French title: Les compagnons du crépuscule, which ran from '84-'90.

Right away, this reminded me both of Hermann’s Les tours de Bois-Maury series, as well as his personal art style, altho Bourgeon doesn’t draw his faces nearly as homely as Hermann does. (oof, I still don’t know what’s up with that)

(note that these image samples don’t necessarily run parallel to the commentary!)

Driven by chance, a facially-scarred Knight takes Mariotte and Anicet on his quest for redemption, the meaning of which he himself can barely make out. In the first volume, the three companions fall asleep in the “Wood of Mist” and enter a dream in which there is talk of strange elves and a beast to fight. This first dreamlike quest is a narrow success. --BDT

In the second opus, the elves of the Wood of Mist call on the companions for help to deliver them from the Dhuards, a goblin-esque, vicious, oppressive race. Once again, most of the story takes place in a dream, but as the companions sense, it is no less important and dangerous.

Finally, in the last episode, the companions arrive at the town of Montroy, where they decide to spend the winter. Dame Neyrelle, lord of the castle, is not indifferent to the arrival of the knight in her city, and schemes to have the companions accommodated in the castle…

TBH, this series (and the thoroughly mediocre translation I read) were somewhat hard to grapple with. On the one hand, I’m rather fascinated by stories about this time-period, but frankly could have gone without the ‘legendary monster’ aspects, truth being chronically more fascinating to me than fiction, and all that.

But really, what kept me hanging on was Bourgeon’s relentless imagination and sincere dedication to the story. To me, there were lots of little ‘bumps on the road’ (some of them translation-issues), but the overall story kept pulling me in, again and again. Like, face it, dude-- it’s got verisimilitude! :D

Anyway, this being my first read-through, I don’t want to judge too much in any particular direction, but I’d say that people who like late-medieval stuff should really dig this, for sure. And then a bunch of others, for various interest-levels, for various reasons.

https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-109-BD-Compagnons-du-crepuscule.html