19 March, 2024
Catalog entries on Franquin et les dessins and Spirou par Chaland (ill. Dupuis, via icecool/BDGest)

Chaland’s Spirou to run 128 pages

One of the most intriguing Spirou publications announced for the 75th anniversary was Le Spirou de Chaland, collecting Yves Chaland’s work on the series. Since his version of Les aventures de Spirou only ran for 23 double-strips, and these have previously been collected in the special album Fantasio et le fantôme (where they take up 16 pages), the question was what this new book would contain.

Some key details have now surfaced (including a slight change in title), with a picture of its catalog entry posted on the BDGest forum:

Catalog entries on 'Franquin et le design' and 'Spirou par Chaland' (ill. Dupuis, via icecool/BDGest)

The most interesting piece of information is that it will run 128 pages, which obviously means it must include a lot more material than what was published in the Journal de Spirou. Chaland worked on a number of other Spirou stories that were never finished (some collected after his death in Yves Chaland: Les Inachevés, “The Unfinished Chaland”), and concluded his strip adventure in the form of a picture book shortly before his death (both parts of the story are available together from Champaka under the title Cœurs d’acier, “Hearts of Steel”). He also made many Spirou illustrations and sketches that could be included. The length indicates that much if not all of this material will finally be made generally available.

At 26 x 15.5 cm, the landscape-format Le Spirou par Chaland will be significantly smaller in size than Champaka’s Cœurs d’acier. How it will reproduce artwork and pages in portrait format, and whether it will be in color, are still open questions.

Spirou Reporter

I grew up reading Spirou in Scandinavian translations. Now I'm learning French and trying to decode the originals.

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