Crime, betrayal and the twist of fate. They are not the most upbeat and original themes, but Goetzinger, who wrote both the story and has created the drawings, has managed to deliver an interesting comic in 46 pages.
‘Légende et réalité de Casque d’or’ begins with the stabbing of a Parisian mobster. When the police starts to investigate the queen of the pavement Amélie Hélie, aka Casque d’or, has to fend for herself.
It is refreshing to see that a woman is the main character in this mobster story.
No, the men are even the playthings of the prostitute from the title. When I finished reading this comic I feel a sense of emptiness. It is not that I am disappointed, but I have to think for a moment. At first I thought that feeling came because the story seems superficial. Goetzinger pulls together a number of situations into one story, but when I browse through the comic for a second time, I realize that it is not like a bucket of loose sand. It all has to do with the character of Casque d’or.
She ended up in the prostitution by making one wrong decision and she decides to take revenge on the men who have brought her into this situation. Yet this is not a story of retribution. The situations in which she can avenge herself occur as per accident. But cold-blooded revenge is not so easy. Maybe I put too much into it, but I see a contradiction in the character of Casque d’or. On the one hand she wants to punish this man, but on the other she also loves this criminal. But she has no time to think too much about it, she is not someone who thinks far ahead anyway. That is also the reason that she falls from one situation to another.
If Goetzinger had more pages at her disposal, she could certainly have deepened the story even more and made it more interesting. Her drawings are in any case beautiful and the graphic design also deserves praise. The layout is beautiful and certainly reminds of the art nouveau that was so popular in the time that this story takes place. The only downside I can think of is the colored speech bubbles that are sometimes too dark so that the text is more difficult to read. But that is of course easy to fix with an extra lamp.
Annie Goetzinger op Wikipedia
Annie Goetzinger op de Comiclopedia
Legende en waarheid over Goudkopje op Catwiki
