Line #42 ComicBook/InspectorCanardo


1	%% Image replaced per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1443935011079639500
2	%% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.
3	%%
4	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/canardo.png]]
5
6	''Inspector Canardo'' is a long running comic series written and drawn by Benoît Sokal. The eponymous protagonist is an antropomorphic duck DefectiveDetective AntiHero, who often treads on the gray areas of justice while trying to cope with the problems of a world populated by {{Funny Animal}}s.
7
8	The first stories were published in the late 1970's. They were short episodes with a loose continuity, published in the comic magazine ''A Suivre''. The comics were satirical in tone and parodied FilmNoir detective movies heavily, but gradually CerebusSyndrome got hold on the series and started shaping it towards its current form.
9
10	Sokal started writing longer Canardo stories in 1980's, resulting in the first Canardo albums. They established a more stable continuity and started to focus more on tense plots than parody. Over the course of 30 years, 19 albums of Canardo's (mis)adventures have been published.
11
12	----
13	!!This comic provides examples of:
14
15	* AboveGoodAndEvil: When Rasputin orders his men to burn a village, Canardo asks him to stop because it's bad, Rasputin simply kicks him in the head from his horse and tells him that he is above good and evil.
16	* TheAlcoholic: Canardo drinks a lot to forget his miserable life.
17	* AntiHero: Again, Canardo. He is often well-meaning, but is also cynical, greedy and alcoholic.
18	* AntiVillain: Most of the one-off bad guys are these. In addition, even Clara has moments where she appears to genuinely care for Canardo, and Rasputin is broken and pathetic instead of evil in ''Misty Wedding''.
19	* AnyoneCanDie: And most of them do die, some [[DeathIsCheap more than once]].
20	* ArchEnemy: Canardo vs Rasputin, and to some extent, Canardo vs Clara as well.
21	* AristocratsAreEvil: Or at least major assholes.
22	* AutopsySnackTime: Dr. Fatty hasn't been shown eating the treats Canardo bribes him with during the autopsy but he did say that he drinks the alcoholic stomach content of people that are brought to him.
23	* BackupTwin: Or, to be precise, backup son. After Canardo commits suicide, his previously unseen son shows up, inherits his father's possessions and, after a brief misadventure, his entire life.
24	* BlindShoulderToss: Done by Ferdinand in the first book, where he throws a bottle behind him... it proves to not be such a mundane act, because he later learns [[spoiler:that this accidentally caused the death of a girl he liked, Gilberte, who had her head smashed with it as she was watching him from the bushes.]]
25	* BreakTheCutie: Happens a lot. Rasputin's daughter in ''Mark of Rasputin'' suffers a horrible breakdown when she realizes how horrible her father is.
26	* BreakingTheFourthWall: The early stories play Canardo's medium awareness for laughs several times, but the fourth wall has remained mostly intact in the albums.
27	* BusmansHoliday: The Sinking Island album has Canardo win a holiday on the eponymous island, only to end up investigating a murder.
28	* CarFu: Canardo pulls this every now and then in the later stories.
29	* CatsAreMean: Rasputin is one of the worst antagonist of the series and a cat.
30	-->'''Rasputin:'''I, Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, declare that this village is no more.
31	* CerebusSyndrome: The early comics meander between a FilmNoir parody and a serious detective drama. As the series progressed to albums, the parody was toned down and the series focused on its more dramatic elements with a touch of DarkComedy.
32	* CoolCar: Canardo drives a sweet white Cadillac. It made a hooker he gave a lift to try offering but canardo makes it clear he can't afford her and the car is the only good thing he owns.
33	-->'''Foreign hooker:''' So you loser, is that right word?\
34	'''Canardo:''' Yes, me loser.
35	* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: [[spoiler: Garenni's wife.]] A satellite character trying and failing to commit adultery turned out to be great with guns when push come to shove.
36	* DeathIsCheap: Many characters have survived certain deaths with little or no explanation. Canardo himself has died roughly five times, even [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] it in one of the A Suivre comics - turns out the "blood" was just [[ABloodyMess tomato soup]].
37	* DeathSeeker: Lili Niagara want to die for most of ''The Suave Death'', but she specifically wants a quick death because she can't stand her pain.
38	* DownerEnding: His adventures tend to end on a sour, if not downright tragic, note.
39	* DrivenToSuicide:
40	** One A Suivre comic has an aged Canardo commit suicide. [[BackupTwin The next story features his son's transformation into his image]].
41	** At the end of ''The Suave Death'', Canardo leaves his gun near a suffering Lili. Once he's far away, he hears her shooting herself.
42	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
43	** The original comics feature humans who apparently are not much unlike us. To them, Canardo and the others are just animals that are acting weird. After the first few albums the humans went missing completely, leaving behind a WorldOfFunnyAnimals.
44	** The first book, ''Shaggy Dog Story'', actually revolves around Ferdinand, not Canardo. The next books focus on Canardo proper.
45	* EvilOverlord: Rasputin is this in his debut appearance. He and his men ride through Siberia, killing, looting and raping. After he loses a daughter, loses his eyesight and nearly dies, he does become a bit more sympathetic, but eventually returns to his violent ways.
46	* EyeColorChange: Alexandra's orange eyes change to white when she's heartbroken from seeing her father, who she wanted to believe was a good person, execute a village of starving circus people.
47	* EyeScream: Rasputin gets his eyes badly damaged and becomes blind. He gets better.
48	* FamousNamedForeigner: Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, named after UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk.
49	* FantasticRacism: One of the motivations of the villain in ''The Channel of Anguish'' is that [[spoiler:she]] hates ducks and wants to make them disappear.
50	* FemmeFatale: Clara is a schemer who shifts her allegiances for personal gain and seems to have very little interest for the lives of the others.
51	* FoodAsBribe: Coroner Fatty takes a box of chocolates from Canardo in exchange for helping him.
52	* FunnyAnimal: Most of the characters are these, but sometimes [[TalkingAnimal talking but otherwise normal]] animals and even humans are seen. It almost seems like the characters' degree of anthropomorphism depends on who is looking. To Canardo, Rasputin is an enormously fat, humanoid cat, but when humans see him, he is a large, non-humanoid feline somewhere between a tiger and a lynx.
53	* GenerationXerox: Canardo himself commits suicide in one of the earlier stories. He is replaced by his son, and it doesn't take long for fate to make him exactly like his father.
54	* [[GirlOfTheWeek Girl Of The Album]]: Canardo picks up a good number of attractive women over the course of the series: even those that are not one-night things will be gone with no explanation by the time of the next album.
55	* HellHotel: The desert motel in ''The Girl Who Dreamed of the Horizon'' doesn't look ''too'' bad, aside from being worn-down, but Canardo doesn't take long to figure out that the two owners have been disposing of several visitors to steal their belongings. It turns out they [[MuggingTheMonster bit off more than they could chew]] when they killed a member of Rasputin's gang to take the drugs he was transporting.
56	* HoneyTrap: the title of one story, where Canardo supervises an attempt to blackmail a politician by recording him having brutal sex with a prostitute.
57	* HumanoidFemaleAnimal: The female funny animals are drawn even more like humans than the males.
58	* KavorkaMan: Canardo himself, though since a majority of men are fairly unattractive too, thanks to the art style, he may very well be considered handsome in-universe.
59	%%* KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler: Garenni.]]
60	* LaserGuidedKarma: In ''The Suave Death'', a group of soldiers responsible for murdering Bronx's parents is killed by none other than Bronx himself. The soldiers were expecting [[RedemptionEqualsDeath this]].
61	* LetsGetDangerous: Bronx the bear seems harmless despite his huge size, because he is too stupid to get angry at anyone. [[BerserkButton Except]] when he hears the song ''Lili Marleen''.
62	* LionsAndTigersAndHumansOhMy: In the first album, Canardo and co. were barnyard animals who were perceived by the humans around them as normal animals. The next several albums following that went for a more midway setting with primarily FunnyAnimal characters surrounded by a few clearly human characters. Eventually, the humans disappeared completely, making Canardo's stories a WorldOfFunnyAnimals.
63	* MatureAnimalStory: The stories feature sex, drugs, violence and various grim themes such as suicide, insanity and rape.
64	* MixAndMatchCritter: ''Shaggy Dog Story'' has a cat-bird hybrid named Faust. He is likely made by the mad scientist of the story.
65	* NamedAfterSomeoneFamous: Inspector Canardo is an {{Expy}} of Series/{{Columbo}}, while Rasputin is, of course named after UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk.
66	* OddballInTheSeries: ''Misty Wedding''. It is the only comic to have any humans as main characters. It also contains paranormalities that are otherwise not present in the series, such as DealWithTheDevil and PsychicPowers.
67	* OrAreYouJustHappyToSeeMe: Occurs in ''The Girl who Dreamt of the Horizon''. A seductive lady thinks Canardo is getting "excited", but he says he just has a revolver in his pocket. After they're interrupted by a motorcycle gang's attack, she is surprised to find out he wasn't kidding.
68	* PunnyName: Canardo, a pun on the French word ''canard'' for ''duck'' and ''Series/{{Columbo}}''[[note]]"Colombe" is also the French word for "dove"[[/note]].
69	%%* PutOnABus: Garenni.
70	* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Attempted by the murderers of Bronx's parents but Canardo has none of it.
71	-->'''Canardo:''' Bronx packs a mean hook, you won't see death coming, soldiers. When in one of my drunken rant I would bring up this story I will simply say: They were assassins.
72	* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The revolutionaries in ''Black Tide'' resort to terrorism by hijacking an oil tanker and threatening to release the oil if their demands aren't met.
73	* SecondhandStorytelling: The early comics refer to UnInstallment episodes such as "Canardo's resurrection".
74	* SerialKillerBaiting: One story involves a serial killer murdering prostitutes. Canardo's friend (a brothel madam) lets herself be used as bait and is barely rescued in time from the murderer [[spoiler:who turns out to be the police commissioner with serious mental issues]].
75	-->'''Canardo:''' Next time rent a room at the ground floor, I'm not young anymore.
76	* SeriousBusiness: Winemaking. Also comic book drawing where the doping is worst than bicycle competition.
77	* ShoutOut: Canardo's entire persona is modeled after Lieutenant Columbo from the TV series ''Series/{{Columbo}}''.
78	* TakeThat: ''L'affaire Belge'' is about comic drawing, some jabs are made at manga, some at schedule and when Canardo swap the urine test to avoid someone being barred for doping, the tester is glad to see the artist drew the old Belgian way: drunk.
79	%%* TheBusCameBack: Garenni.
80	* TimeTravel: Canardo uses a pocket-sized time machine in ''A Miserable Little Pile of Secrets''. This is the only futuristic device seen in the series so far.

Context ComicBook / InspectorCanardo