I liked this one because I really liked Maggy. A tough broad with a mouth who has been unemployed for over two years (mostly because she tends to tell people exactly what she thinks of them) she finally gets a job. Unfortunately her new boss is a drunken underemployed private detective who can't actually afford to pay her. Since he can't actually function she starts taking on little cases here and there - like "finding" a lost canary (by buying a new one because the old one was eaten by a cat). When the boss man gets beaten within an inch of his life and asks her to secure a wallet for her, things start to get really weird for Maggy though, after two extremely dumb crooks show up to get the wallet back and break her fingers.
This is part one of at least a 3 part series, and though it does provide SOME closure, I would love to see what is next for Maggy.

I wasn't a huge fan of this one; the premise sounded interesting but I just couldn't really be bothered about it. I think if I hadn't challenged myself to read it in one day, I might have put it down and not picked it up again. Oh well. The art was nice, but that's about it.

The character of Maggy Garrisson is rather droll, or perhaps muted. But she reminded me of a friend I had and we always called him phlegmatic, so there you have it.

Since I am not wed to any particualr type of artwork for graphic works I am free to look at each work and decide if the art matches, for me, the story. In this case, I think it did. Everything here seems, for lack of a better word, subtle. The humor is subtle, the action, such as it is, is understated, and the artwork matches that tone.

I was torn between how to rate this. I did enjoy it but I wasn't just turning pages with a frantic desire to see what happens next. Part of that is the nature of the story, a rather regular person in slightly less regular, but not earth-shattering, situations. So I was more positive than I might have been if this had been aiming for suspense and tension.

I would recommend this to readers who like stories without a lot of hyperbole in either characterization or plot. This doesn't leave or world behind but rather shows a different part of it.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.

Maggy Garrisson has just found a new job after being woefully underemployed for a few years. She finds herself the unwitting office assistant to a detective who is laid up almost as soon as she begins work - though Maggy is happy to have a job, she is cranky, sassy, and not very good at it. When her boss's canary disappears, she simply buys a new one to replace it. She steals his cigarettes. She finds herself caught up in a bit of intrigue as she tries to make a quick and easy buck, but it's unclear what fate has in store for our antagonistic protagonist . . . so I suppose we will have to wait and see what happens in the next volume.

I received access to this title via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t know what to say about this…
It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t for me.
First of all, I didn’t like the drawings, the art. it really wasn’t my cup of tea.
Then, the story was interesting, I guess but the characters fell flat to me. The first one, especially, lacked depth in my opinion and I couldn’t like her, she was one-dimensional.
It was really short though and the plot wasn’t that bad...

Maggy Garrisson: Give us a Smile, Maggie

The Plot
"When I get old I'll strangle myself."

Maggy get a job for the first time in 2 years. Firstly, Maggie is really, really cynical. Secondly, with the cynicism comes fantastic British humour. Thirdly, her boss is a deadbeat PI who refuses to pay her anything and so she makes her own in the world by solving small mysteries littered throughout the comic.

Maggy is such a relatable character. She's down on her luck and so grumpy, sassy and cynical. She's a chain-smoking curvy lady who just wants a break in life. Or just to be able to feed her alcohol habit; whichever comes first.

The style
Maggie has a very unique and interesting art-style. Maggy becomes the assistant of a deadbeat investigator.

What I love about the comic book as a medium is the diversity of the artstyle. Like Sheets by Brenna Thummler, the art is not clean and beautiful, but its cartoonish and almost amateurish nature benefit it and give it life more than a simple old style would.

Conclusion
"You shouldn't smoke. Smoking kills."
"So does getting old. kid."

The realism in this comic strikes me, and in a good way. There aren't enough grumpy Man Called Ove-type heroins out there. So here I present Maggy Garrisson - the inner bitch we often are and should see more often in comics.

Having the dark, gritty, real London as a setting is pretty cool. This comic is all about what lengths people turn to when tight on cash and struggling in poverty. It's like Trainspotting on a diet - lighter but still packs a punch.

Hmmm… Kudos to the book for making a slightly older, rather more zaftig female the title character, but I don't think this plot could be the best of her adventures. Seeming innocence and idiocy at a very run-down PI agency proves to be something much more, when her new boss's wallet seems to hold something of vital importance – but if it does it's very well disguised. It's a little too routine, with one huge implausible character switch halfway through that I just didn't buy. Also, I'm not sure the book successfully gets the English feel it desires – this French author tries to get London grit and Brighton naffness, and only half succeeds. Still, seeing her in her big knickers certainly makes me interested enough in seeing the two other books in her series so far.

I honestly couldn't make it through this one. The art was alright, but the story just did nothing for me.

Maggy Garrisson is going to take a bit of figuring out. In the first book of a new series by Lewis Trondheim and Stéphane Oiry, we don't really know much about her background, her family, her relationship status: even her age is difficult to determine. She's early 30s maybe, single at the moment and looking for a date, but a friend will do. The one thing we know for certain is that Maggy needs to earn some money and is looking for a job.

There's one other characteristic about Maggy that you can work out fairly quickly: she's no fool. Her neighbour Suzanne has suggested that there might be an opening working for a Mr Wight, a Private Investigator, but Maggy only needs to walk through the door to realise that this is not going to be one of those situations where a clever and organised temp secretary changes the fortunes of a struggling near-alcoholic PI and becomes his glamorous sidekick solving elaborate crimes and celebrity murders. (If that's what you're looking for Robert J. K. Rowling Galbraith is thataway ->). Wight's even been struggling with the case of his neighbour's missing canary, a case that Maggy is able 'solve' in a matter of minutes with a visit to a pet shop.

Doing whatever it takes to earn a little money, a little bit desperate maybe - that's the immediate impression of Maggy, and in that respect you could probably assume that Maggy is just like everyone else when you get right down to it. She's struggling to get by, taking the rough with the smooth, the good days with the bad days, and times are tough as you can tell by the other equally desperate people that she encounters in this first Maggy Garrisson adventure.

OK, it doesn't sound like much of an adventure so far, but inevitably Maggy gets mixed up with a few threatening underworld characters looking for something that Mr Wight has been holding, and Maggy has to use her ingenuity again not just to figure out the mystery but, more importantly, see if there's any money in it for her somewhere. Along the way she has a run in with the police and makes friends with a woman police officer, but a more complicated relationship also develops with one of the criminal gang members while following her 'investigation' down to Brighton. We still haven't really got a grasp on who Maggy is, where she comes from or where she's going, but for sure there's nothing conventional about how Maggy Garrisson plays out.

Which is really nothing more than you ought to have expected from Lewis Trondheim. A versatile and terrific artist in his own right, with a wonderful variety of series behind him, whether it's his Lapinot series or autobiographical sketches for Petits Riens. There's a little bit of Petits Riens in the the amusing looks at the peculiarities of everyday life in Maggy Garrisson, but Trondheim's cartoony style (and creature features) wouldn't really suit the realism of characters and the story. Trondheim however is capable of extends his range in collaborations with other artists, particularly in the rotating roster of artists for the various levels of his Dungeon series, each of them bringing a whole new distinctive quality to the work. There is little real sense of the character of London in Stéphane Oiry's artwork, but very definitely a distinctive character to the drawings in Maggy Garrisson that suits its depiction of ordinary life with a bit of a twist.

'Maggy Garrisson Book 1: Give Us a Smile, Maggy' by Lewis Trondheim with art by Stéphane Oiry is about a resourceful woman living in London who gets a new job.

When Maggy shows up for her new job, she finds her boss passed out on his keyboard and an office in shambles. She answers the rining phone to find an angry caller who wants to harm her boss. He sends her home without pay because he can't afford to pay her, but she finds ways to make ends meet. She helps an elderly lady find her missing bird, by buying a bird that looks the same. Using the same cleverness, she looks into the problems her boss is having, makes a friend at the police department, gets threatened, and finds herself up and down on luck.

I really liked this character and her smarts at getting out of jams and finding ways to make a little money to get by. The characters have their complexities, which I also liked. The art by Oiry works well for the story, and I like the color choices. Not too colorful, but not too drab.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

This was a really good introduction to an interesting, likeable character, presented with equally likable artwork. There’s a bit of classic, gritty detective noir, minus the usual clichés. Having the character be female and the setting be England, both help to set this apart from the norm. Maggy as a character very much operates by her own rules, but is never cynical or jaded about things. The story here could be considered slight, and yet doesn’t feel slight. If anything it just makes me want to know what happens next for Maggy Garrisson.

Maggy has been without a job in London for two years. Her neighbor sets her up as a secretary to Mr. Wight, an alcoholic private investigator. When he sends her home minutes after her arrival on her first day, Maggy cleverly solves one of his cases and pockets the fee. When her boss is assaulted and hospitalized, Maggy is left to her own devices.

Maggy Garrisson is a great British detective noir. Maggy is a flawed female lead, which is a nice change from Chandler and Hammett’s sexism. Maggy is also going down some mean streets with thugs and thieves aplenty.

This comic is highly recommended for fans of hard-boiled private detective fiction. Even the art is dark in the world of Maggy Garrisson. 4 stars!

Thanks to the publisher, Europe Comics, and NetGalley for a copy.

4.5 stars for Maggy Garrisson, a tough as nails misanthrope who has been down on her luck. She finally lands a job as an assistant to a P.I. and, well, let's just say that things don't go smoothly. Before she knows it, she's caught up in some sort of underworld scheme.

Maggie is a fantastic character with just the right blend of snark and wit. I'm really looking forward to reading more of her adventures.

My only quibble with this book was that so many panels were crammed onto each page that it was more difficult for me to read than I would like.

The main character Maggy Garrison lands a job with a shabby P.I. after a long unemployment. Maggy is delightfully resourceful and wry, but also gloomy at times - hence the name of the story.
I loved the use of colors. The pubs, London and Brighton in rain are pictured wonderfully noir.

A quite engaging character is Maggie Garrisson. On the face of it all she wants is a job but as the story unfolds she also likes money, fags, booze and blokes. Not on any particular order; but once her friend offers her the opportunity to work with her nephew in a seedy investigatory agency we see Maggie’s talents at work. She has a angle for doing the unusual to achieve her ends and she is bright and clever.
When her boss is attacked and taken to hospital over his wallet she is asked by him to keep it safe. She quickly determines what value the contacts may have . The story thereafter shows her at her lowest but also unsure of who to trust to retrieve the items that everybody seems so keen to get their hands on. Her boss sacks her and she appears to be right out of friends as she drowns her sorrows over a pint.
Then fate offers her another throw of the dice.
I liked the characters and the reality of the drawings of familiar high streets and every day locations. Maggie is an interesting person to base the stories around and I would be keen to learn more about her exploits. A good graphic novel of the low level crime and thuggery, but wrapped around humorous situations and clever moves from Maggie. However, you just know that with her success and failure are just sides of the same coin but whatever side it lands she’ll get on with it even if she’ll not smile.