Comics : Iznogoud - the Caliph's vacation

I'm still not 100% sold on Iznogoud yet, it has lots of trademark Goscinny humour, satire and charm and is well drawn by Tabary but the stories are all rather short and follow the same formula : Iznogoud wants to get rid of the Caliph but his schemes fail miserably.

Its all fine and often funny but compared to a comic series like Asterix with its full length stories it does tend to suffer in comparison. Although you could argue all Asterix stories are the same (the village or the 2 main characters face peril but the magic potion saves the day) the longer format allows for a greater variety of story whereas i find Iznogoud can get a little samey after awhile.

(Though in fact after Goscinny died Tabary took over the writing as well as the artwork (as Uderzo has done with Asterix) and moved Iznogoud to full-length stories so those will be interesting to see one day when Cinebook translate them.)

All this criticism may seem a bit unfair of course, most comic stories suffer in comparison to the indomitable Gaul and i am not saying Iznogoud is bad by any means. Its an enjoyable and often very funny read. But it just lacks that little something to yet make it one of my favourites. Yet!

This collection of stories, Iznogoud Vol.2: The Caliph's Vacation revolve around a holiday theme. Iznogoud sees holidays as very dangerous so naturally is keen to get the Caliph to collect his bucket and spade and don some flip-flops!