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Samples from three upcoming one-shots, upcoming publications in Icelandic, Spanish and English, and some minor updates on two books in French…
Feroumont rings wedding bells
On Facebook, Feroumont finally revealed a panel (or a section of a panel) from his upcoming Spirou one-shot, expected in June of next year. He also indicated that contrary to previous reports, the title will be Fantasio se marie (“Fantasio Gets Married”), not Fantasio quitte la maison (“Fantasio Moves Out”), saying that you can’t trust everything you read on social networks (which creates something of a paradox…).
A peek at Pé
Frank Pé’s album (written by Zidrou and still, as far as we know, going by the title La Lumière de Bornéo, “The Light from Borneo”) should follow soon after Feroumont’s. According to a tentative program for 2016 posted to his site (and found via Le Petit Écho de Champignac), it will be serialized in the Journal during the summer in 10 or 12 installments, and featured on several covers. A special deluxe edition will come out on 26. August, followed by the regular album publication on 2. September. A photo posted to the Franco-Belge Facebook group (left) also provides another peek at this eagerly awaited adventure. It’s long been said that the story will involve the circus and the return of the brilliant animal trainer Noé (from Bravo les Brothers), and the circus tent glimpsed here would seem to confirm that.
Schwartz and the black communion wafers
The one-shots just keep coming, as InediSpirou (in an exclusive; follow link to see more) brings samples from Schwartz & Yann’s Le Maître des hosties noires (“Master of the Black Sacramental Hosts”). According to the site, the album will come out in the beginning of 2017, meaning 2016 sadly won’t see the release of four separate Spirou albums (although it may perhaps appear in the magazine before the end of the year). The length is 62 pages; Schwartz has pencilled 52 and inked 42, so the delay is almost certainly down to the publisher.
Froskur from beginning to end
In the more immediate future, Icelandic publisher Froskur Útgáfa has announced two new Spirou & Fantasio titles (or “Svalur og Valur”, as the series in known in Icelandic) to be released this year – which means they should probably hurry!
The first is Svörtu hattarnir (“The Black Hats”), containing three early Franquin stories: Spirou chez les pygmées (“Spirou in the Land of the Pygmies”), Les Chapeaux noirs (“The Black Hats”), and Mystère à la frontière (“Mystery on the Border”). Along with the first two albums from Froskur, this makes for an almost complete collection of the pre-Champignac Franquin stories. (The French Les Chapeaux noirs album (Spirou & Fantasio #3, “The Black Hats”), which contains two of these stories, was previously published in Icelandic as Í klandri hjá kúrekum in 1986.)
The second album is at the other end of Spirou history, Le Groom de Sniper Alley (Spirou & Fantasio #54, “The Sniper Alley Bellhop”), which will be the first “contemporary” Spirou album to be published in Iceland since Vito la déveine (Spirou & Fantasio #43, Tough Luck Vito) came out (as Seinheppinn syndaselur) in 1992. The Icelandic title, Vikapiltur á vígaslóð, is a bit of wordplay that roughly translates as “Bellhop on the Warpath”.
(Thanks to Stéfan Pálsson for the info!)
More Spirou for Spain
Dibbuks have announced their publication schedule for next year, including two more Tome & Janry volumes of the intégrale collected edition in Spanish: vol. 14 (1984–1987) in May, and vol. 15 (1988–1991) in October.
On top of that, they’re continuing to publish the Yoann & Vehlmann albums, following up this year’s publication of Alerte aux zorkons (Spirou & Fantasio #51, “Zorkons Alert”) by putting out La Face cachée du Z (Spirou & Fantasio #52, “The Dark Side of the Z”) as La cara oculta de Z in September.
Cinebook’s spring infection
According to Amazon, the next Spirou album in English from Cinebook, Virus (Spirou & Fantasio #33), will come out on 7. April. If Cinebook stick with their pattern of alternating between Tome & Janry and Franquin albums, the one after that should be La Mauvaise tête (Spirou & Fantasio #8, “Wrong-Headed”), possibly some time in summer.
Repeat History
The upcoming second volume of La Véritable histoire de Spirou (“The True History of Spirou”) by Christelle and Bertrand Pissavy-Yvernault is back on Dupuis’s schedule, set for a 15. February release. You can now read some preview excerpts from the book, which covers the 1947–1955 period.
Repeat Art
And finally, a bit of news left out from the last update. The new book of Franquin covers for the Journal de Spirou digests, Toutes les couvertures des recueils du Journal du Spirou par Franquin, also has a release date, 4. March, and a new provisional cover, so we don’t have to keep using the one for the previous attempt to collect them.
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Just noticing how many Spirou covers show someone pointing up into the air…
Almost all of them! Interesting, I wonder why. Maybe it’s thought to look dynamic…
I guess so. There might be a couple of different things going on. Franquin in particular was fond of having Spirou make pointing gestures towards articles and stuff in the magazine when illustrating. Yoann could in part be mimicking that.
The Count’s pose looks like a kind of “Attend!” gesture that I recognize but can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone make in real life. Maybe it’s cultural, or dated. Or maybe it’s just an example of exaggerated comic book body language.
The “Attend!” gesture is often used in comics but I have seen people making the gesture in real life. They probably were mimicking comics, though (I sometimes imitate body language from comics or cartoons).
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Fantasio gets MARRIED?! I just hope this is presented as a fake rumour in the album, (would be a interesting plot). Otherwise, Fantasio actually getting married…
It’s a one-shot, they’re both supposed and expected to take place in an alternative continuity… This won’t have any impact on Yoann’s and Vehlmann’s canonical series…
And considering Feroumont’s statement of trusting the Internet; I’ve known since Epimenides that all Cretans were liars…
I guess “Froskur” is Icelandic for “Frog” (although I might be wrong)…
And Noé the Clown has also been a supporting character in the Marsupilami series, for album 3, 6 and 7…
Indeed. If you go to the Froskur Útgáfa website, you’ll see that the company logo is a frog as well.
I remember Noé’s appearances in the Marsupilami comic; I’m not convinced making him a clown was true to the character. I guess there’s a question of whether the one-shot will take those into consideration, but I rather doubt it. Still, I’m curious how he and Zabaglione made the jump to Marsu Productions in the first place, and whether they were off-limits for the Spirou series until the buyout. (After all, this album has been in the works since before Marsu Prod. was acquired…)
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Oh, someone revealed an inked page of Frank Pé’s new Spirou album: (I don’t know if anyone saw this yet) http://www.inedispirou.com/forum/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=7&image_id=4445
What do you mean, Inês? Spiroureporter has posted that page already.
ahh, quelle gaffe
(Here’s the original post.)
Totally understandable. Unless you read every single post on the blog, it’s very easy to miss stuff like that. I have a plan to make separate pages that summarize all the news about specific albums, but it’s a matter of finding the time. Perhaps some time next year!
Also, the page Inês linked to was a slight better quality because it doesn’t have those lights interfering the artwork.