The Arctic Marauder

The Arctic Marauder is Jacques Tardi's 1974 adventure in the Arctic Ocean.  Taking place in 1889, The Arctic Marauder is the story of a passenger aboard the L'Anjou, Jerome Plumier.  A physician, Plumier volunteers to help explore a ship found beset on a thin iceberg.  He and seven other men climb the iceberg to the trapped ship, to see if there are any survivors.  As they climb aboard the phantom vessel, the L'Anjou mysteriously explodes, and they are marooned on the the Iceland-Loafer.

This is a fantastic adventure story in the vein of Robinson Crusoe or 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea and perhaps even a notable piece of sequential art, printed in English for the first time by Fantagraphics in 2011.  Tardi won two Eisner Awards that year for It Was the War of the Trenches, and I'll definitely be looking for that work.  Tardi uses the ligne claire or "clear lines" style, using strong lines of the same width throughout, sometimes replacing shading.  This style was introduced to mainstream sequential art by Herge of the Tin Tin comics.

Also taking cues from mystery novels, The Arctic Marauder leaves clues in the form of bizarre situations throughout the novel, all of which are resolved in good time, making it compulsively readable.  Moreover, it captures the imagination of the late 19th century and its lust for electric technology.  Call it steampunk, call it icepunk.  In the end, it's just a great story with great art.  Recommended.