R&R: It’s The Hoodoodad or the highway! Lewis Trondheim’s 90s Masterstroke

Features Bart Hulley | August 13, 2026 Call it irony, call it mise-en-abyme, but this is a story of bad luck within a story of bad luck, as if a hoodoo really had been cast upon this doodad (work of genius.) Certainly, the commercial failure of The Hoodoodad, and that of its series predecessor, Harum Scarum, are hard to explain without putting it down to some sort of curse. (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets book was released around the same time, so perhaps there was a little dark magic involved?) The Hoodoodad by Lewis Trondheim On paper, it should have been a hit. The story, reminiscent of Hergé’s lauded classic Tintin adventure The Castafiore Emerald, is a Seinfeld-esque comedy featuring entertaining characters, and penned by France’s hottest new star of bande dessinée – the prolific Lewis Trondheim. The writing, the plot, the gags, the cartooning, and the translation are all solid gold, from start to finish. So, what’s it about? “The Hoodoodad is a story about misfortune, dirty-word Scrabble, too-secret art, too-public photography, miniature car racing, exorcism, answering machines, nauseating desserts, pinball, parents and godparents, yappy little dogs, and the intricac...