Review by Karl Verhoven

In Casanova Matt Fraction and alternating artists Gabriel Bá and Fabio Moon deliver the mind-bending tale of Casanova Quinn, thief, possible galactic agent and all-round loverman. He’s a mash-up of 1960s cool and high concept space adventure, surreal, energetic and ultimately unknowable.

So much for the adjectives. For all the fun on offer, Casanova takes patience. The creators throw us into the middle of the action with only Casanova’s narration for guidance as a scene plays out of him attempting to abduct a woman and all hell breaking loose. Except his version of his reality isn’t in alignment with how others perceive it. Does his father really run the greatest private security agency the world has ever seen? Or does nothing matter because everything’s happening in some alternate dimension? In the opening volume alone, Casanova Vol. 1, he deals with troubles as assorted as the malevolent fused minds of a trio of monks, a fraudulent god and his dead twin sister.

The secret of enjoying Casanova is going with the flow and appreciating the adventures as they happen without constantly trying to figure out the bigger picture. There’s more than enough entertainment on that basis alone. “It’s not every day that you get to leap to your death by shooting bullets at a U.F.O.” muses Casanova at one point, and it’s pretty well a summing up of the series ethos. We all want to be thrilled, and yet Casanova lives that life.

Rather than working together as they usually do, Gabriel Bá and Fabio Moon illustrate sequences individually, each supplying beautifully imaginative art no matter how bizarre the concept, the situation or the featured people. Bá’s Casanova is more obviously based on a young Mick Jagger (sample spread left), but both channel 1960s influences beautifully.

Introspection and self-doubt do occasionally feature, but it’s not until what was Casanova Vol. 3, that they’re more than momentary. This is when a lot of what previously seemed random is pulled together with the revelation that there’s a multiverse and Casanova dips in and out of it. It seems this is the end, but what was Acedia Volume One in paperback introduces the mysterious Quentin Cassidy, employed to research the missing past of one Amiel Boutique.

Is there anything wrong with Casanova? Yes. The creators perpetuate a 1960s attitude to women, inexcusable even for fantasy, Fraction can fall into smugness, and even readers enjoying themselves the most are going to be disappointed at the lack of a real conclusion. By the time of Acedia Volume Two everything seems a little hollow, the constant ripping away of the curtain a trick pulled too often. Crucially, though, this doesn’t invalidate the sheer joy of what’s presented overall. Go with the flow and drop off the cliff edge.