпатичен принт на мегалодон. :)

[Algernon (Darth Anyan) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christophe Bec must have watched the movie ‘Jaws’ at one time and decided he doesn’t care about a bigger boat. What he must have is a bigger shark. So he went and looked up where he can find one.



Apparently, this champion predator can be found only as dental fossils in world museums, but Bec and his fellow cryptozoologists have no problem resurrecting the ‘carcharodon megalodon’, Jurassic Park style, for his ecological thriller / monster hunting series.

The title refers to a mega corporation that operates several ocean rigs in the Pacific Ocean, drilling close to one of those very deep abysmal trenches. When their diver teams cut through into a series on huge, previously unknown caverns, they release a bunch of prehistoric predators into our oceans. Carthago’s board of directors decide to keep the incident a secret, in order to keep drilling and making money and polluting the environment.



The rise in bloody incidents at sea comes to the notice of an eccentric billionaire who hides in an improbable castle in the Romanian mountains [quiet Vatra Dornei, of all places]. Wolfgang Feiersinger feels he must add this splendid specimen of apex predator to his vast collection of oddities and cryptozoology trophies gathered over a lifetime of research and sponsored expeditions.
Nicknamed ‘the centenarian of the Carpathians’ in the series, Mr Feiersinger will serve as the focus of conspiracy theories, lavish financing and technological marvels put in the service of his passion to hunt down the most dangerous animals on the planet, no matter how extinct or fictional they may be. He is confined to a wheelchair after being savaged by a yeti in Tibet, but Feiersinger has no scruples about sending his minions into the danger zone, to die for his obsession.



The team sent down to investigate events in the deep trenches of the Pacific is led by a professional hunter and adventurer named London Donovan and by a reluctant scientist named Kim Melville, whose 10 y.o. daughter Lou has been kidnapped by Feiersinger.
To help them reach down to the depths where the huge sharks roam, the magnate puts at their disposal his most advanced deep sea submarine.

>>><<<>>><<<

This was for me a very entertaining diversion into horror territory, despite the increasing zaniness of a complex plot that throws everything plus the kitchen sink into the mixture: from secret government organizations to corporate malfeasance and to a rise in [un]natural disasters: tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, wild fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. The end of the world is coming, according to some remote aboriginal shamans in Australia, and only the little girl Lou Melville can save us.
Lou’s special talent appears to be an ability to breathe under water and to communicate telepathically with creatures of the sea. Her true origins will probably be revealed later in the series.

Meanwhile, the hunt for the megalodon shark begins in earnest, with historical and world hopping detours around Loch Ness, Djibouti, The Kuril islands, Loch Ness, Tibet, Baikonur and eventually to the ruins of a long lost ancient civilization at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
It’s a bit of a mess, plotwise, but otherwise spectacular. All these apocalyptic events are somehow linked together by episodes of savage attacks by huge sharks on people and boats and submarines and even on helicopters. [with the added thrill of meeting more prehistoric monsters like a kronosaurus or a liopleurodon]. This is probably meant to show Spielberg how to really do a story about sharks.

In the author’s concept, the series is meant as a serious warning about the destruction of our environment, but for me it was mainly an amusement ride at a sort of horrible and deadly theme park, saved by the high production values and by the detailed, realistic artwork.
I may even do a separate review for the second story arc [volumes 6 to 10] and for the spinoff series ‘Carthago Adventures’

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need more. Now.

[Jostein · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really entertaining, marine animals action-flick kinda graphic novel. The kind where the quality of the story takes the back seat so we can get more mystery and more action, you know the one. The story is interesting, just full of the normal clichés to drive it forward.

The art of the humans didn't impress me but that much, but I loved everything else, especially some great underwater vistas. All in all I liked it and I'm gonna check out the rest of them.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't even start on how many things go wrong with this comic, and the furstration grows when you think the basic idea was sooo good.

1. Too many flashbacks in time and space. Every 10 pages we travel in different places and time periods to learn about events seemingly unrealted to one another just to build the bigger setting. The way that was achieved was so damn amateur, especially coming from a experienced writer like Bec. It's really confusing for the reader to actually enjoy the story when the setting changes again and again and again. No character development, no proper exposition.

2. The BD curse of many artists. You can't have any coherence between the issues when the drawing style changes every now and then. Even with the (really top quality) humanoids edition that collects all 5 of the first cirle, it gets really tiring to get used to differently styled faces and environments. Just find an artist that you can work with mr. Bec and stick with him from the start, like professionals do.

3. The only reason I gave this 2 stars instead of 1, was the premise of the story. I'm really fascinated by sharks and I was really hyped when I discovered this title would be translated in English. I'm sorry but it doesn't deliver on that field. Megalodon is indeed portrayed as a majestic and mysterious prehistoric beast, but it's only a plot device for something bigger that unfolds at the last issue.

[Katie Whitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is this poorly written? Yes. Is it vaguely (and not so vaguely) sexist? Yes. But I love sharks, yetis and global conspiracies so I was all in despite the glaring problems this book has. The art is great and the story was engaging, although I wish that someone, somewhere could write a kid character that doesn't totally suck, but nothing is perfect!

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carthago collects issues 1-5 of the series written by Christophe Bec with art by Eric Henninot.

While oil drilling in the ocean, a cave is ruptured which reveals the discovery of legendary sea creatures though long extinct - including the Megladon! The gas company hides the discovery and footage to protect it's investment in the region. After mysterious attacks across the world, oceanographer Kim Melville goes on the hunt to discover what is happening in our oceans.

This is a hard book to review. It starts off being the hunt for the Megladon and a mix of adventure and ocean horror. But the book takes a weird turn in to some fantasy and sci-fi that I was thrilled about. The book is also billed as the completed story but ends without coming to a real conclusion. Further research shows this about half the story. Not sure if I though the book was interesting enough to conclude but I hate not finishing series.

[Trike · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off, the art in this is often *spectacular*. I mean, just look at that cover by Eric Henninot. Even when he draws mundane things they look amazing. The second half by Milan Jovanovic is pretty great, too, and only suffers slightly by comparison to Henninot. It’s worth picking up just for the drawing.

Where the book really falls apart is the story. It’s just a mess, and all over the place. Not just in terms of location but also time. It would have been fine if they had stuck with just trying to find megalodon, the prehistoric shark that was a whale-sized great white. But they add in all sorts of plesiosaurs, giant crocodilians, enormous jellyfish, the lost city of Atlantis, mermen, and even a yeti.

It never follows one track long enough for it to make an impact, and Bec never comes to a conclusion about anything. After 260 pages, you’d think one thread or another would get wrapped up, but they never do.

The megalodons are strangely hyperviolent for some reason, constantly taking out boats. Once, in a scene directly from Jaws 2, one of them even eats a helicopter. There’s a really interesting story to be told here, but this ADD type of storytelling is annoying as hell. The focus is scattered because there’s too much going on. It doesn’t help that the characters don’t behave the way real people would. That just underscores the silliness.

I can’t even call it Science Fiction because he even invokes actual magic from a ritual by Australian aboriginals. I’d love to see a better version of this story, except using the same artists.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first, Carthago appears to be in the vein of Jaws or The Meg - there's an enormous prehistoric shark in the ocean, wreaking havoc and eating fools. Great! That storyline is quickly subsumed by an incredibly complex web of eco-politics, undersea exploration, Atlantis myths, and a girl who might be a fish and also like, the savior of the world. It's outrageous and hard to follow, but somehow still quite enjoyable in a heady way. I can't claim any of it made sense to me, but it certainly thrilled in parts. The impeccably detailed illustrations improved by experience 1000%. Love those European artists who strive for realism in the background art. My main disappointment is that it ends on a cliffhanger - I kinda wish the series had come to a conclusion so I could stop pondering what exactly it means.

[Amanda Trumpower · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOVED. IT.

There were a few content things I could have gone without (basically language and the fact that the old guy's nurses went around without shirts....like, why? .....why would....never mind.)

The story is multilayered and there are a LOT of characters. It wasn't until halfway through the book that I felt I had a somewhat respectable grasp of all the players. This is a story that merits a re-read to catch some of the smaller pieces you miss the first time.

I expected the whole thing to be about finding the shark. I was wrong. There are multiple adventure plots happening in various places around the world, several cryptozoological discoveries, political intrigue, family loss, and even a sweet bit of romance, all mixed together.

[The_Mad_Swede · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first comics work written by Christophe Bec that I have read, but it is certainly will not be the last. This collected edition of his and Eric Henninot and Milan Jovanic's series Carthago, sports the first five albums (which constitute the first cycle). The narrative moves between different incidents in history and is something of an ensemble piece, given its multitude of characters, but in the centre of it all is oceanographer Dr. Kim Melville who is drawn into the race of finding a living specimen of the megalodon, a gigantic species of shark believed to be extinct for million of years. But not everything is what it seems, and as the race goes on, mysteries give way to other mysteries still.

This is well told, both in the sense of narrative pacing and the visual storytelling. I for one am looking forward to the second cycle.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully illustrated with a fascinating story. Each element comes together at the end to really create a desire for more! (Which does, I hope, exist).

What I especially enjoyed was the sense of adventure, exploration, and discovery. I love stories that feature these themes - and will refrain from saying too much somas not to spoil it for anyone.

If you like adventure - this book is for you. Not as intense as ... let's say "Indiana Jones", but set in a modern world with giant sharks and .... other things :)

The Humanoids Press books seem to be consistently great and really bring the best of the world's graphic novels to North America. I'm grateful for that.

[Stephanie (aka WW) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for large marine animals and it doesn't get any larger than a prehistoric Megalodon (shark). When the company Carthago opens up a huge underwater lagoon while drilling in the Tonga Trench, it looses several creatures from prehistoric times. That's not a spoiler, as it happens very early on in the book. There are many individually interesting story threads in Carthago that converge by the end of this edition (Volume 1). The artwork and coloring are beautiful. I will be looking for Volume 2, but it won't be out until 2019.

[Tom Ewing · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts as an entertaining thriller - there’s an undersea prehistoric ecosystem complete with 80ft monster sharks, can our eco heroes get proof of it before the corporation trying to hide it gets to them? Alas, before long the scope widens to include mysterious undersea obelisks, mutant mer-kids and before you know it we’re back on dry land with a sodding yeti. The more that gets piled on, the less I care as that initial focus gets utterly diluted.

That said there’s some attractive ligne claire art - I grudgingly concede it’s a great looking Yeti - just be prepared for confusing storytelling and a very easily distracted writer.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carthago is a hard beast to rate. I enjoyed the monster attacks, the underwater scenes, the detailed art and the idea of the story. There's just so much backtracking, and digressions, and vague jumps in time that the story could and (and should) have happened in half as many pages. But I still wanted to keep reading because...man-eating monsters.

The attention detail in Carthago is amazing. Everything from an oil rig crane to jellyfish tendrils have been drawn with care. You can see every and scar and groove in a shark's throat when he's gulping down swimmers. But halfway through the book, the artist changes and the people become an afterthought. All the female characters-adult and child- are drawn with the same face and it's hard to tell most of the cast apart.

Unfortunately, Bec is also i love with detail. There are infodumps galore here and tortured twists of nonsensical character decisions to push the story back in certain directions every time is drifts off course. When a marine biologist's research funding gets pulled she becomes a waitress(?!) moves to the southwest, and wonders why her daughter is now constantly sick. Your daughter has gills why would you go to the desert? Because the girl being sick is an easy way to force characters together and twist the storyline back into alignment.

I won;t be waiting with bated breath for part two to come out, but I am keen to try Carthago Adventures, where the same man-eating monster action takes place in independent adventures and not one labyrinthine plot.

[Drucilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.5 stars. This book had a really good concept, but I wish they had kept it non-supernatural. It's pretty grounded (the amount of science exposition is insane), which makes it weird when they bring "magic" into it. Speaking of the science exposition, there's so much of it! It breaks the flow of the story and sometimes brings it to a hard stop. It also doesn't help that there were so many characters to keep track of as the story bounced around from plot thread to plot thread. Also, just about every other sentence had an exclamation point, but this might just be a translation issue. Like I said, the story was generally solid. Things are definitely left open for a sequel which I'd read if/when it comes out.

[Jefferson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great and extremely well-executed story.

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like books by James Rollins, this is essentially the same thing in graphic novel form. It's big science and mythology thrown together into a giant, captivating mess! Researchers find prehistoric giant sharks in deep caverns of the ocean, and of course this means that giant sharks have to start attacking, and somehow it is all connected to Atlantis. The story itself hops around too much and feels choppy. It might have been better as prose. The panels are detailed, but hard to read at times. It's an oversized volume already so I am not sure how to fix that. Great production values otherwise!

[BRiAN Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really liked it BUT the art took a huge step off a cliff halfway thru

[Jeroen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very refreshing after the preachy Low by Rick Remender

[Martti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nobody has ever thought of a prehistoric animals coming back with a vengeance.

Hey, what is a terrible creature random people are terrified of? Shark? How about make it bigger - a megalodon. Let's throw in some dinosaurs. A liopleurodon is a fun one. Maybe a yeti.

Oh, and there is a rich person with a great idea for an amusement park. This series is full of original ideas.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Combine Jaws, Yeti, Atlantis and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and what have you got? A mediocre graphic novel with too many improbabilities and plot holes. The artwork is a fairly colorful, using warm tones and a realistic style that doesn't help the story along. It needs a freer or crazier style in a more subdued or darker color palette.

Some things like the fish girl are fairly silly and when she gets sick, she needs the sea and supernatural healing to cure her. Throw in powerful, evil corporations that apparently are above the law in all cases and inappropriate love interests that seem more like Stockholm Syndrome and its not a tasty mix.

Considering how much verbage there is, I wonder if it might have been better of as a book. Not going to bother with the sequels.

[Pranay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read the Kindle edition which has 128 pages (so the story is not finished yet in that volume). Did not find the correct edition.

The book has a lot of tropes that are tried and tested and seen in Hollywood movies. Despite that the book works at both the art as well as story level. The characters created are likable and intriguing enough to keep you going. The illustration and colour are fabulous and creates an atmosphere needed for these type of books.

[James Collinge · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful surprise.

It starts out as a beautifully-drawn but by the numbers horror story about evil corporations and a prehistoric shark, but quickly becomes so much more.

[Damian Herde · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a great sea monster story, so I was all in from my first glimpse of the cover.

Competing research teams vie to be the first to make major discoveries of unknown creatures and lost cities. A marine biologist and her daughter are caught up in the journey after being kidnapped by a disabled billionaire. An early tease is thrown in from the daughter in response to her mother’s concern about her swimming, when she says, don’t worry, you know I can’t drown (!!!).

An underwater drilling crew start the main story by drilling into a giant underwater cavern system, where they discover a prehistoric ecosystem. The apex predators are megalodon, and they can now swim free of the caverns. Very cool to follow a megalodon story, even though it’s so close to the exact plot point of ‘Meg’.

Along the way we get numerous other cryptozoology moments, some of which are based on real reports, which were Easter eggs that particularly appealed to me.

The art is excellent, and the story races along. There are a lot of interesting characters, although I was always waiting to see more revealed about the daughter.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This sequel collection pulls together a five-part story that jumps ahead about a decade from previous issues. Adventurer London Donovan and billionaire cryptozoologist Wolfgang Feiersinger are back, though their relationship has been broken by past disagreements about ethics in their hunt for Feiersinger's obsession. This time, they are hunting down rumors about megaladons in the homes of capturing one life.

In the process, one which is filled with challenges from competing interests from all around the world, they bump into Dr. Kim Melville, an oceanographer who has been been brought on by a competitor. She and her daughter Lou are pulled into a conflict that is certainly dangerous and filled with mystery, thuogh they might be just what is needed to solve it all.

I really enjoyed this second colleciton. The fact that it was a longer form single story allowed the creators to delve deeper into the characters and the story itself, adding a layer of mysticism to the scientific approach of cryptozoology. As with the first volume, this is certainly worth a read for fans fo cryptids.

[Jessie (Zombie_likes_cake) · Rating 2 out of 5]

How can you write a graphic novel about the Megalodon and other extinct sea creatures and then push them into the background? Make them so to speak a plot device to get to more other stuff, thinking that might be more interesting: just that nothing is more interesting than a Megalodon, especially not to people who pick this up to read a cool story about the Megalodon!
Strange and not advantageous story choices aside, I was not a big fan of this. The drawings are your standard traditional comic fare that I get bored by quickly. The dialogue, the characters and especially the turns in the plot were all done fairly simplistically, or to give a harsher judgement: fairly amateurish. The whole story gets convoluted and crammed while the details are missing any finesse and/ or surprise to them. I am really disappointed.
1.5* , rounded up, I mean it is still about sharks so...

Also, this is only "Cycle One", to get the whole story you need to read at least one more installment which I am not going to.

[NeilW · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this up because I like graphic novels, and have a weird affinity for stories about Carthage. Boy, that was a mistake. It has nothing to do with Carthage, and is a pretty poor graphic novel, though the art is quite lovely.

Carthago is like if you mixed The Meg with all of the driest parts of the X-Files. The book jumps around in time and place nearly every other page, and packs each page with walls of dialogue trying desperately to get you up to speed with all of the pseudo science and conspiracy theories. The characters are only minimally interesting, since all of their dialogue and action is in service of exposition instead of building character. The bits that could be interesting (hey, the main character's daughter is a mermaid hybrid of some sort!) are pushed to the margins so the baroque story of corrupt mega corporations and a shady cryptozoology obsessed billionaire can spin its tires fruitlessly.

In short, Carthago is a migraine inducing bore. Should have saved myself some time and listened to Cato: "Carthago delenda est!"

[Matt Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in parts of this comic, but never horrified in any way. Fans of Jaws or Van Helsing should certainly appreciate this work, but I’ve never found creatures to be that horrifying. Similar to Jaws there is some effective use of the jump-scare technique when “the beast” (there are many types in this book) appears out of nowhere to chomp on an unsuspecting body, and the uncertainty of “the beast’s” location effectively builds tension in places. I enjoyed the first part of the book, but after the Megalodon became more numerous and other creatures like Yeti, Ichthyosaurs, merpeople etc. appear the story becomes a little played out. The columns of alien (as in unknown rather than extra-terrestrial) text that exist in the deep ocean add some novel interest, but by the end of this volume I was done with this world. It was a fun read, but it didn’t spark an interest for further exploration, nor did it raise a goosebump.