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By drawing on established places, people and events, a shrewd author writing historical fiction already has a perfect set-up. The trick of historical fiction is to make the story ring true when extrapolating real-life elements into the fictional realm. In that regard, cartoonist Nick Bertozzi's graphic novel The Salon is largely a success. He's certainly researched the roots of Cubism and the fertile creative ground nurtured between fellow artists in Paris' early 20th-century salon culture. With such a rich setting full of famous names, Bertozzi proceeds to spin an initially beguiling tale: part murder-mystery, part comedy and part subtle art-history lesson. By the end, however, his story fails his engaging artwork. The plot meanders recklessly into occult-tinged territory involving strange cerulean realms accessed only via a special blue absinthe, and the book loses its narrative clarity and its drive. What had been a page-turner (for the first two-thirds of the book) peters out with a whimper.

Nevertheless, Bertozzi provides plenty of enjoyable moments before jumping the shark. With deft touches of irony and humor, he introduces Gertrude Stein, Paul Gaugin, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso -- who nearly upstages everyone else. A hot-headed, heavily accented genius whose eventual reputation would belie his small stature, Picasso exchanges a great deal of creative energy with the story's hero, level-headed Georges Braque, who anchors an investigation into the art-related serial murders that haunt the salon members. In one especially fun moment, Picasso draws a figure in the earth while taking a piss -- a signature Picasso work, regardless of the medium.

Bertozzi's art is the consistent strength of The Salon, though he never veers from his static layout of identically sized panels per page. His strong cartooning brings out every necessary expression on the faces of his cast, and his limited-palette color schemes are striking.

The Salon is also notable for its inadvertent involvement in a still-pending Georgia court case. In 2004, an early Salon scene containing nudity was excerpted in a free comic that ended up in the hands of a nine-year-old as part of a Halloween giveaway; the comic-shop owner faces possible jail time for two misdemeanors. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting on behalf of the comic-shop owner, the art form and the First Amendment. The members of the salon would applaud.