Bob Morane #27: L‘Empereur de Macao P.40

Signed bottom right

In my view one of the great strenghts of the artist William Vance was his senseful and delicate inking.

No one I know used the inks in a featherlike way like he did (the hair of his woman or man are always stunning).
He also didn't shy away from delivering dark, dark pages, which are full of wonderfully inked landscapes, ships, rain, figures. Sadly this masterful usage of ink was quite often „killed“ in the published albums by truly awful colors that covered up most of his dark lines or fields in the panels and destroyed the overall mood.

I have the feeling that Vance's pages were getting darker at the end of the 70s and in fact much smaller in size of the paper used. When I compare these pages from "L'Empereur de Macao" with my earlier Bob Morane page (https://www.2dgalleries.com/art/bob-morane-9-l-archipel-de-la-terreur-pg-39-157670) then this page here is far smaller then just the large panel with the volcano alone.

These two pages (40 + 41) are all about darkness and light, it is perfect to see the morning dawn in the panels and the shady landscape.
In this board here, the page 40, the depiction of the faces of both men and the very nice last panel showing Bob Morane are the highlights next to the shady nature.