The third and last volume of Vittorio Giardino’s No
Pasaran! has been released by NBM (72 9x12-inch pages, color; paperback,
$14.95) after a long hiatus since Vol. 2. Giardino helpfully provides a text
summary of the events of the two preceding books as introduction. The story
follows Max Friedman who goes to Spain during the infamous “Spanish
Civil War” to try to find his friend Guido Treves, who has unaccountably
disappeared. Max and Guido are on the side of the Republicans (ostensibly
“democratic”) in the conflict, opposed to Franco’s Nationalists (fascist).
The war is
often termed a rehearsal for World War II: France,
Germany, Italy and Communist Russia participated in
various ways, sending money, arms, even soldiers, and new weapons and
accompanying tactics were tried out — including aerial bombardment of the
civilian populations of cities, most famously immortalized in Picasso’s
agonizingly tortured painting of the bombing of Guernica.
While the
clash of military forces is confined to the battlefield, the opposing parties
infiltrate the civilian population, and the war spills over into streets and
alleys. 
As Max tries to find his vanished friend, he is followed and sometimes
assaulted by operatives on both sides of the struggle, although loyalties are
vague, so confused is the conflict. Kirkus
Reviews observes that Giardino had “clearly read his Orwell, Dos Passos,
and Koestler,” and throughout his story lurks the vague menace of an
environment fraught with unreliable “friends” and unpredictable “enemies,”
plots and counter-plots, successful and failed schemes.
At one point,
Max enlists the help of an attractive young woman journalist, Claire Blon, who
seems to fall in love with Max, but he declines to consummate the affair,
saying he is “not alone.” She interprets that to mean Max is married; but Max
is thinking of his daughter, whose recital as a ballerina he hopes to be able
to attend in Geneva.
When he slips into the back of the recital hall and she notices him, the book
enjoys its only undiluted happy moment.
Giardino’s
drawings are masterful: simple linework, a bold line not much embellished with
feathering or modulation, clearly delineates his story, and every character is
portrayed at every appearance in a thoroughly recognizable way. Giardino paces
events expertly, deploying silent sequences when appropriate and shifting his
camera around for visual variety during talky episodes. In these books, we are
in the hands of a skillful storyteller who is in complete command of every
nuance of his medium.
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