Noe’s Comics Nook: Lesson Plan & Review – Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Thief

Review

Arsene Lupin is best described, I think, as what you would get if you crossed Sherlock Holmes (or, Herlock Sholmes, as it were) with a French Aristocrat with a skilled thief – impossibly smart, sharp tongued, and with a charisma that lures you in. That last bit just made me wonder if you could add in a little Robin Hood there to the recipe. I think so!

The character was first introduced in 1905, published in a series of short stories (or novellas) before eventually being collected into longer books. In this new, oversized format, illustrated edition from Magnetic Press, we are treated to the first nine stories and we can only hope that more are on the way because both story and illustration are a delight. 

Vincent Mallie has done a masterful job in setting the mood of each story, with a combination of black-and-white line drawings reminiscent of New Yorker cartoons one moment and lavish full-color spreads the next. There is a spread on pages 62 and 63 depicting a car chasing a locomotive that I stared at for quite some time. It is simple, but in its simplicity is an elegance that I love.

In case it isn’t yet clear, this isn’t really a comic – it is an illustrated book – and so in a way, falls outside the scope of this column, even if published by a comics publisher (Magnetic does a great job with nice editions and art books too). However, once I got into this, I do think there is a lot here to appreciate for comics fans. I’ve mentioned the illustrations already but the seriality of the stories speaks to the experience of comics as well. 

You can jump in and read the entire book in one go if you like, but I think they are best savored over time. Consider reading one a week, like you would a particularly ambitiously released comics series, and you’ll find yourself looking forward to the next one. That anticipation is so… comics to me. Yes, yes, all serialized formats have that but I think we can agree that comics have perfected that push-and-pull best.

If I haven’t sold you yet, let me end by sharing a quote from near the end of the book: “The Englishman did not flinch. All the way to Dieppe, he did not say a word, his eyes fixed on the receding horizon. His silence was terrible, unfathomable, more violent than the fiercest rage.” The paragraph goes on, but I’ll stop there because I simply want to share how lyrical, how fun the language is to read. Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Thief is a call-back to the early days of detective serials that is every bit as fun to read now as a century ago.

Elements of Story

Plot: A series of short stories follows the crimes and tribulations of one Arsene Lupin, thief extraordinaire.

Characters: Arsene Lupin, Ganimard, Herlock Sholmes, and numerous single-story characters

Major Settings: Atlantic ocean, North America, France (numerous places, notably Paris)

Themes: Crime, Cleverness

Lesson Plan Idea Using Common Core Standards (CCS)

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.B – Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

Directions: Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Thief is a collection of short stories and while they do build on one another, they leave plenty of room in between of further exploration. For this assignment, students are tasked with stretching their creativity by writing their own short story, set in Lupin’s world and using at least one of the characters found in these early stories. That character can be Lupin himself or it can be any one of the countless others throughout the book.

The story should take place somewhere in that in-between, somewhere between one story and the next, either following one stories end or preceding another’s beginning. Perhaps you will follow a character’s life after their encounter with our gentleman thief? Perhaps you will show how a future prized object came to be where it was before it becomes an object of Lupin’s desire? These are but a couple of example routes to take.

Each story should be no less than four, but no more than eight, pages long. Special attention should be paid to the pace of the story and to how these events coincide with those found in Leblanc’s.